The first of two stops at Bristol Motor Speedway is this weekend with the Food City 500. The drivers are back at it after a week off for the Easter holiday. This race was held on dirt from 2021-23 and that experiment flopped badly, so it went back to the concrete for 2024. This will be the third straight iteration that will be held on the concrete oval since returning to normal.

This is the eighth race of 36 for the Cup Series season, which includes three road course races as mentioned, a street course in Coronado, a revamped playoff format, the second annual In-Season Challenge, and a whole lot of exciting Saturdays and Sundays for race fans and bettors.

How to Watch The Food City 500

When: Sunday, April 12, 2026

Where: Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, TN

Time: 3:00 p.m. ET

Channel: FS1

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2026 NASCAR Cup Series Winners and Standings

Through seven races, we have four winners, as Chase Elliott picked up his first victory of the season a couple weeks ago at Martinsville. Tyler Reddick won the first three races of the season and then again at Darlington. Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin are the only other drivers with a win so far and 

Despite his lowest finish of the season at Martinsville, Reddick still has a big lead with 353 points. Blaney picked up his fifth top-10 finish of the campaign and sits in second place with 271 points. Hamlin was extremely close to picking up his second win, as he won Stage 1 and Stage 2, plus led the most laps, but wound up second. He’s third in total points with 259 points. Elliott’s third top-five finish and first win pushed him into fourth with 249 points. William Byron fills out the top five.

The postseason format has changed and so has the qualification, as winning a race isn’t guaranteed to result in a playoff spot. The top 16 in points get in and there are no rounds in the postseason now, so it’s just a sprint to see who can accumulate the most points.

Food City 500 Winners

As mentioned, this is the first of two stops at Bristol, with the second one coming in the Night Race on Sept. 19 as part of the playoffs. That means that we have a lot of data points here. Obviously we do need to parse out the dirt race data, since that’s not relevant at all to running on the concrete track. The winners in those dirt races were Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, and Christopher Bell. The winners in the last seven concrete track races have been Bell, Larson x3, Hamlin x2, and Chris Buescher.

Larson has led nearly 30% of the laps on this track when he has been out there. There haven’t been a whole lot of surprises on this track of late, including top-five and top-10 finishers. Don’t get too cute this week. A short price and a popular driver is likely to win.

Food City 500 Predictions

For the latest odds and VSiN’s NASCAR Best Bets, head to our NASCAR Hub to see Steve Makinen’s simulation results and more stats on the drivers.

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