TOP FIVE GIVES BRISTOL BOOST TO BUESCHER'S CHASE HOPES

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Chris Buescher took another important step toward earning a berth in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, garnering a hard-fought fifth-place finish in Sunday's rain-delayed Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

It was the second top-five finish of the season for the 23-year old driver of the No. 34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports, and came just three weeks after his first career win in the series.

That win, which came at Pocono Raceway, opened the door for a Chase berth but only if the 2015 XFINITY Series champion could make his way into the top 30 in points.

The finish at Bristol did just that, vaulting him past David Ragan and into 30th place. Teammate Landon Cassill sits 29th, 27 points ahead.

RELATED: How the Chase bubble looks post-Bristol

"I don't know exactly where we're at quite yet, but I know we had to get there," Buescher said on pit road after his top-five finish. "That's Chase eligibility in one race out of the four we had to do it. Now we have to hold onto it."

Sunday's event, the continuation of a race that started Saturday night but was interrupted after just 48 laps due to rain, was also impacted by weather, starting more than three hours late. Kevin Harvick, the 2014 series champion, won, with Ricky Stenhouse (Roush Fenway Racing), Denny Hamlin (Joe Gibbs Racing), Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing) and Buescher completing the top five.

The overnight delay didn't seem to impact the performance of Buescher and his team. After running inside the top 20 for most of the race, Buescher finally cracked the top 10 with 125 laps of the 500-lap race remaining. From there, he steadily worked his way into the top five.

"I'm really proud of this team," he said. "... We knew Bristol would be a good one for us. It took us a day later to do it, but we got ourselves a top-five and had a blast out here. That was an awesome run."

Buescher has only a brief history at Bristol in Sprint Cup competition, finishing 25th here in last year's spring race and 21st earlier this season. In the XFINITY Series, he posted three top 10s in five starts.

"I love Bristol. I absolutely love this race track."

With five laps to go, Buescher had closed on Dillon when his team told him, "You've got room; try him if you can." Another position would mean another point earned. Buescher said the risk of losing spots should he make a run at the RCR driver wasn't a concern.

"I wasn't planning on messing up if I got next to him," he said. "It was one of those things where we could catch him and then mess up a corner and get a little bit of gap, and then we got back to him there.

"I think the 19 (of Carl Edwards) and someone else was behind us, and they were within a couple car-lengths, so I didn't want to go to the bottom and give those two cars a chance to pass us and lose two points that easily."

With a precarious points position and three races remaining to determine the full 16-team Chase field, Buescher says the team's plan of attack won't be altered by what could go wrong in those races, either. It's what should go right that matters.

"We came to Bristol knowing that we had speed, that we love this race track, and it was a good chance for us to go out and have an awesome run," he said, "and that's exactly what we were able to do.

"Points will fall however they will. You can't focus on them too much because you lose sight of what the main goal is, and that's to go out and win races."

Preliminary Camping World Truck Series entry list for Michigan

Thirty-one trucks are on the entry list for Saturday’s Career for Veterans 200 Presented by The Cooper Standard Foundation & Brad Keselowski‘s Checkered Flag Foundation Camping World Truck Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

Reed Sorenson, who is entered in the Sprint Cup race at Michigan, is entered in this event also. Ben Kennedy enters this event after his first career series victory last week at Bristol Motor Speedway.

WATCH LIVE: NASCAR America at 6 p.m. ET: Kevin Harvick’s win, Kyle Busch’s frustration

NASCAR America is back after its Olympic break with a 90-minute show today, beginning at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

Host Dave Briggs is joined by Dale Jarrett in our Stamford, Connecticut, studio. Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte join them from Burton’s garage.

On today’s show, the crew will examine these topics and more:

Following a rainy start on Saturday night, Kevin Harvick won at Bristol on Sunday night. Jarrett, Letarte and Burton will weigh in on the race and the rain that turned it into a marathon.
After his win, Harvick convinced teammate and owner Tony Stewart to join in for celebratory burnouts. We’ll hear from Stewart about that special moment, as well as his own reflections on Bristol after what was likely his final Sprint Cup start there.
Kyle Busch led a race-high 256 laps but his dominant day turned sour with a parts failure, followed by a spin and crash with Justin Allgaier. Busch had plenty to share with the media about the setback, and you’ll get to hear it all. We’ll also discuss the various on-track problems that have marred an otherwise strong season for the defending Sprint Cup champion.
Even with Mother Nature ensuring it would take nearly 24 hours to decide a winner at Bristol, the track received positive reviews after putting a substance on the bottom groove to make the racing more competitive. Will this become a new NASCAR standard? Nate Ryan chimes in on the new expectations Bristol set this past weekend with track transformations.If you’re not near a TV, you can watch online or on the NBC Sports app at the NASCAR stream on NBC Sports.
If you plan to stream the show on your laptop or portable device, be sure to have your username and password from your cable/satellite/telco provider handy so your subscription can be verified.

Once you enter that information, you’ll have access to the stream.

Click here at 6 p.m. ET to watch live via the stream.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. dedicates runner-up finish at Bristol to Bryan Clauson

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. dedicated his second-place finish in Sunday’s Bass Pro Shops / NHRA Night Race at Bristol to the memory of his late friend, Bryan Clauson.

Stenhouse has been on an emotional roller coaster since Clauson’s Aug. 6 crash in a USAC Midget race at Belleville, Kansas. Clauson, 27, died the next day, and Stenhouse spent the NASCAR off week comforting Clauson’s family at the Knoxville Nationals in Iowa.

“It’s definitely been tough, but I think going to Knoxville and being with his family, being with his fiancée (Lauren) and being with friends that we all had a great time together, you know, talking about it, talking through things and talking about all the good things that Bryan did and his organ donation really helped a lot of us really feel comforted with what he was still doing after the fact,” Stenhouse said.

