LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Race Preview: Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt

By:
On:
In: NASCAR Cup Series News

Race Information

– Round: NASCAR Cup Series race No. 8 of 36

– Track Location: Bristol Motor Speedway – Bristol, Tennessee

– Race Name: Food City Dirt Race

– Broadcast: Sunday, April 11th at 7:00 PM ET live on FOX (TV), PRN (Radio) Sirius XM NASCAR Ch. 90

– Team Entrants:

  • No. 42 | Noah Gragson & Luke Lambert – Sunseeker Resorts Chevrolet Camaro Zl1
  • No. 43 | Erik Jones & Dave Elenz – Club Wyndham Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
 

Noah Gragson, No. 42 Sunseeker Resorts Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
FacebookTwitterInstagramWebsite
 

Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Stats

– NCS Starts: 1; Best start: 28th; Best finish: 27th (2022)

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Dirt Track Stats (Eldora)

– Starts: 2; Best start: 10th; Best finish: 6th (Eldora, 2018); Top 10s: 2

2023 NCS Season Stats

– Starts: 7, Best start: 10th; Best finish: 12th (Atlanta); Laps led: 1; Current points position: 29th
 

– About Sunseeker Resorts: Opening in 2023, Florida’s newest luxury resort located in Charlotte Harbor is the first resort property of Sunseeker Resorts, a wholly owned subsidiary of Allegiant Travel Company. Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor occupies over 22 waterfront acres with 785 guest rooms, including 189 Signature Sunsuites™. Set upon the Peace River and Florida Gulf Coast, this premier resort offers 20 original food and beverage concepts; including seven stand-alone restaurants, eleven bars and lounges, two poolside offerings and a 25,000-square-foot multi-dining experience. Additional hotel amenities include a waterfront promenade, two unique rooftop and waterfront pool experiences, 60,000-square-feet of combined convention space, full-service spa and salon, a 7,100-square-foot state-of-the-art fitness center with four group exercise studios with specialty instructor lead classes, three retail and market shops, and an 18-hole championship level golf club exclusive to hotel guests only. The resort is conveniently located within a short drive of Punta Gorda, Fort Myers, Sarasota, St. Petersburg-Clearwater, and Tampa airports. For more information, visit www.sunseekerresorts.com. Follow on Instagram: @sunseekerresorts and like us on Facebook: @sunseekerresorts.

– Done dirt before: Gragson has raced at Eldora on dirt in the NASCAR Truck Series in 2017 and 2018. He completed 100% of all possible laps and finished seventh and sixth respectively.

-Non-dirt Bristol stats: While in the Xfinity Series, Gragson compiled an impressive record across his six starts. He won twice at the half-mile track in 2020 and in the fall of 2022. Additionally, the 24-year old driver completed all but four laps at Bristol over the 1,809 laps attempted. Gragson has two top-five and four top-10’s with 89 laps led on the pavement.

– From the Driver’s Seat: “My goal this weekend is to complete all the laps and hopefully have a strong run. I’m not much of a ‘dirt’ guy so its challenging for me to know where on the track I need to run and how sideways I can get the Sunseeker Chevy. We’re up for a new opportunity and new challenge this weekend, I’ve had the experience of running the dirt race at Bristol in the Cup Series last year, and I finished it, so we are looking for some good luck and a good finish.”
 

Erik Jones, No. 43 Club Wyndham Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
FacebookTwitterInstagramWebsite
 

Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Stats

– NCS Starts: 2; Best start: 14th; Best finish: 9th (2021); Top 10s: 1

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Dirt Track Stats (Eldora)

– Starts: 2; Poles: 1 (Eldora, 2014); Best finish: 4th (Eldora, 2015); Top 5s: 1; Top 10s: 1; Laps led: 24

2023 NCS Season Stats

– Starts: 7; Best start: 8th; Best finish: 8th (Atlanta); Top 10s: 1, Laps led: 14, Current points position: 25th
 

– About Club Wyndham: This year, Club Wyndham is offering racing fans 15% off on a bucket list NASCAR vacation. Save on resort stays during race weeks in destinations near select races by booking through Extra Holidays, Club Wyndham’s rental platform. See Offer Details below.* Click to learn more http://www.extraholidays.com/legacy.

*Travel offer details: Book by December 31, 2023. Travel by December 31, 2023. Two-night minimum length of stay required. Valid for new reservations only. Reservations are subject to availability. Reservations may be limited during certain holidays. Cannot be combined with any other offer. All monetary amounts are noted in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise noted.

– Club Wyndham Joins Jones: Club Wyndham will be the primary partner this weekend on the No. 43 Chevrolet. Club Wyndham has been affiliated with Team Ambassador Richard Petty for more than two decades, as “The King” is a Club Wyndham timeshare owner and frequents various resorts and vacation destinations several times a year. This is the second time the Club Wyndham branding will be featured prominently on a racecar, as they were featured on co-owner Jimmie Johnson’s No. 84 for Circuit of the Americas, where he was collected in a first lap accident. Club Wyndham is the nation’s largest vacations club, and will be the primary partner for Johnson’s Coca-Cola 600 entry in May.

– Dirt Runs In The Family: Erik Jones isn’t the only driver in the household. Jones’ fiancée, Holly Shelton, was an accomplished dirt racer in her own right, competing in midgets and sprint cars throughout the country. Shelton became a part of the Toyota Racing Development (TRD) program in 2018, and was able to race for Keith Kunz Motorsports, one of the most accomplished dirt midget teams in the sport. Shelton set the record for the highest-finishing result of a female with a third place finish in a USAC race at Lawrenceburg Speedway, and occasionally gets back behind the wheel of Jones’ outlaw kart at Millbridge Speedway.

– From the Driver’s Seat: Now that you’ve had a year to think about it, how differently do these NextGen cars drive compared to any of the other cars you’ve driven before on dirt?

“Yeah, I don’t really think that the NextGen car drives a whole lot different on dirt compared to the old car. You know, overall, it has some of the same tendencies as what the old car did, but I thought the biggest change last year was due to some of the track prep. It stayed pretty tacky through the race, and we had some rain in the area, so it kind of kept the track in a heavy state, and it made the racing a lot different. I think this year might be kind of the same, it seems like we will still have some of that adverse weather in the area once again, so we’ll see how that plays out, but overall I think the cars are pretty similar.”

LMC PR

Speedway Digest Staff
Follow Me
Latest posts by Speedway Digest Staff (see all)
Post Views: 127