Team Chevy’s Carson Hocevar and Alex Bowman survived a wild night under the lights at Bristol Motor Speedway to lead Chevrolet to the checkered-flag in the top-10, with the pair driving their Chevrolet-powered machines to seventh- and eighth-place results, respectively. Four Team Chevy drivers will leave the high-banked half-mile with a ticket into the Round of 12 including Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, William Byron and Chase Elliott, and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain.

· Looking for a playoff upset triumph in Tennessee, AJ Allmendinger and the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet team paced the NASCAR Cup Series to the green-flag from the pole position for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The California native quickly claimed the top position – already approaching lap traffic before the opening stage hit Lap 20. But shortly thereafter, a handful of drivers began to endure early tire wear including Allmendinger, who was forced to give up his track position just shy of the 30-lap marker to bring his car to pit road for his first stop of the day. Tire wear quickly became the name of the game, with the majority of the field starting to follow suit with a trip to pit road. Kyle Larson was one of the few drivers to make it almost to the halfway point of Stage One – driving his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet up to the runner-up position before making the trip to pit road on Lap 59 for a fresh set of Goodyear tires. With the ultimate goal to make the opening stage a two-stop strategy, the first caution of the evening at Lap 80 forced the Cliff Daniels-led team to make a quick pivot for an alternate strategy.

· The unpredictable opening stage finally came to a close with Team Chevy playoff contender, William Byron, collecting third-place points to lead the Bowtie brigade to the first green-whited checkered flag. Entering the elimination race with an already strong points cushion, Larson was able to officially punch his ticket into the Round of 12 at the conclusion of Stage One.

· Nearing the halfway point of Stage Two, four Team Chevy drivers led the field in positions gained with Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar topping the list at +12 positions earned as the driver climbed up to the runner-up position. Hocevar ultimately inherited the lead for one lap before being called to pit road for a scheduled stop with 40 laps to go in the stage. As the field quickly cycled through under the green-flag pit cycle, it took the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet team just a handful of laps to find their way back to the front of the pack. A late-stage caution set up a four-lap shoot-out to the end of the stage. With a strong stop by the No. 48 pit crew, Alex Bowman lined up third for the restart – holding onto the position to lead the manufacturer to the end of Stage Two.

· Sitting in a ‘win and advance’ position, the Blake Harris-led team opted for track position under the final stage break to give Bowman the second position for the restart. Struggling to take off on older tires, the No. 48 Chevrolet fell to the sixth position before yet another set of cautions shook-up the leaderboard. It was tumultuous final stage for a handful of playoff contenders including Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott, who was running in the 10th position before getting collected in an incident that ultimately ended the No. 9 Chevrolet team’s race early. With the assist from a 28-point cushion heading into the race, the 2020 champion was able to keep his title hopes alive to secure a position in the Round of 12.

TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL TOP-10 RESULTS:

POS. DRIVER

7th – Carson Hocevar

8th – Alex Bowman

Chevrolet’s season statistics with 29 NASCAR Cup Series races complete:

Wins: 12

Poles: 11

Top-Fives: 54

Top 10s: 117

Stage Wins: 22
UP NEXT: The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 12 will get underway at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with the Mobil 1 301 on Sunday, September 21, at 2 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on the USA Network, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

Post-Race Driver Quotes:

Ross Chastain, No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

Finished: 19th

“We survived. For tonight in our No. 1 Moose Chevy, to run those couple laps at the beginning of the race, we were just ripping and rolling along. I saw the No. 16 tank and realized it was a tire wear race. We just had no idea. I think the whole field was caught off guard, but we’ve got to understand when that’s coming. We’ve got some data points now from this track to see what was the same.

Across the board, we just survived. We’re qualifying better, and we have to take that to New Hampshire and on. I’ll be leaning on my teammate, Shane van Gisbergen, for the Charlotte ROVAL. We just have to keep working. The coolest part about this is we’ll wake up Monday morning and go to work.”

Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Finished: 28th

“We just couldn’t go as far as the field on tires. Our setup just wasn’t conducive to that, and then no matter how easy I went, it was just chewing tires. It was just an unfortunate night for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / Winchester Chevrolet team. I just wish we would have had the ability to run as long as the other guys and I think we would have been OK. I tried a lot to save it, but it was just out of my hands.”

