iNSIDE SCOOP: The Night The Lights Went Out..Uh, On

The end of the Food City 500 will be debated for a while, because of the bizarre nature of its finish.

It shouldn’t be, but there you go.

First, nobody was catching Cousin Carl. Second, it’s a darn good thing some of the yellow lights flashed on two laps from the finish or else they’d still be picking up sheet metal, carbon fiber and the odd battery pack that would have littered the track once they quit wrecking.

Third, the talk of conspiracy to make sure the chosen driver won the race is more ludicrous than it usually is.

I’ll grant you that it was odd to see the lights flashing in some places and not in others, but it was providential in that the deluge that struck the speedway would have caused more strife than the accidental bumping of the manual override switch. That stuff does happen. Don’t ask me about the time I left the pace-car lights on during a race and I won’t tell you.

Ever been on the flag stand? It’s not a very roomy place to begin with (which is why you don’t see many chunky flagmen, to be honest), and the buttons are all in different places from track to track. Plus, you’ve got the flagman, the assistant and a photographer up there for the finish.

It was gonna happen some time, in other words.

What I’m afraid is going to happen is, people will talk about the botched finish rather than the race, which I thought was a lot better than the previous two at BMS. Of course, the new cable box I got from my provider (who shall remain nameless, even though it just got bought by Comcast) went catawampus over the final 25 laps, and I had to see some of it on replay.

You had a lot of three-wide racing, a lot of decent two-by-two and some pretty nifty nose-to-tail. Cars were fast, they were on the edge and they could go when they needed to. I was at the first CoT race in Bristol back in 2007, and it was a far cry from that race, let me tell you.

There were some holes in the grandstands, sure, but rain will do that for you. I thought it was a representative crowd for the weather. I think the rest of those with tickets were out in the parking lots, researching reservations on the Ark, but that’s just me. It certainly killed the walk-up, that’s for sure.

Did I just write that? Walk-up for Bristol? Yep, sure did. Of course, it’s the spring race, not the Night Race.

I’ve been at this a long time. The first time I went to Bristol was 1990, and Ernie Irvan drove the No. 4 Kodak car to victory for local car owner Larry McClure. There was a mountain where the Turn 2 grandstands are now, and the parking lot for the media center was on the side of a hill. I kid you not. No tunnel, only a crossover gate at Turn 2, and the media center was the size of the Safety Kleen building at Charlotte.

SMI and Bruton Smith have done a great job making it a showplace, and that’s great. It will be a year or two before the crowd comes back, but on the heels of this weekend’s race, they will be back.

Oh, and before I forget…the 48 team lost all that time and all those laps because of something that also happens from time to time. The right front was worn, and it unwound. The suspension angles are fairly radical at BMS, and you’ll cut the tread if you’re not careful.

No conspiracy there, either, so move along, y’all. Nothing to see there…except Chad Knaus’ face turning purple.