2007 Food City 500 @ Bristol NEXTEL Cup Event Thread *SPOILERS*

[rustyfan]

It may not be the prettiest nor the fastest kid on the block, but it sure has a way of stirring up emotion wherever it goes. Yes people, it's finally time to see what the Car of Tomorrow can do as the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series leaves the superfast high banks of Atlanta behind and looks toward the even higher banks of Thunder Valley for 500 laps around the awesome, fender-crunching Bristol Motor Speedway.


Track Specs: 0.533-mile concrete oval, 36 degrees of banking in the turns, 16 degrees of banking on the straightaways. Roughly 160,000 grandstand seats.

NEXTEL Cup Qualifying Record: 128.709 mph (14.908 seconds), by Ryan Newman on March 21st, 2003.

NEXTEL Cup Race Record: 101.074 mph (2 hours, 38 minutes, 12 seconds) set by Charlie Glotzbach on July 11th, 1971.


There are 50 cars going for 43 spots. NASCAR.com has posted the entry list.

Regan Smith replaces Mark Martin in the #01 Army Chevy and will make his first career NEXTEL Cup start. A.J. is still hoping to do the same thing, but will have to qualify on speed to make the race.

Chad Chaffin, Jeremy Mayfield and Kevin Lepage are all looking to try and qualify for their first race of the year.


Car of Tomorrow
Ford and Toyota will stick with their current models, while Chevrolet reintroduces the Impala and Dodge switches to the Avenger.

For more information and images of the CoT I recommend you visit Jayski's site about the CoT.


TV: Pre-race show on FOX starts at 1:30pm ET. Green flag is scheduled for 2:10pm ET.

In Scandinavia the TV broadcast gets underway at 19:30 CET on Viasat Sport 3.


My pick for the win: Denny Hamlin