2024 Food City 500

The 2024 Food City 500 was a NASCAR Cup Series race held on March 17, 2024, at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. Contested over 500 laps on the short track, it was the fifth race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Denny Hamlin won the race. Martin Truex Jr. finished 2nd, and Brad Keselowski finished 3rd. Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five, and John Hunter Nemechek, Chris Buescher, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs, and Christopher Bell rounded out the top ten.

The race achieved prominent attention because of the combination of very serious tire wear to where drivers slowed their pace up to three seconds a lap and rampant passing to where the lead changed a NASCAR short track record 54 times.

Later, Hamlin was fined and the team stripped of all points from the race, and 31 additional points (75 points overall lost) when Toyota admitted they had broken NASCAR's sealed engine policy by rebuilding the race-winning engine from this race before it could be inspected.

Report

Background

Bristol Motor Speedway, formerly known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway, is a NASCAR short track venue located in Bristol, Tennessee. Constructed in 1960, it held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961. Bristol is among the most popular tracks on the NASCAR schedule because of its distinct features, which include extraordinarily steep banking combined with short length, an all concrete surface, two pit roads, and stadium-like seating.

In 2021, the race shifted to a dirt surface version of the track and was renamed the Food City Dirt Race.

On September 15, 2023, Bristol Motor Speedway announced that the race would return to being run on concrete.

Entry list

* (R) denotes rookie driver.
* (i) denotes driver who is ineligible for series driver points.

Practice

Ryan Blaney was the fastest in the practice session with a time of 15.028 seconds and a speed of .

Practice results

Qualifying

Ryan Blaney scored the pole for the race with a time of 15.356 and a speed of .

Qualifying results

Race

Race results

Stage Results

Stage One
''Laps:'' 125

Stage Two
''Laps:'' 125

* Hamlin was stripped of all points from this race as part of a 75 point penalty because of an engine violation admitted by Toyota in August 2024.

Final Stage Results

Stage Three
''Laps:'' 250

NOTE: On August 22, 2024, the No. 11 team was fined $100,000 with a 75 point penalty after Toyota officials admitted they had disassembled the No. 11 engine from Bristol, removing the NASCAR-imposed seals, before the engine could be presented to NASCAR for inspection. By rule, the long block must be reused during further races in the season, and the engine inspection is done after the engine has reached its end of life cycle before being rebuilt. A long block denotes the engine block, pistons, crankshaft, cylinder heads, valvetrain, and camshaft from that engine must be sealed with a NASCAR tag and when the engine is reused, must stay identical without being rebuilt. Those parts cannot be replaced.

During the August 2024 Daytona qualifying broadcast, Steve Letarte noted the engine was then used at the Goodyear 400 in May, but was not inspected by NASCAR after the race and instead, the long block was disassembled and rebuilt by Toyota in its Costa Mesa, California factory.

Race statistics

* Lead changes: 54 among 16 different drivers
* Cautions/Laps: 9 for 98 laps
* Red flags: 0
* Time of race: 3 hours, 20 minutes and 41 seconds
* Average speed:

Media

Television

The Food City 500 was carried by Fox in the United States. Mike Joy, Clint Bowyer, and three-time Bristol winner Kevin Harvick called the race from the broadcast booth. Jamie Little and Regan Smith handled pit road for the television side, and Larry McReynolds provided insight from the Fox Sports studio in Charlotte.

Radio

PRN had the radio call for the race which was simulcasted on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. Doug Rice and Mark Garrow called the race in the booth when the field raced down the frontstretch. Rob Albright called the race from atop the turn 3 suites when the field raced down the backstretch. Brad Gillie, Brett McMillan and Wendy Venturini covered the action on pit lane for PRN.

Standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings

;Manufacturers' Championship standings

*Note: Only the first 16 positions are included for the driver standings.

References

{{2024 NASCAR Cup

Food City 500
Food City 500
Food City 500
NASCAR races at Bristol Motor Speedway