Bristol race results from August 19, 2017 featuring the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
Tonight, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series goes short track racing. It’s the best race of the year, period. Road racing, oval racing, dirt racing it doesn’t matter. It’s the best race, right here, under the lights in Bristol, TN.
Stage 1 is 125 laps, as is stage 2. The final stage is a 250 lap stint. 500 total laps around Bristol Motor Speedway.
Erik Jones grabbed his first career pole yesterday. Jones and Kyle Larson will lead the field to the green flag. Parade laps, the crowd has a message via cards, “Thank you Dale Jr.”
Stage 1
Green flag, Erik Jones selects the outside. He leads out of turn 2. Kyle Larson gets swallowed on the bottom, he falls back to 4th. Lap 3, big wiggle from Kyle Larson. He’s still stuck on the bottom, the rear end stepped out on entry.
Lap 5, Keselowski has trouble. He has a donut on the door and a flat left front tire. Meanwhile, Chase Elliott has taken the lead. Jones back to the bottom, he’s back to the front. Matt Kenseth shows Chase Elliott the bumper, he takes 3rd. Larson runs 2nd. Keselowski is now 3 laps down, he missed pit road.
Lp 19, Kyle Larson is all over Jones for the lead. He moves to the top to find a way by. No traction up there yet, he slips. Matt Kenseth drives under and right on by. Chase Elliott is around Larson as well. Larson is on a conveyor belt.
Lap 51, Kyle Larson has been running down the leader. He’s back to his bumper. Erik Jones wiggles at the entry to turn 3. Larson dives to the bottom. He clears him easily at the exit of turn 2. New leader.
Aric Almirola is in the wall. Sparks fly out from under the chassis. Likely a mechanical issue. Caution. The field hits pit road. Larson exits in the lead.
Green flag, Kyle Larson leads into turn 1. Interestingly, he dives to the bottom. He has pressure from Elliott early, he holds him off.
12 to go in stage 1, Larson leads but Kyle Busch has been charging though the pack. He looks high on Larson. The lapped car of Keselowski is there, they split him. Busch checks up, unsure if Brad would leave the lane open for him on the exit. He did.
Busch takes the lead momentarily. Larson drives it in hard, drifts to the top and takes the high lane away. Lappers ahead, Larson to the bottom. Back tot he top, Busch low. He still holds him off.
2 to go, side-by-side for the stage win. Larson high, Busch low. He can’t complete the pass. More lappers ahead. Kyle Larson tries to take the bottom, Busch is there. Contact, Larson is sideways, he drifts way up the banking. Kyle Busch takes the win in stage 1!
Stage 1 Results: 1. Kyle Busch; 2. Erik Jones; 3. Kyle Larson; 4. Chase Elliott; 5. Chase Elliott; 6. Matt Kenseth; 7. Denny Hamlin; 8. Ryan Blaney; 9. Joey Logano; 10. Martin Truex Jr;
Stage 2
The field hits pit road. Erik Jones takes no tires, he’s off first. Larson follows in 2nd. Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott bang fenders, 3 wide at pit exit.
Green flag, Jones rolls to the restart box. He leaves Larson standing still. The bottom lane doesn’t move, Larson falls to 5th. Hamlin 2nd. Kyle Busch dives under him to take the 2nd spot away, he restarted 6th.
Lap 169, Kyle Busch is around Erik Jones for the lead.
Lap 179, race leader Kyle Busch is deep in lap traffic. He’s on the tail of Brad Keselowski. At the same time, Erik Jones is coming. Jones to the bottom. He pins the race leader behind the lapper of Keselowski. New leader, Erik Jones.
Lap 198, Erik Jones is pined behind Paul Menard on the bottom. Jones gives him a bump, to no avail. Kyle Busch rolls the top and right on by for the lead of the race. New leader, Kyle Busch.
Lap 201, Ricky Stenhouse Jr makes minor contact with the wall. Caution. Stenhouse has the best average finish of any NASCAR driver at Bristol. Right side damage will make it a bit more difficult tonight.
The field hits pit road. Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr all hit the brakes leaving pit road, nobody wants to leave pit road in 3rd. They have a stack up of cars behind them, they were 3 wide, nobody behind could get by.
Green, Kyle Busch leads into turn 1. Kyle Larson runs toward the wall. He can’t get alongside Kyle Busch. Larson is slipping. Matt Kenseth up to 2nd. Jones and Elliott move by as well.
Big problems for AJ Allmendinger. He has a massive tire rub. He’s at speed and trying to get to the bottom and enter the pits. Martin truex Jr comes off turn 2 with no idea, he slams on the brake pedal to avoid plowing into AJ. Still green.
Caution. Austin Dillon is on pit road, helmet off. Oil on track. Dillon got turned up the banking, Jeffrey Earnhardt had nowhere to go, he slammed into him. Kasey Kahne was on the brakes, he slid up the track and into the wall, minor right front damage. Pit road open, most pit. Some stay out.
Green flag, 7 to go, Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson lead the field into turn 1. Kenseth has him cleared by 1 car length in the middle of 1-2.
2 to go, Matt Kenseth still leads. 4 tires are coming, but they are going to run out of time. Matt Kenseth wins stage 2!
Stage 2 Results: 1. Matt Kenseth; 2. Jimmie Johnson; 3. Kevin Harvick; 4. Ryan Newman; 5. Erik Jones; 6. Kyle Larson; 7. Denny Hamlin; 8. Kyle Busch; 9. Paul Menard; 10. Clint Bowyer;
Stage 3
The non-pitters are on pit road. Penalty to Matt Kenseth, speeding on pit road!
