Sprint Cup Series teams are racing 266.5 miles in 500 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 16th.  Television coverage begins at 12:30 pm ET with the Green Flag waving at 2 pm ET. Radio coverage is available on PRN and Sirius XM, channel 90.

Two of the last five Sprint Cup Series races at Bristol have been won by Brad Keselowski, which surprises absolutely no one.

Even if it doesn’t seem immediately apparent, a closer look at statistical history shows he’s an heir to this slice of success.

It’s all about the No. 2 – plus a trio of top-run drivers who through the years have combined to give Team Penske a total of ten victories at the historic .533-mile oval with three different manufacturers – Pontiac, Dodge and Ford.

Rusty Wallace racked up seven BMS wins in the No. 2. And he had two other Bristol wins before that, driving for owner Raymond Beadle.

Kurt Busch added an eighth Bristol win for Penske’s No. 2, that coming after four victories driving for Jack Roush.

Keselowski brought the total to ten with two straight trips to Bristol’s Victory Lane, winning the 2011 night race and then the 2012 spring event. He appears primed to bring home the 11th win, after winning this past Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He comes in second in series points, merely one point behind Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The 2012 series champion, who surprisingly failed to make the Chase last year, Keselowski has almost assured himself a spot this season – the new Chase format gives the top 15 race winners automatic berths provided they attempt to qualify for each of the 26 races before the Chase and are in the top-30 in points. With the pressure relatively lessened, the fun has returned after the disappointment of 2013.

“I want to win Indy; that would be big (for Roger Penske),” Keselowski said. “Michigan would be a really big win. I’d take Bristol and California while I’m at it. But…we just want to get some more wins, and then obviously you’ve got to get on steady footing once your reach the back half of the year with your cars and team to where you’re just consistent front runners so you can really get into those last ten races and make some noise.”

In three weeks, fans have gone from hype… to hope… to coming down to Earth – and finding Dale Earnhardt Jr atop the Sprint Cup Series standings.

This is the first time Earnhardt has led the series points for three consecutive weeks at the beginning of any season. A Daytona 500 victory followed by runner-up efforts at Phoenix and Las Vegas have brought him to this milestone marker, making him a contender to consider.

“This is a good start for sure,” said Earnhardt, whose longest stretch atop the points was seven consecutive weeks in the middle of the 2004 season. “The confidence is up… we’ve got a great opportunity this year to be this competitive every week.”

And now, there’s this week – Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the half-mile cereal-bowl of an oval where Earnhardt has run consistently, if not spectacularly. He has 28 starts, with top-ten finishes in half of those; toss in an average finish of 11.5 and one victory, in the track’s 2004 summertime night race.  Clearly, a comfort level exists for Earnhardt at Bristol.

Right now, there’s a comfort level everywhere, thanks to the season-opening Daytona 500 win that virtually assured Earnhardt a berth in the revamped Chase for the Sprint Cup. Virtual assurance led to high-speed gambling at Las Vegas.  With ‘points racing’ a thing of the past, replaced by the need to win races, Earnhardt and crew chief Steve Letarte rolled the fuel mileage dice but came up just short, running out of fuel on the last lap, finishing second behind Brad Keselowski.

“It hurts to lose like that,” Earnhardt said at Las Vegas. “But our time will come.”

Meanwhile, the present is a good place for the 88 team.

Something, anything, has to go Kyle Busch’s way one of these weekends.

He’s led two of the first three Sprint Cup Series races, eclipsed the 100 driver rating figure in all three, tallied fastest laps run in all three – and has only one top-ten finish to show for his effort. And barely – his ninth place run at Phoenix is his best thus far.

Those frustrating finishes could end this weekend. Statistically, at Bristol, a strong Busch run usually culminates with a likewise strong finish. He has 15 wins there across NASCAR’s three national series – more than any other driver in national series history at Bristol. Five of those wins came in the Sprint Cup Series, the last coming in March of 2011.

Busch is approaching a major series milestone, one that could come this Sunday at Bristol. With 140 laps led – something he’s done four times at Bristol – Busch will become the 15th driver in Sprint Cup history with 10,000 laps led.

Speaking of milestones – at Las Vegas last Sunday, Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth scored his 250 career top-ten, becoming the 22nd driver to reach that mark.

Kenseth has scored top-tens in two of the first three races. After a series-high seven victories last year, Kenseth could nab his first this season – as well as a Chase berth that comes with it – with another strong run at Bristol. He has three wins overall, the last coming in a thrilling end-of-the race battle with Kasey Kahne last August. Kenseth has led laps in each of the last five Bristol races – combining for 414 laps led, the most of any driver during that span.

Stewart-Haas Racing, a preseason powerhouse on paper, is struggling in real time, Kevin Harvick’s Phoenix victory notwithstanding.

Harvick stands 14th in points, Tony Stewart is 27th. Kurt Busch is 28th. And Danica Patrick is 33rd. Harvick’s win is the only top-ten finish for the organization thus far. This past Sunday in Las Vegas, Patrick’s 21st-place finish was the best of the four.

Hello Bristol, where SHR has some solid history, starting with Busch who in the past has won at BMS driving for both Roush Fenway Racing and Team Penske; from 2002-04 he won four out of six BMS races.

Busch has five victories overall at Bristol while Harvick and Stewart have one apiece. Busch’s win total has him tied for third all-time with his brother Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon and none other than NASCAR Hall of Fame member David Pearson.

Patrick will likely hit a milestone at Bristol, starting her 50th Sprint Cup Series race. In three starts at Bristol, Patrick has an average finish of 27.7.

Most predicted Austin Dillon and Kyle Larson to duke it out at the top of the Rookie of the Year standings.

It took three weeks, but that’s exactly what is happening. Dillon has sat atop the rookie standings since the first race in Daytona. Alex Bowman and Cole Whitt swapped the second spot after Daytona and Phoenix, respectively. But after a second-consecutive top-20 finish, Larson climbed into second-place after Las Vegas.

Dillon’s 16th-place finish and Larson’s 19th at Vegas marked the first time this season that two members of this year’s large – and talented – rookie class finished in the top-20 in the same race.

This weekend at Bristol could be more of the same. Dillon finished in the top-five in two of the last three Bristol races in the Nationwide Series. Larson, memorably finished second in last year’s NNS spring Bristol race to go along with a fifth-place finish in the summer night race. Larson battled door-to-door with Kyle Busch in that runner-up finish.

Milestone Watch:

Michael McDowell, who is running the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing entry this weekend at Bristol, is making his 150th Sprint Cup Series start.

In Sunday’s race, