|| *Comments on the 2003 Food City 500:* View the most recent comment <#45> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. James Knight posted: 05.10.2004 - 11:00 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) THIS was the 2,000 Race in NASCAR Winston Cup Series History. 2. Fish posted: 09.17.2004 - 2:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) It was a good race too... I explained once why I thought it was a good race, but that comment was deleted too... 3. Chicago posted: 04.22.2005 - 8:27 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Spencer (!) were definitely the class of the field in this race. 4. MASH_guy posted: 08.15.2005 - 5:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was the first Bristol race with the "continuous" pit road, where everyone entered the backstretch pit under caution. It apparently wasn't clear that the rule didn't apply under green, and when green-flag pit stops happened late in the race, several drivers lost additional laps as a result. 5. Jason posted: 12.29.2005 - 5:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This race had a long green flag run, which resulted in rare green flag pitstops for many cars. Dale Earnhardt Jr. runs out of gas and falls laps down. Jimmy Spencer & Jeff Gordon led a bunch of laps, but both fall laps down when they pit before the yellow came out. 6. Steve posted: 02.16.2006 - 6:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The spring race from 2002 was the first race with the continuous pit road, but Jeff Gordon made the mistake of going down both in this race. I think he made the same mistake in the 2004 spring race, taking him out of contention. Like Michael Waltrip said, "I wish they'd thought of this before they re-done Martinsville!" This was also the first Winston Cup race to take place after the start of the war in Iraq. 7. Darrell posted: 09.08.2006 - 9:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Probably the last great race of Jimmy Spencer's Cup career. It's a shame. He really could hold his own in the Busch Series. 8. biffle16 posted: 03.02.2007 - 12:18 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) How did he fall so far behind? 9. Nascar Man posted: 03.13.2007 - 3:30 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Newman breaks the 15 second barrier Track record 128.709 mph 14.908sec 10. Thomas posted: 04.02.2007 - 7:18 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) "How did he fall so far behind?" I believe that a yellow came out during green flag pit stops and trapped Jimmy two laps down. It was a shame, he had the fastest car there. 11. freshgeek posted: 06.26.2007 - 6:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle Petty suffered a wreck here that registered 90 Gs on impact with the outside wall 12. Steve posted: 07.23.2007 - 6:28 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think Rusty and Jeffy were caught by the same caution flag as Spencer was. Newman's lap record may last forever. 13. SK posted: 09.06.2007 - 1:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Greg Biffle comes home 5th, topping a previous career best of 12th set the previous weekend in Darlington. 14. Anonymous posted: 01.02.2008 - 9:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Believe Terry Labonte ran a strong second early in this race before being caught up in one of the day's numerous accidents. 15. StewartSucks posted: 01.06.2008 - 3:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kurt Busch gets revenge for the last race! 16. brandon posted: 02.18.2008 - 4:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) yeah terry was running third on a restart and got wrecked by the lapped car of brett bodine. 17. Anonymous posted: 12.15.2008 - 2:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Final top 10 for Kenny Wallace in Cup. 18. 14fan posted: 06.18.2009 - 8:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) didnt kyle petty have to be cut out and taken to the hospital for evaluation after his crash? 19. joey2448 posted: 07.17.2010 - 5:00 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) three of the top four in this race spun out earlier in the event: winner kurt busch, bobby labonte, and ricky rudd....bobby actually had two separate spins, and i remember ricky having to avoid about half the incidents, even though he only spun once. 20. I Love Japan posted: 04.10.2011 - 11:36 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) Kenny Wallace's only top 10 in 2003. In that year Kenny did not lead a single lap, yet he only had 3 DNF's. He made every race and finished 30th in points. Kenny had the most mediocre year I've ever seen LOL. It was like he wasn't even there. His Stacker 2 car looked cool. The sad thing about this race? Kenny didn't even finish on the lead lap. 21. ii posted: 04.01.2012 - 10:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think this was the race where Kyle Petty hit the wall at 80 G's, which caused the creation of the SAFER barrier. 