How crazy has the 2022 season been? There are 32 fulltime Cup Series teams and 18 of them have been in Victory Lane. There have been two playoff races and both have been won by drivers who are no longer competing for the championship. This is the most unpredictable seasons ever and now they will travel to a track where anything can happen. The craziness will continue in Thunder Valley this week for sure.
NASCAR will have a unique schedule this week. The Truck Series will practice, qualify and race Thursday. The Xfinity Series will practice, qualify and race Friday. The Cup Series will practice and qualify Friday and then they will compete in their playoff race Saturday night.
* Once again NBC will not televise the Xfinity Series practice and qualifying. It is scheduled to be on the NBC Sports App. (Can we bring back Fox Sports yet?)
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR BRISTOL
The Bristol Night Race is the Talladega of short-track racing. The racing is going to be exciting, but there is going to be a lot of wrecks. There are a lot of drivers will scores to settle. Half of the field wants to pay back Ross Chastain for his aggressive driving this season and Daniel Suarez has made it known that he owes Christopher Bell after the No. 20 car wrecked the No. 99 car at Darlington. The good news is that the cars who wreck at Bristol usually continue to race.
So how do we handicap this crazy race in this unpredictable season? Track history means more at Bristol than it does at most of the other tracks. It is truly a driver’s track. So drivers know how to get around this high-banked, short track better than others.
I used the driver’s data from previous races at Bristol (not including the dirt races) and the data from the other high-banked tracks (Dover, Darlington and Nashville). I also figured in momentum (but did not include any data from Daytona).
Here are the Driver Rankings for the Bass Pro Shop NRA Night Race…
| Driver |
| 1. Kyle Busch |
| 2. Kyle Larson |
| 3. Chase Elliott |
| 4. Kevin Harvick |
| 5. Denny Hamlin |
| 6. Ryan Blaney |
| 7. Joey Logano |
| 8. Christopher Bell |
| 9. Martin Truex Jr. |
| 10. William Byron |
| 11. Tyler Reddick |
| 12. Alex Bowman |
| 13. Bubba Wallace |
| 14. Ross Chastain |
| 15. Erik Jones |
| 16. Brad Keselowski |
| 17. Christopher Buescher |
| 18. Aric Almirola |
| 19. Chase Briscoe |
| 20. Daniel Suarez |
| 21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. |
| 22. Austin Cindric |
| 23. Ty Gibbs |
| 24. AJ Allmendinger |
| 25. Austin Dillon |
| 26. Cole Custer |
| 27. Justin Haley |
| 28. Michael McDowell |
| 29. Ty Dillon |
| 30. Corey LaJoie |
| 31. Harrison Burton |
| 32. Todd Gilliland |
| 33. Josh Bilicki |
| 34. Cody Ware |
| 35. J.J. Yeley |
| 36. B.J. McLeod |
* These rankings will be updated Friday after qualifying
Good Luck This Week!
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