BRISTOL, Tenn. — The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs are in full force, with all the attention shining on championship contenders Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway as the Round of 16 came to a close.
Yet the stars who glistened brightest at the “Last Great Colosseum” were arguably those who didn’t qualify for the 2025 postseason.
MORE: Bristol results | Playoff standings
The Bass Pro Shops Night Race featured significant performances from a multitude of non-playoff drivers who put themselves in position to win Saturday’s race, including Brad Keselowski, Zane Smith and Ty Gibbs. None are eligible to win this year’s championship after missing the cut to join the 16-driver grid, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still fighting for wins of their own.
In the brightest spotlight when the checkered flag waved was Keselowski. The 2012 Cup champion had a monster run into Turn 3 on the final lap, charging to the back bumper of Christopher Bell. He slammed Bell’s bumper on entry in hopes of a bump-and-run pass, but the contact appeared too square, allowing Bell to maintain control and escape Keselowski’s clutches in the last corner.
“I thought I dumped him!” Keselowski told RACER.com. “I was like, ‘Oh, that was harder than I wanted to hit him.’ Didn’t even do a thing.”
Keselowski’s disappointment was evident when he climbed from his car, shook his head in disgust and threw his gloves back into the cockpit after finishing second for the second time this season (EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta in June). Running fourth before the race’s final restart with four laps remaining, Keselowski opted for the top lane behind leader Carson Hocevar and third-place runner Alex Bowman. That allowed Bell to take the inside of Row 2 behind front-row restarter Zane Smith.
“I’m just pissed,” Keselowski told reporters. “We did all the right moves and just kind of got screwed on the last restart. And it sucks to be that close.”
Equally close but less frustrated was Smith, who finished third behind Bell and Keselowski. Smith had an excellent night driving the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford, averaging a third-best running position of 7.88, only behind Gibbs (4.82) and Ryan Blaney (7.2). On a night when tire wear dominated the conversation, Smith and crew chief Ryan Bergenty managed their Goodyear rubber better than most, solidifying their first top-five finish of the season.
“Yeah, it’s big. Especially in the playoffs, there’s a lot of these guys bringing their best stuff,” Smith told NASCAR.com. “If it stays green there, we’re in a really good position to get my first Cup win. This 38 team’s first Cup win. And, yeah, it just unfortunately didn’t work out.”
On the restart, Smith launched perfectly alongside Hocevar. But on older left-side tires, Smith washed up the track in Turns 1 and 2, sending both him and Hocevar high and allowing Bell to charge through underneath before Keselowski capitalized as well. That slide may have cost him a chance to win, but it didn’t dull what may have been Smith’s best Cup race from start to finish.
“I think it’s our best to date all-around effort,” Bergenty told NASCAR.com. “I think (Saturday) was the pinnacle of driver-to-crew-chief and spotter communication to just management, strategy of when to put tires on, how fast to go, how slow to go, track position, right sides, four tires. It was a little bit of everything. And then your car has to have good potential. So I thought we had a little bit of all of that, and we just kind of hung around top 10 all day and had a good shot at it.”
Smith showed flashes of speed throughout the summer, but incidents not of his own doing often cost him late in the going, most notably at tracks like Sonoma Raceway, Dover Motor Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway. That left a dearth of results to back up those otherwise strong efforts that had the No. 38 Ford inside the top 15. At Bristol, the box score backed what the numbers laid out: According to NASCAR Insights, Smith earned the No. 1 Defense Rating and No. 2 Passer Rating.
“It’s just a solidification of the last two months,” Bergenty said. “We can hypothetically speak that we’ve had speed, but you don’t have results, so you don’t get an asterisk on your results. I think tonight just kind of solidifies where we’ve been the last couple months. And then the hard part now is going home and moving on.”
Gibbs will want to put an asterisk on his 10th-place finish. The result is still great — it marks his third top 10 in the past four races and ninth overall this season. But the third-year driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led a career-high 201 laps of Saturday’s 500, earning a Stage 2 win and finishing second in Stage 1.
RELATED: Blaney nips Gibbs for stage win
Bristol has been an excellent track for Gibbs. This week’s race closely resembled the March 2024 event at the 0.533-mile bullring, with Gibbs wrestling through high tire wear to lead 137 laps before finishing ninth. In the 2023 Bristol Night Race, Gibbs wheeled the No. 54 car to a fifth-place finish after leading 102 laps.
But his chances to win this time vanished on Lap 435. After sinking down the leaderboard on old tires, Gibbs attempted to follow teammate Chase Briscoe to pit road with 65 laps remaining. But Gibbs carried too much speed and locked up his right-front tire under braking, flat-spotting the tire, missing pit entry and sliding up the track in front of Austin Hill. Gibbs nursed the car back to pit lane, but not before his right-front tire went flat and sank his hopes of scoring his first career Cup victory.
His performance shouldn’t be overlooked despite the mistake. NASCAR Insights ranked Gibbs the No. 1 passer of the Bristol Night Race with the No. 1 Speed Rating while being ranked second in both defense and restarts. That likely doesn’t soften the blow for the 22-year-old up-and-comer, who won his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut in 2021 before winning the 2022 series championship.
Also in the mix for their first visit to Victory Lane in the Cup Series Saturday were Hocevar and Corey Heim. When the race’s final caution flag waved on Lap 488, Hocevar stayed out when leaders Keselowski, Bell, Blaney and Joey Logano hit pit road. His tires were older, but the No. 77 Spire Motorsports team was out of fresh rubber on pit road, placing the sophomore racer in prime position to contend for his first triumph if the restart worked out. But after Smith pushed himself and Hocevar wide, Hocevar fell to seventh at the checkered flag.
WATCH: 2025 Bristol Night Race extended highlights
“It sucks, but we had a shot to win,” Hocevar said. “We can only control what we can control. We don’t have a crystal ball up there with the yellows. I am just proud of this No. 77 Delaware Life Chevrolet team. We got caught out really early, and we were able to execute there with tire-saving, managing and just executing at a top caliber. If things go green there, we would have had a huge tire advantage, but it just didn’t work out.”
Heim’s full focus remains on chasing a Craftsman Truck Series championship this season. But in his seventh career Cup start, the 23XI Racing part-timer restarted eighth and charged the No. 67 Toyota to a sixth-place result, a career-best for the young pilot.
“Once everyone kind of realized the situation with the tires, we adjusted accordingly and did all of the right things and kept ourselves in it all day,” Heim said. “It was a claw to get back on the lead lap after we had a right front go down in Stage 1, but can’t thank these 23XI Racing guys enough — they stuck with it.”
Heim attempted five Cup races this year but made just four starts, failing to qualify for the Chicago Street Race. His first race of the year was at Kansas Speedway, where he finished 13th, but trouble at Nashville Superspeedway and Richmond Raceway placed him 37th and 29th, respectively.
“All the ups and downs that we had — to end on a high note is pretty special,” Heim said. “Hopefully, we can take that and move forward.”