Kyle Busch, No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Finished: 16th

“The No. 8 Lucas Oil Chevrolet team battled the entire race tonight at Bristol Motor Speedway but we came up short. We struggled in qualifying and got a lap down early, but we gave it our all to the end. We battled some front end issues, and briefly drove our way inside the Top 10, as we worked strategically to manage our tires. We’re leaving Bristol with a 16th-place finish, and we’ll continue to chase the win next weekend in New Hampshire.”

Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Sidelined by damage sustained in an accident in the final stage.

Finished: 38th

Elliott on the accident that ended his race early in the final stage.

“The No. 22 (Joey Logano) got position on me. I thought I was doing the smart thing just trying to get back to the bottom. I guess I thought I was clear back down in line. I visually saw the gap, so I just tried to get back in line and I got a huge shot from behind. I’m not sure if the No. 42 (John H. Nemechek) got pushed in there or he wasn’t expecting me to come back to the bottom or what the reasoning was, but nonetheless, it happened and it’s done.”

It looked like you had turned things around. You had restarted 10th on that last restart. How sketchy were the tires out there, and what did you learn over the course of the first part of the race?

“It was super sketchy. It was hard to know how hard to push. Our No. 9 NAPA Chevy was really good for a few laps, and then I felt like we struggled. We had spent the majority of the night in the back of the pack, just trying to get ourselves back in position and back on the lead lap. Once we did and we got back up towards the front, I just felt like we needed some balance adjustments there once we started running the pace of the leaders. We were working on it and making it better.”

How did the tire wear force you to change your style of driving?

“I don’t know that it forced you to change your style as much as it was just where you were running and how much pace you were pushing. We were in such a terrible position getting trapped a lap down early. We were probably a little late to realize that we needed to stop. But on the same token, if it goes green, it probably would have worked out OK for us. Being in the back of the pack versus being upfront was certainly a big difference in how I was driving the car. We were working on our balance and it was slowly getting better.”

William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Finished: 12th

Byron on the tire wear:

“We only had one run that I felt like was weird with the scuffs. Other than that, all the tires felt pretty normal. It was just so weird and hard to predict. It was just chaotic. From around 10th on back, there were just people running into each other, and then you had differences in tires. If they were four laps different, you just couldn’t make the corner and wrecks would happen everywhere.”

Austin Hill, No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Finished: 25th

“Really proud of our United Rentals Chevrolet team. We had a top-18 or 20 car if we didn’t lose the laps at the beginning of the race, but no one expected the tires to wear like they did. It caught us all by surprise. From that first run, it was just managing the situation the best we could. Everyone worked extremely hard this week and I’m glad we were able to leave with a solid run. This No. 33 group should be proud and we have one more crack at it in Talladega.”

Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Finished: 8th

What more did you need tonight?

“When we had some green-flag runs, I thought our No. 48 Ally Chevy was really good. It just cycled really poorly on restarts. I would drive off into turn one and just hope to make the corner. For whatever reason, it just wouldn’t take off, and then after five laps or so, it would go again. I just couldn’t figure it out if it was something I was doing. I felt like I was cleaning the tires off too much sometimes, so I don’t really know what we lacked there.

Just proud of everyone at Hendrick Motorsports for the fight. We obviously had a shot at it if we would have gone green to the end. We had a good Ally Chevy compared to yesterday. We made some gains on it and still have some gains we need to make.”

Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet

Finished: 7th

Obviously, you’re disappointed after that one. What are the emotions?

“It sucks, but we had a shot to win. We can only control what we can control. We don’t have a crystal ball up there with the yellows. I am just proud of this No. 77 Delaware Life Chevrolet team. We got caught out really early, and we were able to execute there with tire saving, managing and just executing at a top caliber. If things go green there, we would have had a huge tire advantage, but it just didn’t work out. I’m just super proud of this group. There were a lot of times where I felt like we had a shot to win races, and we were 30th. Man, obviously we really wanted that one to work out there or at least see if it would have, especially for a new pit crew. This team really wants to win, and you can only ask for shots.”

Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

Finished: 26th

“It was a pretty wild night. I got run over once by a guy that was pretty average, but the rest of it, I just needed to put myself in better spots and understand what was going on earlier in the race. I just made it hard on myself early.”

When you look at the difference between practice and the race, how much of a wrench did that throw into it?

“Guys have had experience with the tire wear before with last year’s race. I just didn’t understand how to manage the tire wear early enough. Our No. 88 Wendy’s Breakfast Baconator Chevrolet was decent at the end. We got the car handling better for what I needed. I was just too hard on the tires with the way I was driving the car.”

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