Brad Keselowski won Sunday’s Food City presents the Supermarket Heroes 500 in the NASCAR Cup Series at Bristol Motor Speedway, the sport’s fifth race back on track since the COVID-19 outbreak paused the 2020 season.
The driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford took the lead with three laps remaining and led for a total of 115 laps overall throughout the 500-lap event. He beat Clint Bowyer to the start-finish line by .471 seconds.
Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch and Erik Jones completed the top five. Austin Dillon, Kurt Busch, William Byron, Christopher Bell and Bubba Wallace made up the rest of the top 10.
Keselowski, who started on the pole after a draw decided the lineup, was able to take the lead after Chase Elliott and Joey Logano made contact and hit the wall while battling out front. Logano had just taken the lead from Elliott with three laps to go. Some guys have all the luck!
Logano ended up 21st, with Elliott 22nd.
Elliott swept both stages, which ended on Laps 125 and 250. The mini victories marked his fourth and fifth stage wins of the season. The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet gained two playoff points.
The race was red flagged on Lap 231 after the “Big One” left four cars stopped on track. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was turned by Jimmie Johnson and his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet collected Alex Bowman, Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick in the process. All of their days ended early because of that crash.
The red flag lasted 11 minutes and 35 seconds. There were 18 cautions, including the stage breaks.
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF THE GO FAST
Once again not a single player selected the race winner. This fact goes along with the weird way that we are having to play catch up with NASCAR trying to get 36 races on the schedule for 2020. So as has been the custom so far this race season, this prestigious award will return to the closet!
THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS
The biggest scorer for this race is Linda The Cookie Mom. The Cookie Mom was able to extract 40 points today from Clint Bowyer’s 2nd place finish in The Food City presents the Supermarket Heroes 500 at Bristol.
Next there was a trio that includes Carlton The Doorman, Edie The Las Vegas Super Star, as well as Dan The Numbers Cruncher, that pocketed 35 points when the race ended. Both The Doorman and The Numbers Dude were exhilarated at the thought of Chase Elliott about to log his second win in two races. But with just one lap left in the race his hard charge on Logano resulted in both cars knocking down the fence and finishing 19th and 20th. Nonetheless, both players added 35 points to their bucket today. While the third player of this mysterious group, The Vegas Super Star, was rooting for Jimmie Johnson for this race.
The duo of Snoopy Dawn and Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head each racked up 30 points for their man, KuBu’s (Kurt Busch) 7th place.
Meanwhile, Jeremy The Coach and Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff teamed up with their support for replacement driver, Matt Kenseth. When the sunset on BMS both players were adding 21 points to their 2nd segment tallies.
Lastly, Bernie The Bay Area Bandit was our fifth highest scorer for the race. La Bandita was riding shotgun with YRB at Bristol. Young Ryan Blaney was on his way to a good results until he was caught up in one of the multitude of mass crashes during the 500 lap race. Nonetheless, La Bandita salvaged a small score of 10 points for the day.
This was another week of large scale movement occurring when the checkered flag flew. Eight of the eleven players swapped positions!
The biggest movers include a pair of players, Linda The Cookie Mom and Carole, aka Rudy. The Cookie Mom rocketed up the scoring pylon five (5) positions to land comfortably in 5th place. But the news is not nearly as good for Rudy, who plummeted five spots to land in 9th place, and is just 20 points away from residing in The Outhouse this week!
The trio of Edie The Las Vegas Super Star, Bernie The Bay Area Bandit, and Jim, aka Chiefy, moved four (4) places. The Vegas Super Star stepped up her game by climbing up the totem pole four (4) positions to rest in 4th place now. However, La Bandita and Chiefy dropped four place to now sit in 10 and 11th place, respectively.
Meanwhile, Dan The Numbers Dude improved his residency three (3) spots to allow him to sit in 8th place.
Carlton The Doorman, likewise, improved his standing on the scoring pylon two (2) places and now rests in 7th place.
Lastly, Jeremy The Coach slid down one spot to now sit in 6th place.
STRAIGHT FROM THE CRAPPER
Once again this week, there is one player who is awarded both The Crappiest Pick of The Week, as well as our ultimate weekly award, The Outhouse Award. This week we salute Jim, aka Chiefy, for his pick of Alex Bowman. Bowman The Showman was caught up in more than one of the big wrecks at Bristol, and because of his 37th place finish he awarded Chiefy just one (1) microscopic point this week.
Check out the results of the Bristol race.
Next week NASCAR rolls down south to the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR BELTS TIGHT AND LET’S GO RACIN’!