Joey Logano is the seventh winner in seven Cup Series races in 2021.
Logano drove away from Denny Hamlin during the 50-lap final stage and drove away from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Hamlin on a two-lap restart to end Monday’s rain-delayed race at Bristol. The race was the first Cup Series race on a dirt surface since 1970.
Hamlin finished third after Stenhouse passed him on the penultimate lap. Martin Truex Jr. fell from third to 19th on the final two laps after a cut tire on the final restart. Truex dominated the first portion of the race.
Bristol and NASCAR made the decision last year to host the annual spring race at the track on a temporary dirt surface. The idea came as NASCAR made myriad changes to the 2021 Cup Series schedule and was the biggest experiment of the season.
The novelty made it entertaining, even if there were more similarities to the concrete version of Bristol than you might have expected. The predominant groove was the bottom lane as drivers weren’t able to get anything going in a second groove.
The race wasn’t easy to see for fans at home. The track was exceptionally dusty and clouded a bunch of Fox’s camera angles. Only close-up shots over the last half of the race were clear. Everything else looked like a movie from Mars.
The track was so dusty that NASCAR had to make a couple of in-race tweaks. NASCAR extended the stage break at Lap 200 of the 250-lap race to wet down the track and prepare it further. That move came after NASCAR ditched double-file restarts during the second stage after two wrecks right after restarts.
The two-wide restarts were generating a bunch of dust. That dust combined with a low sun angle from the setting sun was making it impossible for drivers to see.
The dusty track came after NASCAR couldn’t run the race on Sunday like originally scheduled. Torrential rain in Tennessee on Saturday night made track preparation for a Sunday race impossible and pushed both the Cup Series and Truck Series races to Monday.
The product was a success for Bristol, however. The track announced before the third stage that the spring race at the track in 2022 would also be a dirt track race. This season’s fall race is still scheduled to be on the permanent concrete track at the facility.
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