22. RaceFanX posted: 04.17.2012 - 11:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsors: #97 Kurt Busch- Metallic Silver Sharpie / Rubbermaid #18 Bobby Labonte- Advair #5 Terry Labonte- Cheez-It / Kellogg's #11 Brett Bodine- Hooters We race in their memory Advair is an inhaler company and had a major assoicate sponsorship deal in place for Bobby Labonte's car for 2003 that included their logo on the hood for a few races and a primary sponsorship for this race. This was the first time since Bobby Labonte joined Joe Gibbs Racing his primary sponsor wasn't Interstate Batteries, he ran a purple car here instead of his normal green one. Brett Bodine had a special silver tribute car in this race for Alan Kulwicki, Mark Brooks, Dan Duncan and Charlie Campbell- the four people who died in a plane crash before this race in 1993. Hooters wanted to honor their memory with a special shield placed on the hood of the car. Bodine's tribute car got wrecked in an incident with Terry Labonte. Bodine got into Labonte causing him to collide with the outside wall and trigging a multi-car wreck that saw Bodine spun without hitting anything by Robby Gordon. As Labonte tried to re-enter the race track from his mishap Bodine's car rolled down the banking and the two collided at slow speed but with serious damage, both were eventually were able to continue. 23. RaceFanX posted: 04.17.2012 - 11:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) As mentioned Kurt Busch did a 'spin and win' here. It happened on off Turn 2 onto the backstretch on lap 226 and notably also saw Bobby Labonte spin before coming back to finish third. Ironically the incident was trigged when Labonte's teammate Tony Stewart got into him while Matt Kenseth similarly got into his teammate Busch. Both looped it but neither hit anything. Ken Schrader got into Ricky Rudd in the same incident and Rudd got way sideways but saved it and kept going. 24. Daniel posted: 05.24.2012 - 9:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In using fastest 43: #02 Hermie Sadler Out using fastest 43: #0 Jack Sprague 25. Anonymous posted: 03.16.2014 - 3:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) They wrecked comming to the green on the Second or Third Caution with Casey Mears and Todd Bodine. 26. joey2448 posted: 04.20.2015 - 5:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "Newman's lap record may last forever." Hahaha guess not. Harvick took the pole at 14.607 seconds in August 2014. 27. mister83 posted: 07.17.2015 - 11:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #20- Also Kenny's last top ten in cup, period. I think the most notable thing he did in 2003 was being involved in that vicious wreck with Todd Bodine at Michigan. 28. Maverick11 posted: 02.16.2016 - 12:10 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) After losing by inches last week, Kurt Busch dominates and gets redemption in the next race. 29. Fish posted: 11.06.2016 - 4:30 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle's crash was one of the worst I've ever seen in person. I swear, you could hear him hit the wall! Besides some broken ribs, he ended up being okay, but they were going to take him to the hospital anyway for observation. Since they didn't have a tunnel at the time wide enough for a car, they were going to throw a caution flag to allow the ambulance to enter-and-exit through the track. Luckily, a caution flew, so the ambulance crossed the track during that time. 30. Maverick posted: 11.06.2016 - 9:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, Kyle's is the 2nd hardest crash in NASCAR history in terms of g's. The only one harder was Elliott Sadler's Pocono crash. 31. rm posted: 04.21.2017 - 6:43 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Kyle Petty wound up missing the next race at Texas as a result of the accident in this race. It definitely doesn't look that bad compared to many other wrecks in the same era, but the driver's side impact came after almost no straightaway speed was scrubbed off since he was barely tagged by Ward Burton, yet hit just enough to send him into the outside wall. Kyle wasn't cut out but a whole squad of rescue workers helped him out of his car very slowly. Kurt Busch got redemption in this race after 3 2nd's - including the famous Darlington finish the race before this - and 2 DNFs to start the season. 