Sunday’s Meals Metropolis 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, the fifth race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Collection season, in all probability wasn’t the kind of race the sequence was envisioning.
As an alternative, it was some of the attention-grabbing short-track races in latest reminiscence.
After complaints that there wasn’t sufficient tire put on in earlier Bristol races with NASCAR’s Gen 7 automobile, Goodyear introduced a softer tire this time round. Maybe a bit too delicate, if something.
Because of absurdly quick tire falloff, it turned rapidly evident that the race can be extra about tools conservation than uncooked velocity, and with everybody backing off to save lots of their tires, there have been 54 lead changes amongst 16 drivers.
Moreover, the race ended on a 121-lap green-flag run, and because the subject received unfold out, all however 5 vehicles ended up falling a lap down on the end. Winner Denny Hamlin, together with Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson had been the one lead lap finishers.
It felt like a race straight out of the Nineteen Eighties or early Nineties, again when tools was a lot much less dependable and most weekends had been about pacing and survival above all else. Solely, somewhat than being some random roulette wheel of components failures, nearly the entire management was within the drivers’ arms, and those that had been capable of preserve their tires had been those who made it to the top with a shot on the win.
In right now’s NASCAR, followers are accustomed to white-knuckle motion during which each lap is run with the identical depth as a qualifying run. But on the finish of the day, a NASCAR race is a marathon, not a dash.
Sunday was a much-needed reminder of that, and whether or not intentional or not, the 2024 Meals Metropolis 500 was one to recollect.