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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
HEMBREE: Crazy Days At Bristol
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway could be wild...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted March 19, 2010   Bristol, TN
It may be small in size but in terms of action-packed racing Bristol ranks high. (Photo: Getty Images)
If the clouds that typically accompany the perfect storm appear, Bristol Motor Speedway could be the true capital of March Madness this weekend.

If the aftershocks of the Carl Edwards/Brad Keselowski situation weren’t enough, now we have the renewal of the Edwards/Kevin Harvick feud, not to mention the new and narrow nature of the track in turns two and four. In Friday’s first practice, three cars, including that of four-time champion Jimmie Johnson, slipped and slid.

And, in analyzing parts of all this, we have Mark Martin, the Yoda of the garage, announcing to the media that, “I’m not Dr. Phil.”

Is this fun, or what?

At Bristol, there’s racin’ the way it ought’a be before there’s even any racing.

Maybe the weekend will satisfy fans who have been mean to Bristol since the track was repaved and slightly reconfigured prior to the August 2007 race. Officials destroyed the “old” Bristol, they say, the track that had produced some of the best racing on the circuit, the soaring, 160,000-seat structure that sold out race after race because of the promise of calamity.

If you ask the fans – most of them, anyway, racing at Bristol dropped several levels after the repaving, largely because it produced more room, essentially adding a full, second groove. Since that race, drivers have been able to actually race side by side without forcing the issue, and the level of on-track violence has declined.

Drivers almost universally praised the changes; fans piled on to hate them. But the “racing” is better, drivers said. No, it’s not, fans said, voting for the old “I’ll beat you to the corner and then nudge you out of the way if I have to” style of competition at BMS.

Track officials, among the most responsive to fans’ voices on the NASCAR circuit, defended the track changes. But they heard the complaints and saw the quarrelsome hordes.

Among the results is a “new” Bristol this weekend. SAFER barriers have been extended in turns two and four with the idea that the track will be a little safer. The bigger idea, though, and one that was promoted in track publicity about the change, is that the track surface won’t be quite as wide.

And you know what that means. There’s no riddle here.

Wrecks. Mayhem. Chaos.

Maybe Edwards will run into Brad the K or Harvick will sneak through the corner and punch Edwards in the quarter-panel.

Sunday could be a landmark day at BMS, and not in a good way. Remarkably, the track has sold out 55 consecutive Sprint Cup races. As of Friday, many tickets remain available for Sunday’s race, and no one will be surprised if the event doesn’t reach the sellout level.

If Harvick calls Edwards “fake” again and Edwards repeats his view that Harvick is a “bad person” and Keselowski goes three-wide to pass both of them and there’s a huge crash in turn one on the 10th lap, maybe that will be racin’ the way it ought’a be at Bristol again.

Stay tuned. And wear your helmet.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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