Easter night brought more than discarded eggshells and chocolate wrappers this year. While the sun had set, family dinners dispersed and attention turned to another work week, there was an unfamiliar holiday guest in the form of a NASCAR Cup race.
Year two of the Bristol dirt race saw the race move to the holiday weekend, a break from NASCAR's usual observance of the holiday with the teams getting time off. Using the holiday as a chance to springboard the race into the national conversation while also being the first time the new car has hit the dirt; this past Sunday's Bristol event carried a greater significance.
As NASCAR remains in the early days of its scheduling revolution, it is still figuring out whether a dirt race is in its future. After a flawed, but completed first event in 2021, NASCAR entered this year with a playbook on necessary improvements. With another 250 laps behind us, it is time to review how this year played out and cover three many areas: How did this year's race go? What could be done in the future? Is this race worth continuing in the future?
How 2022 Went
There was plenty of good and bad from the 2022 edition from the Bristol dirt race.
The track raced much better than in 2021. It was wider for a longer portion of the race. Drivers could fight back as the track changed. We had some good battles at the front of the field. The cars looked more suited for dirt. It still isn't the most elegant thing ever put on a dirt track, but it wasn't as clunky as the year before. There was also a good crowd, better than recent spring Bristol races, but still far from a sellout and matching what the summer race has been getting for the last few decades.
However, the track was starting to become a single lane, this time around the top unlike last year, which was single-file around the bottom. In the middle of stage two, the track was notably drying out and the rain showers throughout the second half of the race saved it from matching last year's event.
This race was also more disjointed than 2021. There were 14 cautions, four more than last year, for 82 laps, up from 39 caution laps in 2021, and there were three fewer laps run in this year's race. Of the 15 green flag periods during the race, five lasted five laps or shorter. The longest green flag run was 25 laps with the average green flag period lasting only 11.2 laps.
Of course, there was the finish, which will snuff out most unpleasant memories of this race. Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe went toe-to-toe over the closing laps before Briscoe's desperate attempt for the lead entering turn three on the final lap led to both cars spinning and Kyle Busch sneaking through to win by 0.330 seconds over a recovering Reddick.
Let's also not forget to mention the crisis averted at the end of stage two where many were not sure who the leader was and who would win the race if it was unable to continue due to weather.
Ideas For the Future
It sounds like we will be getting another Bristol race in 2023, and after two years there are still plenty of adjustments that need to be done.
For starters, remove the windshields. Visibility was not as big of an issue as we saw in 2021, but it is still the one thing holding back the Bristol dirt race. Drivers have been calling in each of the first two years to remove windshields and replace them with a metal screen. Though NASCAR tested a car without the windshield in the lead up to the dirt race, it did not implement it for 2022.
Windshields are the first of a few technical things that could be changed. A few drivers experienced overheating issues, but those decreased after the opening laps when the mud was kicked up off the surface and the track started drying out. Radiator changes have not been floated.
It must be addressed the scale of the Bristol dirt race. It is a 250-lap race. Most dirt race main events are 30 laps. Some are 50 laps. ARCA runs 100 laps around Springfield and DuQuoin, but those are one-mile tracks. NASCAR has pushed the limits of a dirt track. It is trying to cross the Pacific Ocean in an inner tube.
The race format is not conducive to a good dirt race. The track is always bound to dry out with the length and the number of cars out there.
However, we saw good periods for 25 to 50 laps on Sunday night. It is just when the race gets beyond that point and no serious track work has been done does the race quality fall off a cliff.
A 250-lap race straight up isn't the best answer. NASCAR has fooled around with the rulebook enough to make the Bristol dirt race happen, could it change the format even more?
On Saturday night, NASCAR ran heat races to set the starting grid. At the Clash in February, NASCAR ran heat races to determine the A-Main, ran a last chance qualifier to fill the final spots and ran a 23-driver main event. A Clash-format would work for the Bristol dirt race. The first hour could be the heat races. There could be a 20-minute break before the last chance qualifier and the final hour could be the main event.
It would allow for proper track preparations before each phase of the night, and a 50-lap finale would maximize the level of racing before the track conditions wore out. It could possibly be 75 laps in length. It would really depend on how many cars were on the track. Around 100 laps in with nearly 40 cars on track takes its toll. A 20-car field could mean the track could last 100 laps without many issues.
However, if the race is going to be that disjointed and unlike the rest of the schedule, doesn't the Bristol dirt race make more sense as an exhibition race? No one is dying over whether or not a dirt race counts toward the championship, but an exhibition race, the All-Star Race if it were, would be a better option for shortened distances, heat races and technical changes to the cars.
