There was a night and a day difference between the spring and the fall NASCAR Cup Series races at Bristol Motor Speedway. Before the crucial third race in the first round of the playoffs, all the talk was about preparing for the excess tire wear. An element that threw practically every team in a rough spot back in March, but Sunday’s race was the exact opposite of it.

With no tire wear, the drivers were able to run 100-plus laps of green lap runs, leading to a bland race. Race winner Kyle Larson was able to lead 462 of the 500 laps. While that is a testament to the talent and hard work of the #5 team, questions need to be raised on the state of racing at the historic short oval. And this is exactly what Kyle Busch’s wife Samantha did with her honest review of the Bass Pro Shops Night Race.

Samantha Busch wasn’t impressed by the playoff race at Bristol

Perhaps the teams and the drivers had an idea about how different this race was going to be based on the practice runs. There was practically no tire off, which also saw NASCAR opt for PJ1 over the resin for spraying on the inside lane. The idea behind spraying the chemical is to add multiple groves on the racing surface, which is why we saw drivers running the inside line.

But, that hardly mattered, as keeping the track position was the only thing drivers needed to focus on, and that is what Larson did. With no real strategy or gains on the pit road, drivers just ran green laps without much difficulty. This was supposed to be a thrilling race event, being the last one of the first round. However, it turned out to be a tough watch for the fans and even some insiders.

Kyle Busch’s wife throwing shades at the Next Gen car expressed her disappointment on X. “Not just saying this bc we didn’t run well, but can we all agree the only exciting part of the race was watching Owen celebrate w Kyle. Can’t remember a Bristol race being that blah in long time. Time to cancel this race car.”

It looks like Kyle Busch wasn’t able to hold his own and continue on his streak of good runs at Bristol. After four back-to-back top 10 results, Busch ended with a P30 finish at Watkins Glen and was unable to make any progress at Bristol, settling for a P25 finish. Although Rowdy isn’t in the hunt for the title, but with just 7 races left in the season, his record of a 20th year win streak in NASCAR could be in jeopardy.

However, looking at last Sunday’s race at Bristol, it’s fair to say that NASCAR has still a lot of work to do with the short-track package. All the hype that was created this year with constant experimentation has unfortunately yielded no results.

A look back at NASCAR’s desperate attempts to fix the short-track racing

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“I promise you we are working as hard as we can with Goodyear, and we need to work harder. That’s the bottom line.” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said this after a dull Martinsville race earlier in the season. The Bristol spring race was a success with the excess tire wear. Starting the race with wet weather tires added a different dynamics at Richmond. However, the trends of the past started to follow in from Martinsville, and NASCAR’s relentless efforts haven’t paid off.

In the hopes of trying to replicate the Bristol-like tire wear, Goodyear brought in a new option tire, a softer compound, at the All-Star race. The North Wilkesboro Speedway was a perfect place to test out the new tires. But Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s brawl post-race overshadowed the failed experiment. So, NASCAR found themselves back in a tough spot and tried to roll the dice with the return of short-track racing at Bristol. And once again, NASCAR and Goodyear hit the brick wall.

So what’s next? Will NASCAR hear out the demands for more horsepower for the Next Gen car in trying to solve this issue? Or will they try and stick to their plans of rolling out a new compound with the hopes of finding a new result?