![\"Jimmie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-685508438-e1773332765194.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
NASCAR champions Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch appeared as guest judges in the Season 23 premiere of Bravo\u2019s Top Chef, filmed at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
NASCAR<\/a> champions Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch made an unexpected appearance on television this week \u2014 not at a racetrack, but in the Season 23 premiere of Bravo\u2019s cooking competition Top Chef.<\/p>\n Season 23 of the series opened in North Carolina with its first challenge filmed at Charlotte Motor Speedway<\/a>, where the two NASCAR veterans joined host Kristen Kish and judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons as guest judges.<\/p>\n The high-energy Quickfire Challenge asked contestants to cook against a clock with a distinctly NASCAR twist: teams had to prepare and plate their dishes before a professional driver completed 23 laps around the speedway.<\/p>\n The unique setup blended the fast-paced pressure of professional racing with the culinary competition that has defined the show for more than two decades.<\/p>\n \u2018Top Chef\u2019 Opens New Season at Charlotte Motor Speedway<\/p>\n The premiere episode<\/a>, titled \u201cCarolina Roots,\u201d introduced 15 chefs competing in Top Chef Season 23, which will take place across North and South Carolina.<\/p>\n For the opening Quickfire Challenge, contestants were divided into teams of three and tasked with preparing a dish while race cars circled the 1.5-mile oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n Instead of racing against a traditional timer, the chefs had only as long as it took a driver to complete 23 laps of the track.<\/p>\n Johnson, a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion<\/a> and NASCAR Hall of Fame member, and Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion<\/a>, helped judge the completed dishes alongside the show\u2019s regular panel.<\/p>\n The challenge highlighted the region\u2019s strong connection to motorsports. Charlotte Motor Speedway sits just outside Charlotte, which has long served as the center of the NASCAR industry, with many Cup Series teams headquartered in the surrounding area.<\/p>\n NASCAR and \u2018Top Chef\u2019 Collide in Unusual Crossover<\/p>\n While celebrity guest judges are common on Top Chef, the appearance of Johnson and Busch<\/a> marked an unusual crossover between NASCAR and one of television\u2019s most recognizable cooking competitions.<\/p>\n Filming the premiere at Charlotte Motor Speedway underscored the season\u2019s focus on the Carolinas and the cultural influences that shape the region: from agriculture and food traditions to motorsports.<\/p>\n The Top Chef premiere also isn\u2019t the first time NASCAR has appeared on Bravo programming. The sport has previously been featured on the network in episodes of Vanderpump Rules and The Real Housewives of Orange County, both of which included cast members attending NASCAR races. The Charlotte Motor Speedway challenge in Top Chef, however, marked a rare instance where the drivers themselves were directly involved in the competition.<\/p>\n For NASCAR fans, the episode offered a rare moment where the sport intersected with mainstream entertainment television.<\/p>\n And fittingly, the season began the same way many NASCAR weekends do: under pressure, against the clock, and with competitors racing to finish before time ran out.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMaggie MacKenzie<\/a> Maggie MacKenzie covers NASCAR for Heavy.com. She previously worked for NASCAR.com, where she reported, wrote, and edited race-weekend coverage and traveled to key events throughout the season. She has more than ten years of experience in sports media and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. More about Maggie MacKenzie<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on NASCAR\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty NASCAR champions Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch appeared as guest judges in the Season 23 premiere of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-531906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531906","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=531906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}