{"id":137935,"date":"2025-09-12T06:15:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/137935\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T06:15:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:15:17","slug":"kevin-harvick-picks-nascar-bristol-race-winner-after-naming-contenders-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/137935\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Harvick picks NASCAR Bristol race winner after naming contenders – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-time Bristol Motor Speedway night race winner, Kevin Harvick<\/a>, believes Saturday\u2019s race at the storied Tennessee short-track could see a fellow two-time winner crowned once again under the lights.<\/p>\n

The Bass Pro Shops Night Race will serve as the third and final NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> Round of 16 race, before the Round of 12 commences at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Heading into the race, Cook Out Southern 500 winner Chase Briscoe<\/a> and Enjoy Illinois 300<\/a> winner Denny Hamlin<\/a> are both ensured spots in the next round of the Playoffs, while Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen<\/a>, Alex Bowman, and Josh Berry are all closing in on early exits.<\/p>\n

Heading into Saturday\u2019s race, 2014 Cup Series champion Harvick gave his prediction for who he believes is most likely to reach victory lane, and it doesn\u2019t bode well for any of the fearful four.<\/p>\n

After mentioning both Hamlin and Christopher Bell on the \u2018Harvick\u2019s Happy Hour<\/a>\u2019 podcast, Harvick ultimately landed on Kyle Larson<\/a>, saying, \u201cThe 5 popped up last week with some speed that I hadn\u2019t seen, and Bristol has always been his place. So I\u2019m going to go with Larson.”<\/p>\n

The reigning champion of the night race, Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Larson, also won the race back in 2021, a year after Harvick\u2019s second victory. He enters Saturday third in the Playoff Picture, 60 points above the cutoff line following a 19th-place finish at Darlington and 12th at World Wide Technology Raceway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, co-host Kaitlyn Vincie singled out Team Penske\u2019s Joey Logano<\/a> as her favorite to win at Bristol. Currently 10th in the Playoff Picture with a 21-point buffer to the cutoff line, like Larson, Logano has won the night race twice previously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for fellow co-host Mamba Smith, he predicted that the race would provide them with their \u201cfirst winner from outside of the Playoffs. I think he is going to get his first win of his Cup Series career. Give me 54, Ty Gibbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 114 races between 23XI Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, the 22-year-old has yet to make it to victory lane. However, he did come agonizingly close at Bristol back in April with a third-place finish behind teammate Hamlin and winner Larson.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the race itself, Harvick said the night race always brings with it \u201ca little more flair\u201d compared to Bristol\u2019s Spring race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a racetrack where we can see them go 150, 200 laps, whatever the length of the whole stage is, under green, or we can have 15, 20 cautions,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo you don\u2019t really ever know. But it seems this race has a lot more potential to have crashes when things go wrong than the other races.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it’s an intense place. You\u2019re going to see both grooves open up. They\u2019re going to do everything they can to keep it on the bottom as long as they can with the track treatment and everything that they put into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides their predicted winners, Harvick noted how the race will also see drivers such as those fighting for Playoff survival, as well as those no longer in the Playoff picture, all pursuing their own agendas in what could be \u201ca tough race.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-time Bristol Motor Speedway night race winner, Kevin Harvick, believes Saturday\u2019s race at the storied Tennessee short-track could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[29779,49,48,25423,4386,2332,634,8662,82],"class_list":["post-137935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-bristol-motor-speedway","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-kyle-larson","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-playoffs","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}