2009 Food City 500

2009 Food City 500

Race details
Race 5 of 36 in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season
2009 Food City 500 program cover
Date	March 22, 2009 (2009-March-22)
Official name	Food City 500
Location	Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tennessee
Course	Permanent racing facility 0.533 mi (0.857 km)
Distance	503 laps, 268.099 mi (431.463 km)
Scheduled Distance	500 laps, 266.5 mi (428.89 km)
Weather	Temperatures up to 66 °F (19 °C); wind speeds up to 8 miles per hour (13 km/h)[1]
Average speed	92.139 miles per hour (148.283 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Mark Martin	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	15.256
Most laps led
Driver	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing
Laps	378
Winner
No. 18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing
Television in the United States
Network	Fox Broadcasting Company
Announcers	Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds

The 2009 Food City 500 was the fifth race of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. This 500 lap, 266.5 miles (428.9 km) race took place on March 22 of that year at the 0.533 miles (0.858 km) Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee, and was telecast on Fox beginning at 1:30 PM US EDT, with radio broadcasting being handled by Performance Racing Network (terrestrial) and Sirius XM Radio (satellite) beginning at 1 PM US EDT.

This race was the last to use the 2008 season Top 35 in owners points rule. Beginning with the next race, the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500, each week's current standings will be used to determine automatic qualifiers for each week's race.

Mark Martin won his second pole in a row. He will start alongside Ryan Newman and teammate Jimmie Johnson in third.

• Michael Waltrip smacked the wall in practice and was forced to go to a backup car.
• The car of Kevin Harvick was so tight it would not turn at about 100 miles per hour. After inspecting the car, it was determined that the cause was the engine rubbing against the tires, but Harvick did not go to a backup car.
• Bobby Labonte and Greg Biffle both spun off turn 4 at one point in practice, but both cars suffered minor to no damage.

Bobby Allison, a NASCAR Cup Series driver who drove in the formative years in NASCAR, became the honorary starter for this race. He would give out the green flag and later surrendered his "duty" to the regular starter for the other flags.^[5]

The pundits predicted that Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch would be triumphant in the race while Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, David Ragan and Brian Vickers didn't have much of a chance to finish the race in a respectable position.^[6]

Kyle Busch led 378 laps en route to his second victory of 2009. JGR teammate Denny Hamlin finished second, while Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon finished third and fourth, while Kasey Kahne rounded up the top 5. Jeff Gordon still led the points standings, and got his 4th top-10 and 3rd top-5 of the season.

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