Bristol Motor Speedway has a way of exposing weaknesses quickly.
There is nowhere to hide on the 0.533-mile short track. Traffic is constant, mistakes are magnified and a car that is just a little off can turn 500 laps into a very long night.
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But some NASCAR Cup Series drivers have figured the place out better than most.
As the Cup Series heads back to Bristol for one of the biggest races of the season, four former champions and perennial contenders stand out because of what they’ve already accomplished at the track. Between them are multiple Bristol victories, hundreds upon hundreds of laps led and several performances that bordered on complete domination.
Here are four drivers whose Bristol history deserves attention before the green flag.
Kyle Larson Has Put Together Some Absurd Bristol Performances
If there is one driver whose Bristol record should immediately get everyone else’s attention, it’s Kyle Larson.
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Larson has won two of his last four Cup races at Bristol, taking the checkered flag in September 2024 and April 2025. But the wins alone don’t fully capture how overwhelming the No. 5 has been when everything clicks.
He led 462 laps in his 2024 victory. He came back the following spring and somehow nearly matched it, leading 411 laps on his way to another win.
Then, in April 2026, Larson led another 284 laps before finishing third.
That means Larson has led an almost ridiculous 1,157 laps in his last five Bristol starts, despite leading zero in the September 2025 race.
And this isn’t simply a recent development. Larson also won the fall race in 2021 and finished second at Bristol in both 2018 races, led 200 laps in the spring event that year and has routinely shown front-running speed there across multiple generations of Cup cars.
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Bristol hasn’t merely been a good track for Larson. At his best, it has been one of the places where he can completely take over a race.
Denny Hamlin’s Bristol Résumé Spans More Than a Decade
Denny Hamlin doesn’t need much introduction when NASCAR arrives at a short track, and Bristol has been particularly good to him.
Hamlin owns four Cup Series victories at Bristol, with the first coming all the way back in August 2012. He won again in August 2019 before putting together back-to-back victories in September 2023 and March 2024.
The 2023 and 2024 wins were especially convincing.
Hamlin led 142 laps to win in September 2023, then returned the following spring and paced another 163 laps before going back to Victory Lane.
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Even when he hasn’t won recently, he has remained in the mix. Hamlin finished fourth in September 2024 and second in April 2025.
His most recent Bristol results haven’t reached the same level, with finishes of 31st in September 2025 and ninth in April 2026. But few active drivers can match the combination of Hamlin’s longevity, victories and sustained success at the track.
A Bristol race becoming a Denny Hamlin race would hardly be anything new.
Christopher Bell Already Knows How to Win at Bristol
Christopher Bell hasn’t accumulated the same number of Bristol starts as Hamlin, Larson or Joey Logano.
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He has made his count.
Bell broke through with his first Bristol Cup victory in September 2025, but that win was hardly his first sign of elite speed at the track.
In September 2023, Bell started from the pole and led 187 laps before finishing third. One year earlier, he led another 143 laps and finished fourth.
Those two races alone established Bell as a serious Bristol threat. He followed them with a fifth-place finish in September 2024 before finally converting his speed into a victory the following year.
There have been misses mixed in. Bell finished 27th in the most recent Bristol race in April after starting 14th. But his record includes a win, a third, a fourth and a fifth in four of his last six starts at the track.
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When Bell has the No. 20 dialed in at Bristol, he has already shown he can lead a lot of laps and stay there.
Joey Logano Has Been Winning at Bristol for More Than a Decade
Joey Logano’s Bristol history stretches all the way back to his Joe Gibbs Racing days, but some of his biggest moments at the track have come with Team Penske.
Logano scored his first Bristol Cup victory in August 2014, leading 76 laps after starting fifth. He returned the following summer and did it again, leading 176 laps to win in August 2015.
His record since then has been far less predictable.
Logano finished third in April 2019 after leading 146 laps, but Bristol became a particularly difficult stop during the early Next Gen years. He finished 27th in September 2022, 34th in September 2023 and 28th in September 2024.
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Lately, however, the results have begun moving sharply in the other direction.
Logano finished fifth in September 2025 after starting 22nd. He followed that by climbing from 20th to seventh in April 2026.
That makes back-to-back top-seven finishes entering this weekend.
And after the speed Logano showed at Gateway, where he won the pole, won Stage 1, led 96 laps and finished third, Bristol arrives at an interesting time for the No. 22 team.
The recent Bristol numbers suggest Logano may be rediscovering something at a track where he has already been to Victory Lane twice.
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