2009 Food City 500


2009 Sprint Cup Series
The Budweiser Shootout Gatorade Duels Daytona 500 Auto Club 500 Shelby 427 Kobalt Tools 500 Food City 500 Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 Samsung 500 Subway Fresh Fit 500 Aaron's 499 Crown Royal 400 Southern 500 presented by GoDaddy.com Sprint Showdown and Sprint All-Star Race XXV Coca-Cola 600 Autism Speaks 400 Pocono 500 LifeLock 400 Toyota/Save Mart 350 Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Coke Zero 400 LifeLock.com 400 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard Pennsylvania 500 Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen Carfax 400 Sharpie 500 Pep Boys Auto 500 Chevy Rock & Roll 400
Chase for the Sprint Cup
Sylvania 300 AAA 400 Price Chopper 400 Pepsi 500 NASCAR Banking 500 TUMS Fast Relief 500 AMP Energy 500 Dickies 500 Checker Auto Parts 500 Ford 400 Non-points races in italics.

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 utilize the 2008 season Top 35 in owners points rule. Beginning with the next race, the Goody's Cool Orange 500, each week's current standings will be used to determine automatic qualifiers for each week's race.

Qualifying

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

Pre-Race Notes

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 will 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.

Race

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 leads the points, and got his 4th top-10 and 3rd top-5 of the season.