Scheduling of this event also needs to be addressed. NASCAR is selling the Bristol dirt race as a race tied to Easter Sunday. However, the problem with Easter is not the holiday itself, but the unpredictable weather patterns of the first month of spring. This has been a Bristol problem for a long time with many rain-delayed or shortened races. This was the second consecutive year and fourth time in six years weather interfered with the Bristol spring race.
Easter Sunday will not be kind to NASCAR over the next two years. Next year, Easter is April 9, a week earlier than this year. In 2024, Easter is March 31. Bristol is not in the right location to guarantee reasonable weather in the first few weeks of spring. Weather delays are only going to follow this event should it remain tied to Easter.
NASCAR made the right choice to move this to a night race, as it prevented the sun from accelerating the track drying, but this race needs to move further back in the schedule. It needs to be at least a month later. That would take it off the Easter date, but it would likely guarantee less concerns about weather, drive up attendance and it could be paired with the Coca-Cola 600 to give two marquee events in consecutive weekends, a chance to Fox to end its portion of the NASCAR season on a high.
If it does become an exhibition race, what does that mean for Bristol? Bristol starts preparing the dirt track in early January. If it takes a few months to set up, there is no way Bristol could have a normal spring race in late-March or early April and then an exhibition dirt race in May or June. It is also unlikely NASCAR would lay down the dirt, run Easter Sunday, have one normal Bristol race in June or July and then have the night race in September. It is also highly unlikely Bristol will have three separate race weekends.
No one seems to mind Texas having only one championship race and having its other weekend be the All-Star Race, but I doubt anyone would want only one Bristol race counting toward the championship.
Is it Worth Continuing?
There was a sense even before this year's race took place that some were over the dirt race, and after the checkered flag waved Sunday night there seemed to be more noise over wanting to move on from the dirt experiment.
However, Bristol has already made it known that it plans on having the dirt race return in 2023. But should it?
This year's race was an improvement over 2021, but there is only so many ways NASCAR and the track can improve the race in the current format. It can get better, but the same problems will still pop up every year between the track drying out and the overall quality of driving.
This year's race had an average speed of 34.973 mph, down from 46.313 mph the year before. At some point the audience will notice the lack of pace, especially if a green flag run cannot last longer than 25 laps.
While NASCAR has adopted a new philosophy of schedule openness, it must ask what it wants to be. The Cup Series went 50 years between dirt races. No one was particularly demanding a dirt race, but NASCAR and Bristol added one to the schedule. This race is completely different from the rest, and it is hoping this is what will grab people's attention. It is why this race was Easter Sunday. But it is an odd tentpole event to promote to any new viewers when no other race all season looks like it. It is like if Starbucks promoted its coffee one week and then sold only beet juice the rest of the year.
NASCAR and Fox is hoping to tie itself to Easter Sunday and become as synonymous with the holiday as football is to Thanksgiving, the NBA is to Christmas Day and college football is to New Year's Day, but this year's results suggests it didn't draw that larger causal audience it was hoping for.
Bristol had 4.007 million viewers, only slightly up from Atlanta a month ago, which had 4.003 million viewers. Of the 2022 races, Bristol is behind the Daytona 500, Fontana and Las Vegas in terms of viewers, and Bristol even had fewer viewers than the Clash. By NASCAR terms, it was a good audience, but it fell right in the middle where NASCAR always falls. It didn't draw more than the core audience that is already watching. You cannot call that a success.
I doubt how much the Bristol dirt race can carry NASCAR, especially if NASCAR is reluctant to modify the cars to perform at the highest level on dirt. Easter weekend moves around and tying the Bristol dirt race to the holiday keeps the race in the fluky weather window that has hurt the spring Bristol weekend for the last ten to 15 years.
The 100,000-pound gorilla in the room will always be the Bristol dirt race is taking away a regular Bristol race, and even the spring Bristol races were highly competitive and memorable. Consider the last three spring races before the dirt event. It was the Kyle Busch bump-and-run on Kyle Larson with six laps to go, Kyle Busch overcoming an accident on lap two of the race to win, and then the Joey Logano-Chase Elliott battle that opened the door and allowed Brad Keselowski to take the victory. All notable races, but one was delayed to Monday, and another was during the pandemic. The Bristol spring races weren't lacking in action, just chamber of commerce weather.
It appears nothing is going to stop year three of the Bristol dirt race from taking place. NASCAR and Bristol are going to jam this square peg into a round hole the same way it has done with stage racing, the current playoff format and how it told us everyone wanted a low horsepower and high downforce technical package. But 2023 could be the breaking point if the right adjustments are not made for this event.
