Jeff Burton believes it was no coincidence that veteran drivers made up the top three when the checkered flag waved at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski ruled the afternoon, coming home atop the leaderboard in one of the most entertaining races in recent seasons. Afterwards, Burton took a shot at explaining why the old guard was able to handle the curveball Bristol threw at the sport better than anyone else.
“That certainly has something to do with it,” Burton said, regarding veterans running well at Bristol. “I think the other thing that we saw happening, where drivers got themselves in trouble, is if you were trying to stay on the lead lap. Or you had gotten a lap down, and you were trying to be the first car that’s one lap down when the caution comes out. Those drivers that got put in those positions were forced to push. They were forced to try to make something happen. If you were running P15 or P20, it gave you more — even though that’s not great, it gave you more freedom, to take it easy early in the run. Drivers were working with each other, and then late in the run, if you took care of your tires, they would take care of you later. So track position mattered.
“The ability to not have to push, not have to make those compromises too early in the run, and most of those guys — Brad, early in the race, didn’t have it, but most of those guys had track position, for the majority of the race. And that was a massive luxury.”
While Hamlin, Truex Jr. and Keselowski were able to impress, young star Ty Gibbs also caught Burton’s eye with his performance over the weekend.
“The one time we saw Ty Gibbs, he got in the back. He drove to the front. He drove all the way to the front, but he got a caution. He got a caution. What would have happened had he not gotten that caution? We don’t know, we don’t know. But he went really hard, leaned on his tires. Got his track position back,” Burton added. “We don’t know what would’ve happened if the caution hadn’t come out. Would he had had a tire failure? He wasn’t afraid to push his car. Some of, most everybody else was.”
That first win will come for Ty Gibbs soon, but Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski showed why experience matters on Sunday at Bristol. We’ll see if they can keep up their impressive start to 2024 at COTA this weekend.
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