2024 Food City 500 Predictions

It’s Bristol, Baby!!!!! The Cup Series continues on today with the 2024 Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Originally opened in 1961, Bristol Motor Speedway is a 0.533 concrete race track featuring 24-28 degrees of banking in the turns and 5-9 degrees of banking on the straightaways, leading to high speeds, fast laps and hot tempers. Bristol has consistently been a fan favorite and a driver favorite, with the spring race being run during the day and the fall race being run at night. For the last 3 years, the spring race was run on dirt, to mixed amounts of success and criticism. But both races are back to being run on the concrete again for the foreseeable future. With high banking and close proximity to other drivers, managing your tires, managing your car as a whole and managing your patience levels are all key to finding success in Bristol. The cream truly rises to the top here, as it is the epitome of a driver’s race track.

First held in 1961, the Food City 500 has had an elite list of winners over the past 60+ years, including Joe Weatherly, Fireball Roberts, Fred Lorenzen, Junior Johnson, David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki, Jeff Gordon, Elliott Sadler, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Joey Logano and Christopher Bell, just to name a few. Rusty Wallace has won this race the most times, finding Victory Lane 6 times, while Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Kyle Busch have won here 5 times, as well as Cale Yarborough, Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch each winning here 4 times.

Last year’s race was won by Christopher Bell, who took the lead with 100 laps to go and never looked back. Tyler Reddick ultimately finished second after leading twice for a nice 69 laps, while Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Chase Briscoe rounded out the top 5.

Coverage of the Food City 500 can be seen on Fox Sports 1 and FOX, with NASCAR RaceDay beginning at 2 PM EST on FS1 before continuing on Fox at 3 PM EST, with green flag coverage beginning at 3:30 PM EST.

Driver to Fade:

No, you’re not high. I really am fading Martin Truex Jr. today. Even though he’s had back-to-back top 10 finishes and top 15 finishes in all 4 races this season, Truex sucks at Bristol. 2 top 5’s and 4 top 10 finishes in 33 career starts. Both of the top 5 finishes came over 10+ years ago, when he was still a young stallion racing for now defunct Michael Waltrip Racing, and he has only had 1 top 15 finish in his last 5 Bristol starts (7th in September 2021). It’s hard to fade someone driving on an elite team like Joe Gibbs Racing, but I just don’t expect Truex to be a realistic threat this afternoon. Rolling off from 11th place, I predict that Truex will continue to struggle here and finish outside the top 10 today.

Dark Horse:

I know what you’re thinking. Puke Boy? Really? Yes, hear me out. After a very forgettable 2023 campaign, most people automatically wrote off Noah Gragson when he was tabbed to take over the #10 car at Stewart-Haas Racing. With low expectations for both the team and the driver, Gragson has incredibly overcome the odds during the first 4 races of the season, with 2 top 10’s and 3 top 12’s during this stretch. He’s consistently shown speed and this weekend has been no different, showing speed on both short runs and long runs in practice, including pacing the field on 30 lap average. He also has 2 wins here during his time at JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series, so he knows a thing or two about finding success at Bristol. He’s going to start deep in the field today in 22nd place, but there’s no reason why he can’t improve over the course of the race and bring home another top 10 finish on the season.

Top 10:

After starting off the season strong with a victory in the DAYTONA 500, William Byron has cooled off a bit, with a best finish of 10th at Las Vegas in the 3 races since. Byron has had pace the past 2 weeks, starting in the top 5 at both Las Vegas and Phoenix, but the cards just didn’t fall to his advantage thanks to a rogue trash bag and a poor handling race car. Nonetheless, Byron is hoping to right the ship at a track where he has had decent runs of late, finishing 3rd here in both 2021 and 2022 and 9th last fall. Byron showed solid pace in practice, ranking inside the top 5 on 5, 10 and 15 lap averages on the way to an 8th place qualifying position. A win is always a strong possibility when Byron and his team are firing on all cylinders, but a fourth straight top 10 finish at Bristol feels like a lock.

Winner:

2024 has been feast or famine for Christopher Bell, winning at Phoenix last week and finishing 3rd in the DAYTONA 500 to go along with a pair of finishes outside the top 30 in the other 2 races. After initially struggling at Bristol (1 top 10 and 1 lap led in his first 3 starts) on the pavement, Bell has started to find the secret sauce and is putting together terrific races on the high banks, finishing 4th here in 2022 and 3rd last fall, leading a combined 330 laps across the last two races. Bell is the defending champion of this race, although each of the past 3 spring races were held on dirt, so he clearly understands the key to finding victory here. Bell put on an absolute clinic last week at Phoenix and he is on the verge of picking up right where he left off, ranking inside the top 6 on 5, 10 and 15 lap averages in practice. Bell ultimately qualified 12th for today’s race, but with his momentum and confidence, I predict that Bell will easily work his way to the front and take home the race victory for the second straight week and for the second straight year at Bristol!