NASCAR Live Race Updates: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol

Saturday night marks the end of the line for the quest for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship for four drivers. Which of the 16 drivers in the Playoff field will walk out of Saturday night's Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol on the outside looking in? That will be the big storyline that everyone follows throughout the night and evening.

This is the Racing America On SI live-race updates page for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol. Leading up to, and throughout Saturday night's race, this page will be updated with key pre-race updates, in-race updates such as lead changes, and videos of crashes or incidents. Also included will be stage and race results, and more. Continue checking back for additional updates on the final race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16.

Pre-Race Updates

Bass Pro Shops Night Race Pre-Race Info

The Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway will be televised on USA Network and can be streamed on the HBO Max streaming platform, as well as the NBC Sports App. The race broadcast will begin at 7:30 PM ET.

The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of Sunday's race. For subscribers of the HBO Max streaming service, NASCAR Driver Cam, which streams live in-car camera footage from every car in the field, will be available for today's race.

The overall race purse, which teams will fight for their portion of in Sunday's race, is a total of $10,447,135.

The race distance is 500 laps around the 0.533-mile concrete high-banked oval, which equates to a 266.5-mile race distance.

The Bass Pro Shops Night Race will be broken up into three Stages. Stage 1 will end at the conclusion of Lap 125. Stage 2 will end at the conclusion of Lap 250. And the race is scheduled to finish at the end of Lap 500, barring an Overtime finish.

The winner of Stages 1 and 2 will be awarded one Playoff Point, and the overall race winner will be awarded five Playoff Points. The Playoff Points will be added to the reseeded point totals in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and will be carried through each round of the Playoffs.

This race is the final race of the three-race Round of 16 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. If one of the 16 drivers in the Playoffs wins this event, they will automatically advance to the Round of 12 of the Playoffs. Chase Briscoe locked his spot into the Round of 12 with a win last weekend at Darlington Raceway, and Denny Hamlin achieved the same last weekend at Gateway.

Four of the 16 drivers in the Playoff field will be eliminated from championship contention at the conclusion of Saturday night's elimination race.

Kyle Larson, who drives the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, is the defending winner of this race. Larson is a Playoff driver, so a repeat win for him in this race would move him onto the next round of the Playoffs.

AJ Allmendinger Takes First NASCAR Cup Pole in More Than 10 Years

It had been more than 10 years since AJ Allmendinger last took a pole position in the NASCAR Cup Series. Since Allmendinger's last pole at Watkins Glen in August 2015, three United States Presidential Elections have been conducted.

But on Friday afternoon, Allmendinger rose to the occasion in NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Bristol Motor Speedway and he secured the pole by 0.003 seconds over Ryan Blaney to claim his fifth career pole.

Bass Pro Shops Night Race Starting Lineup

Click here for the full official starting lineup for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race.

Playoff Picture Heading Into Bristol

Saturday night's Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway marks the final of three races in the Round of 16 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. At the end of the evening, four drivers will be eliminated from Playoff contention.

Heading into the race, Denny Hamlin, who won last week's race at Gateway, and Chase Briscoe, who won the opening race of the Round of 16 at Darlington, are officially set to move onto the Round of 12, regardless of where they finish at Bristol.

Kyle Larson enters the race 60 points above the Playoff cutline, and is a virtual lock to move on. Bubba Wallace sits 50 points above the cutline, and also looks to be relatively safe. The remainder of the 12 drivers above the cutline heading into Saturday night include: Ryan Blaney (+42 points), William Byron (+39), Tyler Reddick (+37), Christopher Bell (+32), Chase Elliott (+28), Joey Logano (+21), Ross Chastain (+19), and Austin Cindric (+11).

Austin Dillon is the first driver outside the cutline, and he sits 11 points on the outside looking in, while Shane van Gisbergen is 14th in the Playoff Grid, 15 points back. Both of those drivers could conceivably make up the point deficit to advance to the Round of 12 without a win.

However, for Alex Bowman (-35 points) and Josh Berry (-45), it'll likely take a win on Saturday night to move on to the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.