Bristol front row set
Ryan Blaney won Cup Series qualifying at Bristol to take the pole for Sunday’s Food City 500, with Tyler Reddick joining him on the front row and the Cup race slated to start at 3 p.m. ET on FS1. (nascar.com) (sports.yahoo.com) Earlier in the weekend Connor Zilisch charged late to win the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race, edging out a dominant Kyle Larson in that support series finish. (nascar.com)
Ryan Blaney will start first in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol after edging Tyler Reddick by 0.023 seconds in Cup Series qualifying on April 11. (nascar.com) Blaney’s best lap was 15.101 seconds, or 127.064 miles per hour, in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford on the second of his two qualifying laps. Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota qualified second at 126.871 miles per hour. (nascar.com) The race is scheduled for Sunday, April 12, at 3 p.m. Eastern time at Bristol Motor Speedway, with television coverage on Fox Sports 1 and streaming on HBO Max. Chase Briscoe and Riley Herbst make up the second row, with Ty Gibbs fifth in the starting order. (nascar.com) (sports.yahoo.com) At Bristol, qualifying matters more than at many larger tracks because the concrete oval is 0.533 miles long and traffic builds quickly. Starting near the front can help a driver avoid going a lap down early if long green-flag runs develop. (nascar.com) (bristolmotorspeedway.com) Reddick brings the strongest win total into the front row. NASCAR’s recap said he will be trying for his fifth victory of the 2026 season when the green flag drops Sunday. (nascar.com) Blaney said after qualifying that Bristol’s 750-horsepower rules package can be “a handful,” a sign that speed alone may not settle the race over 500 laps. The short track’s banking and heavy traffic usually put tire wear, restarts and lapped cars in play by the middle stages. (bristolmotorspeedway.com) Saturday’s support race added another Bristol example of how quickly control can change. Connor Zilisch stayed out on older tires with 28 laps left in the Suburban Propane 300 and then held off Kyle Larson, who had led 230 of 300 laps and swept the first two stages. (nascar.com) That finish left Bristol with two different story lines in 24 hours: Blaney converting one fast lap into the top Cup starting spot, and Zilisch showing that track position can still beat the dominant car. Sunday’s race starts with Blaney in the clean air everyone else spent the weekend chasing. (nascar.com 1) (nascar.com 2)
