Hello and welcome to Monday Marks, a new weekly piece I’ll be writing to go over my thoughts and feelings from the previous week’s racing across NASCAR, IndyCar, and Formula 1.
The stars of the NASCAR Cup Series tackled the muddy highbanks of Bristol Motor Speedway covered in red Tennessee clay, and it felt like they tackled their competitors and themselves more often than not.
Let’s address the racing first.
The racing product was the best it has ever been at Dirt Bristol with an alleged average of 21 green-flag passes per lap, according to Twitter user Asteroid4914.
As I alluded to earlier, the drivers spent much of the night fighting themselves or the other drivers on the track, finishing the night running 71 of the 250 laps under yellow.
For a race of this length, 14 cautions are just way, way, way too many cautions.
The common retort will be to say that asphalt Bristol would produce a similar amount of time behind a pace car.
I’d counter that by saying asphalt races are run faster and have more laps.
Last season’s Bristol night race endured 11 cautions for 80 laps while taking just 20 more minutes to complete.
This is a race that, again, had double the amount of laps and longer stages compared to last night’s show.
That cannot happen if we do this again.
A lot of the yellows were for single-car spins, and even that was not legislated consistently throughout the evening.
Of the race’s 14 cautions, 9 of them were listed officially as single-car spins. For a number of other single-car spins, the officials held the caution flag, but when it might spice something up, they made sure to throw one for even the most benign incident.
Kyle Busch’s spin with about 10 laps to go is a perfect example. Busch put one other car in extremely mild danger when the #8 car spun innocently onto the apron and whipped it directly into pit road.
The yellow was out before Kyle ever got to correct himself.
The caution setup yet another asinine late-race restart, and what happened was exactly what you’d expect at this point:
A driver that worked hard all race to fight into the top-5 gets dumped by a desperate driver behind him shortly after the restart (no caution for that one though), allowing Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick to skip into the distance with ease.
The field being bunched up created more chicken-headed behavior throughout the pack that culminated in the race ending under caution when Chris Buescher wrecked Daniel Suarez and others coming out of turn 2 coming to the white flag.
If NASCAR simply mandated single-file restarts on cautions thrown with less than 10 laps to go, then I think we avoid a lot of equipment being torn up for no good reason.
But, that’s enough of my soapboxing about the poor race direction.
Dirt Bristol brought the beef.
The most notable example was Ryan Preece exposing himself as a man of his word. Critical of the racing conduct and etiquette throughout the season, Preece got put in the wall by former champion Kyle Larson in Stage 2.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Larson’s spotter supposedly told his driver that Preece was out there, and Preece’s spotter caught wind of it.
Larson put Preece in the back, and after a Stage 3 spin knocked him down the order, Larson appeared in the same zip code as Preece again.
The Hendrick driver decided it was a good idea to run over the 41 again coming out of turn 4, and Preece had enough of the bull.
Preece sent Larson back into the fence on the straightaway. Larson’s damaged car came back down the track and into Preece’s door before sliding driver’s side into the turn 1 wall, ending his day.
Larson has an extensive history of not knowing where his right rear is at times, the most notorious example being at Las Vegas last fall.
The Stewart-Haas driver was not penalized for the move and said he simply got loose when he made contact with the #5.
I hope Preece faces no repercussions from this. Kyle Larson needed to be taught a lesson, and Ryan Preece needed to back up his tough talk.
The two found each other, and it’s probably over. I don’t expect Larson to retaliate because I don’t think he understands what he did wrong in the first place.
I just hope Larson can see the common denominator in all of these incidents he finds himself involved in. He’s too good to be ignorant of a whole quarter of his car.
I am very interested in how Ryan Blaney deals with this Chase Briscoe ordeal. This is not the first time that Briscoe has driven over his head and taken someone out.
For a quick example, look at this very race last season. The only justice levied in that situation was that Briscoe didn’t finish the race.
This time, there was no justice for Blaney. Briscoe drove through the #12 car’s bumper through all of turns 1 & 2 before sending the Team Penske driver for a spin as they made their way through 1 & 2 again the following lap.
Briscoe got to keep his top-5 finish while Blaney got relegated to a 23rd-place result. This is unequivocally wrong and must change.
I am all for hard racing, but there is a line where aggression, whether intentional or not, goes too far and needs to be analyzed.
Chase Briscoe has crashed himself and/or others in the final laps of races at least a few times in his short career: Denny Hamlin at Indy in 2021, Reddick at Dirt Bristol last season, himself to kick off the goofy ending to last year’s World 600, and now Blaney.
Where does this end? If you start punishing these guys, they will stop racing like that.
Nobody wants to see drivers wreck each other. We want good, healthy beef, and we want good, hard racing.
Reddick’s move on Briscoe in Stage 3 was a prime example of good, hard racing. The 23XI driver put the #14 into an impossible spot while making minimal contact.
There was too much contact in the entire race to cover all of the beef in the abundant cow that was this race, so let’s move onto Trucks.
