Food City 500

The Food City 500 is an annual 500-lap, 266.5-mile (428.9 km)NASCAR Cup Series race held at the Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. This is one of two NASCAR races held at Bristol, the other being the Bass Pro Shops Night Race. It became the first venue to host the Car of Tomorrow, a race won by Kyle Busch. For much of its history, from 1961 to 1992 the race was run on the original asphalt surface, then on concrete from 1993 to 2020 after Bristol changed surfaces, but was moved to a dirt layout beginning in 2021, under the name Food City Dirt Race. Since 2024, the race returned the concrete oval.^[1]

Ty Gibbs is the defending race winner.

In 2008, Bristol Motor Speedway President & General Manager Jeff Byrd requested that NASCAR move the spring race to a later Spring date, to avoid the problems with rain, snow, and sleet that hit the area in late winter and early spring. This was not carried out until 2015.^[2] In 2015, the race moved from mid-March to April.^[3]

In 2011, title sponsor Food City announced it would honor former Speedway President and General Manager Jeff Byrd, who died in October 2010, by renaming the 2011 Spring race the Jeff Byrd 500 presented by Food City.^[4]

In 2015, the race was renamed the Food City 500 In Support Of Steve Byrnes And Stand Up To Cancer to support NASCAR on Fox broadcaster Steve Byrnes in his battle with cancer, in association with the Entertainment Industry Foundation.^[5]

The 2020 race was dubbed the Food City presents the Supermarket Heroes 500 to honor grocery store workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[6]

• 1968: David Pearson ganó tras un largo duelo con Richard Petty y LeeRoy Yarbrough en una carrera que tuvo un lugar destacado en la serie de televisión Car and Track .
• 1971: Pearson ganó después de empujar a James Hylton contra el muro; Pearson superó a Richard Petty después de que este remontara una desventaja de dos vueltas.
• 1972: El mecánico (y posteriormente propietario de un coche) Junior Johnson presenció la primera de una plétora de victorias en Bristol durante las dos décadas siguientes, cuando Bobby Allison condujo su Chevrolet hacia una victoria fácil.
• 1973: Al volante del Chevrolet de Junior, Cale Yarborough lideró las 500 vueltas, una hazaña que repitió en Nashville en 1978 y que Jeff Burton logró en el New Hampshire International Speedway en el año 2000.
• 1974: Los Chevrolet coparon los diez primeros puestos, liderados por Yarborough.
• 1975: Richard Petty logró la que fue apenas su segunda victoria en Bristol.
• 1977: Cale lideró todas las vueltas excepto cinco en una carrera en la que otros cinco pilotos (incluida Janet Guthrie ) necesitaron asistencia.
• 1979: Después de que Cale chocara con Buddy Baker , el novato Dale Earnhardt consiguió su primera victoria.
• 1981: Darrell Waltrip condujo el Buick de Johnson y superó por poco a Ricky Rudd , quien manejaba el antiguo auto de Waltrip, el Oldsmobile de DiGard Racing . Joe Millikan tuvo un accidente con Benny Parsons y dijo: "Perdí los estribos", a lo que el dueño del auto, Bud Moore, prometió: "Haré que Millikan recupere la calma".
• 1984: Waltrip logró su séptima victoria consecutiva en Bristol y la octava consecutiva para Junior Johnson .
• 1986: Rusty Wallace logró su primera victoria profesional.
• 1987: Dale Earnhardt se vio involucrado en varios accidentes camino a la victoria; Richard Petty terminó segundo.
• 1989: Wallace sobrevivió a una carrera caótica con múltiples accidentes y un intento de victoria sorpresa de Greg Sacks .
• 1990: A spirited event ended in a wild finish; Sterling Marlin was spun out by Ricky Rudd on the final lap while Davey Allison held off a last-lap charge from Mark Martin to win by inches.
• 1991: Grasping for a solution to pit road crashes emanating from numerous incidents in 1990 (and never considering revoking the pit closure rule that was the ultimate cause), NASCAR had banned tire changes under yellow; for Bristol, this was replaced with the staggering of pit stops based on qualifying line — all "odd" cars (qualified first, third, etc.) would pit first under yellow while "even" cars would pit a lap later; the cars were denoted "odd" and "even" with stickers on their windshields after qualifying; restarts would be double-file based on "odd" and "even" stickered cars. More "even" cars wound up in contention, and this created chaos. Rusty Wallace was able to pass cars under caution to move into his proper restart line, and this helped him come back from two laps down on two occasions. The lead changed 41 times, a short track record, as Wallace edged Ernie Irvan at the finish. Sterling Marlin suffered burns in a fiery melee and needed relief help in subsequent weeks from Charlie Glotzbach.
• 1992: Alan Kulwicki won the race; the last to be held at Bristol before the switch from asphalt to concrete pavement.
• 1993: Wallace dominated days after defending race winner, and defending Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki died in a plane crash.
• 1994: An ill-timed yellow trapped Geoff Bodine a lap down and put Dale Earnhardt into the lead en route to the win. Bodine had begun dominating the race in the car formerly owned by Kulwicki and running Hoosier Tires; with the Hoosiers Bodine was able to skip tire changes that Goodyear-shod cars had to make.
• 1995:Jeff Gordon took the win, his third in the season's first six races; the race saw notable performances resulting in top-five finishes for Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Hamilton.
• 1997: Gordon punted Rusty Wallace sideways on the final lap for the win.
• 1999: Wallace ran away at the end, while John Andretti rallied to finish fourth; Andretti's Petty Enterprises Pontiac was impounded after the race as NASCAR had a disagreement with the engine's compression ratio; the engine, though, cleared on reinspection.
• 2000:Rusty Wallace scores his 50th NASCAR Cup Series win.
• 2001: Elliott Sadler superó a Andretti para conseguir su primera victoria, y el primer doblete para Wood Brothers y Petty Enterprises desde 1977.
• 2002: Con NASCAR usando una gran carga aerodinámica en los autos mediante un gran alerón trasero y una baja distancia al suelo del faldón de aire, y usando neumáticos muy duros, Kurt Busch entró a boxes en la vuelta 325 y no volvió a visitar los boxes. Le arrebató el liderato a Jimmy Spencer y se llevó su primera victoria en la Winston Cup. Esta maniobra fue uno de varios incidentes que ocurrieron entre Busch y Spencer en lo que se estaba convirtiendo en una acalorada rivalidad. Rusty Wallace estaba tan indignado por la forma en que Busch ganó la carrera (al no entrar a boxes cuando otros lo hicieron y, por lo tanto, ganar con neumáticos viejos sin pérdida de velocidad) que presionó a NASCAR para que redujera la carga aerodinámica y usara neumáticos más blandos en años posteriores para forzar las paradas en boxes.

  

• 2003: En la que fue la carrera número 2000 en la historia de la NASCAR Cup Series, Kurt Busch se recuperó de un trompo para ganar la carrera. También durante la carrera, Kyle Petty fue golpeado por Ward Burton en la parte trasera izquierda, lo que provocó que girara bruscamente y se estrellara contra el muro del lado del conductor. El choque de Petty fue entonces el más fuerte registrado por la caja negra, registrando una fuerza de 80 G sobre Petty.
• 2004: La última carrera de Pontiac en la Cup Series en su conjunto, ya que el coche número 02 de Hermie Sadler terminó en el puesto 31.
• 2005: Un leve contacto entre Bobby Hamilton Jr. y Ken Schrader en la vuelta 332 provocó un choque múltiple de 14 autos. Si bien Kevin Harvick fue el ganador, Bobby Labonte, quien terminó en el puesto 22 , finalizó 32 vueltas atrás, algo poco común en la serie durante las 25 temporadas anteriores.
• 2007: Debutó el chasis de quinta generación de la NASCAR Cup Series . Después de que Joe Gibbs Racing dominara la carrera, Kyle Busch condujo un Hendrick Chevy hasta la victoria y luego criticó duramente la poca capacidad de carrera del Gen 5 en el podio.
• 2008: La última carrera de Dale Jarrett .
• 2010: Jimmie Johnson consigue su victoria número 50 en la Sprint Cup Series, pero la primera en Bristol.
• 2011: Tras el fallecimiento del presidente del circuito, Jeff Byrd, a finales de 2010, Food City y Bristol Motor Speedway acordaron nombrar la carrera en memoria de Byrd en un acuerdo que solo duraría un año.
• 2013:Kyle Busch won the pole with a then-new track qualifying record at 14.813 seconds (129.535 mph). Kasey Kahne won his first Bristol race. The race also marked the start of a feud between Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano, after Hamlin spun Logano during the race.

• 

  2014: Denny Hamlin started on pole with a new track record, his first pole of the season. The race was delayed twice, just like the Daytona 500, for rain. Matt Kenseth was involved in a wreck at lap 163 when Timmy Hill rear-ended into him after caution was called for a spin by Cole Whitt. Carl Edwards was leading with a few laps left when a mysterious caution was out. During an attempt for a green–white–checkered finish, the rain started falling and the race was unable to be restarted and would end under caution.
• 2015: The race was scheduled to begin at noon ET and be televised by Fox, but rain delayed the start for 79 minutes. A crash between teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano brought out the caution on lap 19. During the caution, rain began to fall again. The rain was delayed until night and because Fox had another programming, aired on Fox Sports 1. The race resumed at approximately 6:30 p.m. ET, almost 5 hours after the 1st green flag. Although rain threatened to end the race twice, the race was run to completion. Matt Kenseth won, breaking a 51 race winless streak.
• 2018: Rain and four red flags plagued the race on Sunday only getting in 204 laps with the race continuing and concluding on Monday. It tied the record for most red flags in a single NASCAR race with the 2015 Quicken Loans 400, also red-flagged four times. All four red flags in that event were due to weather. Kyle Larson led the most laps for the second straight year (200) but got spun by the lapped car of Ryan Newman at lap 325. Larson was back in the lead with less than 100 laps to go; he was heading for victory until pole-sitter Kyle Busch performed the "Bump n' Run" on Larson with 6 laps to go to steal the win, his 7th at Bristol.
• 2021: The NASCAR Cup Series ran its first race on dirt since 1970 (51 years). After multiple accidents took out several of the pre race favorites, Joey Logano survived an overtime restart to become the first Cup Series driver to win on dirt in the modern era.
• 2022: On the last lap, Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe battled for the win with Reddick in position for his first career Cup Series win. In Turn 3, Briscoe sent it in hard to pass Reddick and the two ended up making contact sending both of them spinning around. Reddick got back going but was passed just before the start-finish line by the 3rd place car in Kyle Busch and Busch took home the win with Reddick in 2nd.
• 2024: The race featured a record high 54 lead changes with an early March date and cooler temperatures creating a situation with tire wear issues that was later found to have been caused by cooler ambient and surface temperatures. Denny Hamlin would end up winning the race, but was penalized when Toyota Racing Development disassembled the engine before NASCAR could inspect the engine.

• 1973: Race started on March 11 but suspended until March 25 after 52 laps due to rain.
• 1974: Race shortened due to energy crisis.
• 1985: Race postponed from March 31 due to rain.
• 1996: Race shortened due to rain.
• 2007–09, 2015, 2021 and 2026: Races extended due to NASCAR overtime.
• 2014: Race extended due to NASCAR overtime, but overtime restart was aborted and race called due to rain.^[76]
• 2017: Race postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain.^[77]
• 2018: Race suspended until Monday due to rain.^[78]
• 2020: Race postponed from April 5 to May 31 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[79]
• 2021: Race postponed from Sunday to Monday due to heavy rain and flash flooding.^[80]

• Bristol Motor Speedway race results at Racing-Reference