32. rm posted: 04.21.2017 - 7:11 pm Rate this comment: (2) (2) Sorry for the double post, but I have a couple other notes about this race! After the second long green flag run of the race, Dale Jarrett blew a tire on the frontstretch on lap 389 and caused a caution near the end of green flag pit stops. Just 5 cars were on the lead lap at that point, and only Matt Kenseth wound up getting back on the lead lap in the final 100+ laps of the race. Quite a few drivers had rough days. Bobby Labonte spun out twice - at lap 226 and again at lap 256 - but never made hard contact and got a lucky break with the aforementioned caution and managed to ride out a top 5. Kyle Petty brought out the first caution - and several more after that, with a total of 4 - before being injured late in the race. Dale Jarrett already had the whole front end cut off of his car, like a modified, when he wrecked for the second time on lap 389. After more repairs in the garage area, Jarrett actually finished the race over 100 laps down. Jack Sprague was involved in an incident with Johnny Benson on lap 149, and 30 laps later on lap 181 Benson was getting ready to pass Sprague when Sprague spun out again trying to get out of the way of Benson. Jerry Nadeau was dumped by Ryan Newman on the frontstretch, and after getting back to the garage area, Nadeau had a run-in with the Alltel team that ended with Nadeau being dragged back to his car to return to the track. Brett Bodine, racing a car with a special scheme on the tenth anniversary of the death of former Hooters driver Alan Kulwicki, got his car stuck to Terry Labonte's car in the lap 243 dustup. Texas Terry wasn't very happy with Bodine's stunt that involved Bodine reversing his car into Terry's while trying to drive away. I doubt any cars finished without damage in this one, a quintessential 90s/2000s beat-and-bang Bristol race. 33. Mr.Victory posted: 11.28.2018 - 8:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) last top 10 for Kenny Wallace in the cup series. 34. Steve posted: 01.13.2019 - 2:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) How in the heck did Ken Schrader qualify 3rd in the BAM car? 35. Matt19 posted: 01.13.2019 - 2:59 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) @34 The competition was higher back then. More competitive cars. 36. Anonermoust posted: 01.27.2019 - 3:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mike Joy sarcastically called Robby, "Flash" Gordon right before Mark Martin spun with less than 50 to go. Joe Nemechek then slammed into the back of Tony Stewart as he slowed for the mangled lapped car of John Andretti. 37. Yeet posted: 03.04.2019 - 8:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Amazing that there was only 6 lead lap cars despite 17 cautions occurring 38. Mile501 posted: 03.04.2019 - 8:57 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) @37 The lengthy 127-lap green-flag run in the middle of the race probably contributed to many cars falling a lap down. Plus, without the wave-around rule, it was much harder to get a lap back if you fell a lap down. 39. Danish_Pie posted: 03.30.2019 - 7:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Without a wave-around OR a Free Pass. 40. Anonymous posted: 04.30.2019 - 8:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle Petty was running in the top 10 before he wrecked if I remember right. 41. Dave33333 posted: 08.09.2019 - 7:28 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmy Spencer had this race, at least until he got trapped in a lap down by a caution. Honestly sucks that happened. 42. SweetRich posted: 07.01.2020 - 8:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This race, with the many, many cautions and attrition, was also the downfall of the #77 team driven by Dave Blaney. After starting out 2003 with three top ten finishes, one of which was Blaney's career best at Darlington of third, the wheels literally fell off for Buckeye Dave, Bootie Barker and company. The team entered Bristol seventh in points and fans, like myself, kept saying Blaney is winning, it's going to happen, especially at tracks like Charlotte and Atlanta. But that never happened due to bad luck and poor finishes. only one top ten finish the rest of the year and 28th in points at season's end. what a shame. 43. Rich posted: 08.09.2020 - 8:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The commentators were Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip. The pit road reporters were Dr. Dick Berggren, Steve Byrnes, Matt Yocum and Jeanne Zelasko. And in the Hollywood hotel were Chris Myers and Jeff Hammond. 44. Mile501 posted: 09.10.2020 - 2:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @36 - The commentators didn't catch this either, but if you watch the replay, I'm pretty sure that Tony Stewart hit the slowed John Andretti himself before Joe Nemechek then came in and rear-ended Tony Stewart. Stewart's team tried to keep their #20 going after that. Stewart was 1 lap down, but would've still ended up at least 12th if he could have stayed there. But the car didn't meet the minimum speed and he ended up dropping out with just over 10 laps to go. 45. Jacob posted: 03.26.2021 - 4:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor-related trivia note for Dale Jarrett. This would be the final time that the classic UPS logo designed by Saul Bass in 1961 would be seen on the hood of his car, as by the time of the following race in Texas, it had been updated to the current UPS logo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: