The Bristol dirt weekend will have heat races
Preliminary races will be in place for the NASCAR Cup Series weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
In a tweet released by Fox Sports Reporter Bob Pockrass, NASCAR has decided to use heat races to determine the field for the Food City Dirt Race. Heat racing was previously used in NASCAR during the seven-year Trucks Series stint at the Eldora speedway. Also in 2017, it was used for the Xfinity Dash 4 Cash races to add some excitement to those events.
For those unfamiliar with heat racing, it is a race format that has been synonymous with dirt racing and local short track racing for years. It is very similar to how NASCAR determines the field for the Daytona 500 with the Duel races. Heats usually take place after qualifying and they are usually anywhere between 15% to 25% distance of the actual main event. The purpose of them is to determine which of the cars that were not already locked in by qualifying speed will make the feature event. Although in NASCAR’s case depending on entries, the races will be probably be used to determine the starting grid.
This is the first time the NASCAR Cup Series has used some type of format like this at a track not named Daytona International Speedway in years and it will be interesting to see how the excitement unfolds.
