After drivers completed the 2024 Daytona 500, many complained about how teams were using fuel-saving strategies that were making the sport unbearably boring. Several big names including Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch criticized drivers for not fully pushing their cars in a bid to save fuel. Three weekends after the Daytona race, nostalgia struck quickly in Bristol.
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Last Sunday’s race saw chaos surmount as tires wore out at a highly unusual rate. The unforeseen challenge demanded teams to redraw their strategies and drive extremely cautiously. Not surprisingly, not everyone was pleased when the sun set on the Last Great Colosseum. Though positivity and support have been coming from more than one direction, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell isn’t all that happy with it.
He spoke to the media in Texas about the race and deemed that it was like the Daytona race. “I’m perplexed about Bristol,” he said. “There were a lot of positives that came out of it and there were also some negatives that came out of it. I think that there was a lot of negativity around Daytona and the fuel-saving that transpired there. Well, Bristol was the exact same thing.”
Bell won the race in Phoenix and already has his playoff spot fixed. In Bristol, he finished the race in 10th place and currently stands 8th in the driver standings. He has qualified in 4th place for the upcoming race in COTA and will lead the Joe Gibbs front line along with Ty Gibbs. Continuing to express ire on the Bristol race he said that the cars were just running side-by-side on the half throttle just like they did in Daytona.
Defending champion Ryan Blaney’s comparison of the Bristol race with the Daytona 500
Bell isn’t alone in drawing parallels between last Sunday’s race and the Daytona 500. Ryan Blaney walked off his car on Bristol’s concrete surface fuming in frustration when he said, “Everybody blew a tire there before the last pit stop. It reminded me of… the Daytona fuel safe is what it was. We were two by two. You’re creeping around there, quarter throttle, saving your tires and you just don’t know when you want to go or not.”
Similar to NASCAR’s promise of picking apart the fuel-saving strategy, Goodyear said earlier this week that it would look deep into what caused the tire issue in Bristol.