Clauson’s memorial service Thursday was “one of the toughest days that I think I had,” Stenhouse said. “But again, just being there and telling stories really I think helped us all get through it.  Lauren has been a rock getting everybody though. You would think it would be the other way around.  She’s really helped a lot of people.”

Lauren Stewart and her parents attended the race at Bristol.

“They came and just hung out all day on Saturday throughout the day around the motor home, and I was like, well, rain delays are good for some things,” Stenhouse said. “We all got to hang out together and spend some more time together, and that definitely has been helping us a lot the last couple weeks.”

In his interview above with NBC Sports, Stenhouse also talked about the significance of doing well and how he just didn’t have quite enough to catch race winner Kevin Harvick.

Stenhouse also talked about Clauson’s plan to compete in a total of 200 races – across a variety of racing platforms including sprint and midget cars, as well as having competed this year in the Indianapolis 500, earning a career-best finish.

“I know Bryan was watching and wanting us to win tonight, and we gave it all we had,” Stenhouse said. “He was trying to run 200 races. Somebody asked me, how do you feel coming to here and racing, and talking with Tim, Bryan’s dad, he was like, ‘Man, I feel like Bryan is probably mad at me right now because I’m not at home working on a midget to get it ready to go racing because Bryan, all he wanted to do was race.’  That’s what he was doing, and leading one of the biggest races of the year.

“If he had to choose a way to go out, I feel like that was the way he wanted.”

BRISTOL ADDS ROSIN TO TRACK BEFORE SPRINT CUP NIGHT RACE

RELATED: Key story lines for Bristol night race

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- NASCAR officials applied 18 more inches of rosin to each of the four corners on the bottom groove after Friday night's XFINITY Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

A sticky substance that allows drivers to stick and run both the top and bottom grooves, rosin was applied to the track in the same manner on Thursday night prior to Friday's XFINITY Series race.

Officials originally hadn't planned to add any more rosin before Saturday's Sprint Cup race. Drivers such as Friday night's XFINITY winner Austin Dillon supported the addition of more rosin.

"It's interesting to have another lane down there on the bottom," said Dillon, who will also be running Saturday night's Sprint Cup race. "Hopefully they can add a little more (rosin) to the bottom and get that bottom lane just to stay a little bit longer."

Saturday's Sprint Cup Series' Bass Pro Shops NRA night race was set to begin at 8 p.m. ET, but weather forced a rescheduling to 1 p.m. ET on Sunday (CNBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Emotions run gamut for Joe Gibbs Racing after ups and downs of Bristol

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Kyle Busch has seen this before. So has Denny Hamlin.

Their performances Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway showed the strength of Joe Gibbs Racing but also raised some questions about the organization’s performance even with two drivers placing in the top 10 — Hamlin was third and Carl Edwards was sixth.

Busch led a race-high 256 laps before a mechanical issue caused him to spin before he was struck by Justin Allgaier’s car. Busch finished 39th, two spots behind fellow teammate Matt Kenseth, caught up in a subsequent crash that involved Kyle’s older brother Kurt, and left upset.

“I’m not sure what our problem is with being able to put together cars that will last here,’’ Busch said. “Our teammates obviously have a strong sense of what to do, but we don’t. I don’t know what’s going on. Guys know how to set (the cars) up and make them quick, but they just don’t last. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got to make sure our stuff can work and last to the end.’’

So what more can he say at Joe Gibbs Racing?

“They already know,’’ he said. “Just by watching the race. It’s frustrating because that’s two or three or four races in a row at Bristol that we’ve had problems. Yeah, maybe a couple of them were my doing. We’ve also had parts failures here. We can’t be having that stuff.’’

BRISTOL, TN – AUGUST 21: Denny Hamlin leads a pack of cars during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
Another issue is mistakes. Hamlin was called for his series-high eighth speeding penalty on pit road this year and he also had to make a green-flag pit stop because of a loose wheel, falling two laps down before recovering for a top-five finish.

“I knew I sped when I did it,’’ he said. “In the playoffs, I’m not going to be that aggressive. Out here trying to get a win, win-or-nothing attitude in the regular season, that’s when I push it.’’

While Joe Gibbs Racing has had some quality control issues in the past — Busch’s frustrations can be traced to previous years when mechanical issues sidelined championship hopes in the Chase — Sunday still was a step forward for the organization compared to the spring race.

Although Edwards won at Bristol in the spring, Busch, Hamlin and Matt Kenseth each had tire issues with Busch placing 38th, Kenseth 36th and Hamlin 20th that day.

“We knew we had issues with the right front and we had to come here and correct it and that’s what we did,’’ Hamlin said. “We changed a lot of things to try to help with that right front tire.’’

One issue solved. More issues to fix. Three races before the playoffs begin.

KEVIN HARVICK WINS RAIN-DELAYED BRISTOL RACE

Kevin Harvick won the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race on Sunday evening at Bristol Motor Speedway, one day after the race was postponed due to inclement weather.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, finished in second place, 1.9 seconds behind the 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion.

Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon and Chris Buescher rounded out the top five.

Scheduled for a green-flag time of 1 p.m. ET, persistent rain delayed the start for nearly four hours.

Kyle Busch led 256 laps, but was involved in a four-car wreck on Lap 357. His car spun due to what the driver said was a broken part, and Justin Allgaier drilled his No. 18 Toyota.

Shortly thereafter, an 11-car wreck -- triggered when Kurt Busch got loose and collected Brad Keselowski -- thinned the field further.

The Sprint Cup Series returns to the track on Sunday, Aug. 28 for the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). There are now just three races remaining in the regular season.

This story will be updated.