Well, here we go again.
For just the second time since 1970, the NASCAR Cup Series will compete on a dirt track this weekend with its return to a dirt covered Bristol Motor Speedway.
This visit to “Thunder Valley” isn’t an exact copy of the inaugural trip.
This time, NASCAR’s premier series will compete with the Next Gen car and its many advancements on a temporary track that’s been profiled to have a more progressive banking than last year.
What does Joey Logano, who won the inaugural race after leading the final 61 laps, expect this time around?
“I’m excited,” Logano said in a media release. “I had fun last year. You just kind of have to go with it. There’s still a lot of unknowns. We might know a little bit more than we did last year, but you have a whole new car now and there are areas I still want to be better at.”
To do that, Logano is one of four Cup Series drivers entered in Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on the dirt track. He joins Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon and Harrison Burton.
More: Larson: Bristol dirt “not true dirt race with windshields”
It will mark Logano’s first Truck Series start since 2015.
Logano, whose first two dirt race starts came during the 2021 Bristol Dirt Nationals, proved dirt expertise isn’t a requirement for success in this wild card race.
“As you saw last year, a lot of the asphalt guys ran well,” Dillon said in a release. “Joey doesn’t have a long background with dirt. His win showed that you need to get your car right just like any other weekend because these drivers are the best in the world.”
Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, said “it’s no surprise” that Logano won the 2021 race.
“Joey’s a good driver,” Elliott said in a release. “He’s about as asphalt of a guy as it gets, but he was able to able to figure it out. That shows you it was a bit of its own animal and might not have catered to your typical dirt habits.”
Elliott, who finished 10th last year, will drive Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 truck this weekend in addition to his regular duties in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 9 Chevrolet.
Elliott compared the Bristol dirt track to a “super abrasive track that was paved in 1950 … somewhere in Florida that sits in the sun all summer. That was what it reminded me of.”
The Hendrick driver said he was “pretty fortunate” to run where he did in 2021.
“We had a lot going on there at the end of the race and were kind of hanging on,” Elliott said, “This year, I think is just going to be a completely different ball game with this car. Being able to adapt quickly is going to be the key, because I think this year is going to be different than last. Whoever hits on that quickly and figures out what it’s going to take to be fast is likely going to be rewarded for it.”
A major difference between the 2021 and 2022 races is when it will be ran.
This time the green flag will wave Sunday night (7 p.m. ET on Fox) rather than mid-afternoon in an effort to have a racing surface with more moisture in it. That’s in hopes of not having a giant dirt cloud hovering over the track.
“Dirt racing was meant to be done at night,” Dillon said. “Every good dirt race that I’ve been a part of has been run at night. The track gets hard and rubbers up and this time of year in Bristol the moisture will have a chance to bleed back into the track and create some grip.”