By most every measuring stick, the fans seemed to be entertained during the Bass Pro Shops Night Race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, both on and off the track. There was a ton to do off the track, including all the activities in the BMS Fan Zone, DJ Sterl the Pearl and the famed BMS Foam Party on Thursday night, Tim Dugger performing the post-race concert on Friday night, Kenny Wallace and Trackside Live, a packed BMS Track Walk and the Saturday pre-race concert with Grand Ole Opry member Chris Janson just to name some of the fun items. But on the track, the fans were very positive across all social media channels of the tire-management racing action and not being able to predict the race's outcome. This sentiment was verified by Jeff Gluck’s famed “Was It a Good Race?” fan poll, where the Bass Pro Shops Night Race received an 80.6% yes vote. More than 24,000 fans participated in Gluck's poll.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. chimed in on his podcast and through clips on social media saying he thought everything that happened at Bristol over the weekend should be the sport's new "Blueprint" for the at-track experience.

"No matter what version of Bristol you like, I think you got it in one of the three events this weekend," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I was there for the Xfinity race and it felt like one of those weekends that people need. Bring your camper out and spend the weekend with your family and have a great time. What Bristol provided this weekend is the blueprint in my opinion of the weekend that a NASCAR fan wants. For all the other tracks, what Bristol had should be the standard, that should be the bare minimum of what you should expect as a fan if you are going to go and be there at the track... This weekend at Bristol it felt like there was something going on, racing, noise, action-packed, practice, busy place. Bristol felt like a very vintage race with tons of things happening."

HEIM GRABS SIXTH PLACE FINISH TO IMPRESS IN HIS FIRST BRISTOL CUP APPEARANCE

Corey Heim seemingly makes a major headline every time he climbs into the cockpit of a racecar. The Series or level of difficulty doesn’t seem to phase the Marietta, Georgia, driver who appears to be en route to his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship for TRICON Garage this season.

Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, Heim was a late Cup entry into the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, piloting the No. 67 entry for 23XI Racing. A race that presented the teams with a tall challenge of tire-management as Goodyear put softer right tires into play, Heim handled it like a savyy veteran who had hundreds of starts under his belt on the famed concrete high banks.

Some people are gifted to make things look easier than they are, and that’s what Heim did Saturday. It was actually his first Bristol Cup Series start and he hung in with some masters of the craft like he belonged and brought his car home in sixth place. In seven career Cup starts over the past two seasons, the sixth-place effort was Heim’s best career finish to date.

Finishing around him were winner Christopher Bell, veteran Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, defending Cup champ Joey Logano, former Truck champ Zane Smith, super-sophomore Carson Hocevar, Playoff winner Chase Briscoe and another front-runner who was in the conversation for a win, Ty Gibbs.

At one point as Heim was working his way to the front from his 38th place starting spot there were whispers of could this kid actually pull off a feat that only one driver in NASCAR Cup Series history has achieved? Only Dale Earnhardt Sr. has won at Bristol as a rookie and he did it in 1979 at the controls of Rod Osterlund’s baby blue and yellow No. 2 Monte Carlo.

Heim’s sixth-place effort certainly turned heads as most rookies who take on the challenge of Bristol don’t complete all 500 laps and often end up with a crumpled race car and a bruised ego. A quick snapshot of some of the more notable rookies who have been very successful at Bristol in their careers but would love a rookie re-do include Darrell Waltrip (30th), David Pearson (30th), Bobby Allison (32nd), Kurt Busch (42nd), Joey Logano (38th), and Carl Edwards (33rd).

Heim seemed to approach the assignment like it was just another day in the office, and an opportunity to gauge his talent against the top drivers in the sport on an ultra-challenging track in tricky circumstances.

“Yeah, a good result,” Heim said after the race. “Once everyone kind of realized the situation with the tires, we adjusted accordingly and did all of the right things and kept ourselves in it all day. It was a claw to get back on the lead lap after we had a right front go down in stage one, but can’t thank these 23XI Racing guys enough – they stuck with it. Thank you to Toyota and Robinhood for all of the support that went into my five Cup races this year. All the ups and downs that we had – to end on a high note is pretty special. Hopefully we can take that and move forward.” 

To help qualify Heim’s effort at Bristol, in addition to Earnhardt’s mythical rookie performance, there are some pretty special drivers who have posted finishes inside the top-10 as rookies through the years at Thunder Valley. Tony Stewart finished fifth in his first encounter with BMS in 1999. Kevin Harvick posted a second-place finish in 2001 as a Cup rookie for Richard Childress Racing. Heim’s team owner Denny Hamlin also posted a sixth-place finish in his rookie ride at the Colosseum. In 2002 Jimmie Johnson posted a seventh in his maiden Bristol run and Greg Biffle finished fifth in 2003 as a rookie. Chase Elliott finished fourth in 2016 at the Food City 500 and later that year fellow rookie Chris Buescher finished fifth in the Night Race.

Prior to Heim’s effort tonight the most recent rookie to grab a spot inside the top 10 was Ty Gibbs, who put on a show as a rookie in 2023’s Night Race and finished fifth after leading 102 laps of the race that was ultimately won by his teammate Hamlin.

STATS AND STREAKS IN THE WAKE OF A WILD BASS PRO SHOPS NIGHT RACE

For all of the stats geeks out there, let’s review some important nuggets that transpired in all of the chaos of the Bass Pro Shops Night Race.

For the Playoff trackers, the drivers who didn’t advance to the Round of 12 included Alex Bowman, Shane Van Gisbergen, Austin Dillon and Josh Berry. Berry came out swinging with a top 10 starting spot in his No. 21 Wood Brothers machine but he and his team had problems early and literally watched his championship hopes go up in smoke as his car caught fire on lap 75. Bowman also made an admirable charge and finished eighth, but time eventually ran out and he fell 10 points short of advancing.

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Bell’s victory will go down in the lore of the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, which has produced a hefty stack of memorable finishes over the years. And for the record, Bell’s car took a pretty big bump from behind courtesy of Brad Keselowski on the final lap, like it’s almost a prerequisite for there to be bumping of some kind on the final lap at Bristol. However, Bell’s win will be remembered more for his three-wide move with four laps to go and charging into the lead from sixth place on the restart. His No. 20 hit the bottom of the track and wasn’t going to be denied. Bell said after the race that he has had his eyes on this trophy for awhile. “The Bristol Night Race has been my favorite for a long time,” he said. “Just the pre-race ceremonies, all the things Bristol Motor Speedway does. They do such a good job of making this event feel unique, feel special, and it's a big one. This one is definitely high on the list to win.”

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The last two races finished in record time as Kyle Larson ran away from the field and led more than 400 laps in each of those conquests. Saturday’s was not a runaway. The race ended up being the second-slowest race in Bristol history. Only Ned Jarrett’s victory in 1965 took longer at 4 hours and two minutes. The race took three hours and 48 minutes and the race’s 14 cautions resulted in 137 laps, which also goes back to Jarrett’s win where there were 167 caution laps. The 137 caution laps ranks second in the stat book to the 1965 race’s 167.

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Many fans mentioned in their reviews that they were on the edge of their seats trying to keep up with who was in the lead and who might have a shot at winning. Yes, there was a lot going on. All totaled, there were 36 lead changes among 14 drivers, which is second only to the 2024 Food City 500 (the other recent tire-management race) that had 54 lead changes among 16 drivers.

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NASCAR prognosticators continue to pick Ty Gibbs as their next Bristol breakthrough winner and he nearly proved them correct on Saturday as he was up front for a lot of the laps in his black and green No. 54 machine. Gibbs led a race-best 201 laps, but ultimately finished 10th when the checkered flag fell.

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The Joe Gibbs Racing juggernaut continues to roll on in the Playoffs as Bell joined Darlington opener winner Chase Briscoe and race two winner Denny Hamlin in the Round of 16 Victory Lane. JGR team owner Joe Gibbs was thrilled when he met with the media Saturday night. “Yeah, just so excited about the start to the Playoffs,” Gibbs said. “Just appreciate everybody back at our race shop. I talk about that all the time. We'll hang a banner on Monday, and I get a chance to thank them, but it honestly takes everybody to be able to get our cars to the race track like this. We've got fast cars right now. It means a lot.”

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Finally, Kyle Larson’s Bristol streak came to an end at two in a row. He started fifth but finished 32nd in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. For the record, trying to win three Bristol races in a row has proven over the years to be a very difficult task. Only four drivers in NASCAR history have accomplished that feat, including Fred Lorenzen in the 1960s, Cale Yarborough in the 1970s (he won four in a row), Darrell Waltrip in the 1980’s (his streak ended at seven in a row) and Kurt Busch in the early 2000s. Busch was the last to do it, winning both races in 2003 and the spring race in 2004.