Related: Kyle Busch talks speeding penalties at Bristol
Green flag, Erik Jones to the lead. Kyle Busch sweeps around Kyle Larson. The bottom lane doesn’t work on restarts.
Lap 276, Kurt Busch has slid into the wall. He was running the high line out of turn 4. He was on the gas, his pit his tires just a bit too high. Into the marbles and into the front straight away wall. He bounces off the wall and back into his teammate Clint Bowyer. Still Green.
Lap 325, Aric Almirola has more problems. He got into the wall, same exact thing as Kurt Busch. He’s not coasting around the high side. He’s trying to get to the pits. He does, no caution.
Lap 350, Erik Jones leads Kyle Busch by 2 full seconds. That gap has just evaporated. Ty Dillon scraped the wall as has Trevor Bayne. Caution. The field hits pit road.
Green flag, Erik Jones leaves Kyle Larson in the dust again through the restart zone. Kyle Busch carries the top side around Larson to 2nd before turn 1. He’s looking for the lead. Kyle Busch to the outside of Erik Jones. He’s there. New leader, Kyle Busch.
Lap 375, 15 cars are left on the lead lap. Joey Logano is on the tail of the lead lap cars.
Lap 397, trouble! Chase Elliott is sliding sideways down the back stretch. Kevin Harvick dove from the top to the bottom on exit. Harvick was trying to work around a lapped car. Unfortunately, he didn’t know Chase Elliott was on the bottom. He clipped his right front and sent Chase into the inside wall. Caution.
Green flag, Erik Jones and Matt Kenseth hit the restart box. Jones gets the jump. Kevin Harvick sweeps from his 3rd place starting spot, even with Kenseth in turn 1. The bottom lane has no chance on restarts. Kenseth holds him off.
Kyle Busch radio, “Tell the #20, if he wants to know why my hands out the window. Both times, he drives me right off the race track.”
85 to go, Landon Cassill slid from the bottom to the top on the exit of turn 4. Chris Buescher didn’t appreciate it. He give him the bumper at the flagstand. That sent Cassill toward the inside wall, he clips the exit then bounces back up the banking into the outside wall. Caution.
Green flag, Erik Jones clears the field. Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth run side by side for 2nd. Busch is in the gas sooner, he gets a run off turn 2 and completes the pass in turn 3. Busch starts tracking down the leader, he wants the 3 peat.
73 to go, Kyle Busch has slowed. Matt Kenseth is on his bumper. The field is glued to the bottom. A bump is coming. Kyle Busch pulls high, let’s off the throttle and tucks in behind Matt Kenseth. Move the #20 to 2nd.
59 to go, Both Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch are running down Erik Jones. Jones pulls to the top, he’s taking the line away. Busch is happy to go to the bottom. Erik Jones wiggles on the top, Kyle Busch is in the gas. New leader, Kyle Busch.
Jones tries to pull a crossover, Busch pulls low to block. Matt Kenseth is around Jones as well.
37 to go, Erik Jones has moved to the top. He’s all over the bumper of Matt Kenseth. Bump #1, #2, #3. Jones dives to the bottom, they rub fenders down the straight. Jones slide job. He takes 2nd.
25 to go, Erik Jones has found speed on the top. He’s running down the leader. Kyle Busch was leading by over 2 seconds. It’s now just .86 seconds.
10 to go, Kyle Busch leads. Erik Jones is there. Busch has lappers side-by-side ahead. He splits them! Nearly clear on Both sides. Risky but it worked.
Jones gets trapped behind those lappers. Kyle Busch has opened a gap.
Kyle Busch sweeps it. 3 in a row at Bristol! KY radio, “Take that!”
View full 2017 Bristol race results below.
Post-Race Interviews
Kyle Busch climbs from the car, “That one was a lot harder. Erik Jones put up a whale of a fight. That was all I had. I had my tongue hanging out, my arms are Jello and my throat hurts.”
Kyle Busch talks about the boo’s, “All the noise is good noise. That’s how I feel about it.” Rowdy Nation? “I can’t fight as much as I want to fight on social media. There’s a lot of trolls out there. My guys do it for me.”
Kyle Busch concludes, “I am who I am.”
Erik Jones: “I wish we had a little more.”
Denny Hamlin: “I’d love 1 restart on the top. I went outside the top 10 nearly every restart and had to battle back.”
Matt Kenseth: “I wasn’t thinking about playoff’s. I was thinking about trying to win the race.”
Author: Shane Walters
Bristol Results
August 19th, 2017
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
Related: Bristol Motor Speedway starting lineup
1. Kyle Busch
2. Erik Jones
3. Denny Hamlin
4. Matt Kenseth
5. Kurt Busch
6. Ryan Newman
7. Trevor Bayne
8. Kevin Harvick
9. Kyle Larson
10. Ryan Blaney
11. Jimmie Johnson
12. Jamie McMurray
13. Joey Logano
14. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
15. Daniel Suarez
16. Paul Menard
17. David Ragan
18. Chase Elliott
19. Clint Bowyer
20. Michael McDowell
21. Martin Truex Jr
22. AJ Allmendinger
23. Dale Earnhardt Jr
24. Kasey Kahne
25. Danica Patrick
26. Matt DiBendetto
27. Chris Buescher
28. Corey Lajoie
29. Brad Keselowski
30. JJ Yaley
31. Gray Gaulding
32. BJ McLeod
33. Cole Whitt
34. Joey Gase
35. Landon Cassill
36. Ty Dillon
37. Aric Almirola
38. Reed Sorenson
39. Austin Dillon
40. Jeffrey Earnhardt
Links
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