Joey Logano practically led the whole race and won. The racing product was decent when all 36 trucks were facing the right direction.
Much like in Cup, it felt like those green-flag stretches were few and far between. The longest green flag run in the 150-lap Trucks event was 11 laps.
11 laps. Unacceptable.
For reference, three of the Trucks cautions were due to single-truck spins, and nearly half of the race (66 of 150 laps) were run under yellow at pace car speed.
That brings me to this: get the dirt off of Bristol.
Yep, my stance is still the same even after the best NASCAR Cup race at Dirt Bristol.
At the end of the day, we are losing a quality race at an asphalt facility to dump dirt on top of a purp0se-built asphalt track.
This is not the way.
Sunday’s race makes me hopeful for another future dirt race for the Cup Series because it seems like the drivers are figuring it out for the most part.
If we are intent on trying dirt again, I would prefer to see NASCAR take on a purpose-built dirt track that is not Knoxville as it is not suitable for great stock vehicle racing.
Just go to Eldora. Tony’s team won’t have some insane competitive advantage just because he owns the track. It’s not like his drivers can test there.
I would also prefer Cup teams to just prepare a dirt late model for a dirt race, so we can run vehicles meant for dirt, on dirt.
I could go on about how cool it would be if we just ran different chassis and cars at different tracks/configurations, but this isn’t an outlet for that.
Before we get to the Friday 5 recap, let’s briefly talk about…
The Penalty Box
Denny Hamlin’s penalty for admitting that he put Ross Chastain in the wall at Phoenix was upheld by the appeals panel.
Lame decision. Denny didn’t manipulate the outcome of that race any more than Ross Chastain has been manipulating races by causing cautions for the last year and some change.
The only reason Hamlin was penalized is because he had the guts to admit it. Shame on NASCAR for penalizing him, and shame on the appeals panel for upholding it.
NASCAR also confiscated two Hendrick cars after last week’s race, and as a result, William Byron and Alex Bowman got hit with yet another big points penalty.
Hot off the heels of the appeals panel getting creative with NASCAR’s penalties against HMS, NASCAR found the greenhouse (the part of the car that holds the driver) to be tampered with and levied a penalty accordingly.
I look forward to whatever receipts or creativity Chad Knaus will bring to the appeals hearing in a month when they can finally get the appeal scheduled.
It was a really rough week for the appeals panel as well because they decided to uphold most of Kaulig Racing’s penalty for modifying a vendor part from Phoenix.
While the public does not know whether or not Kaulig modified their hood louvers the same way as HMS, having drastically different outcomes for a similar infraction is not a good mark for NASCAR or the appeals panel.
I intend to tackle this more at length in the coming days and weeks, so stay tuned. This appeals process clearly needs to be revised by the sanctioning body.
Now it’s time to see how my Friday 5 did.
Kyle Larson
When you race everyone like a complete clown, sometimes you get a pie thrown back at your face.
I hope he can get a makeup wipe and look in the mirror to see that he’s the common denominator in his own tangles with other drivers.
Ryan Blaney
A great drive from Blaney was ripped away from him as his wheels pointed the opposite direction of his competitors.
If guys like Briscoe keep getting away with these ridiculous moves, then guys like Blaney need to start putting them in the fence with haste.
If he needs pointers on how to do it right, all he needs to do is watch how Briscoe’s teammate handled Kyle Larson.
Christopher Bell
He’s good at dirt racing. There, I said it!
Congrats to Bell and the #20 team for running a great race and getting an even better result. Great way to bounce back from last week’s controversy.
Tyler Reddick
So, so close to his second win in three races.
Reddick looked like the dominant driver all night, but pit strategy put him in the pack and wore out his tires, making it difficult to get by Bell in the closing laps.
Would’ve been cool to finish under green, but Ross Chastain and Chris Buescher had other plans unfortunately.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
The 2023 Daytona 500 winner notched his third top-10 of the season at Dirt Bristol, something I said could happen last week leading up to this race.
Ricky ran a clean race. He was around a lot of calamity, yet he didn’t cause any of it and managed to not get involved in it himself.
Impressive drive for Stenhouse and JTG-Daugherty.
Dirt’s Favorite: Kyle Larson
Should not have doubled down on him. My mistake, y’all.
Risky Business: Chase Briscoe
While he should’ve been sent to the back or should’ve received a black flag, Chase Briscoe was allowed to retain his top-5.
I was right to be leery of him considering his conduct, but NASCAR has no control over its drivers. I should’ve known Briscoe wouldn’t face punishment for pulling chicken-head manuevers.
Dark Horse: Daniel Suarez
Trackhouse clearly didn’t bring it at all this weekend.
Now they’ve got two junked cars with nothing to show for their efforts. Maybe they should’ve spent less time trolling on Twitter and making funny t-shirts.
I am hoping Daniel can bounce back from this weekend, but it’s Martinsville. It’s not a great track for him; I’m not expecting much.
The Wide World of Dirt 
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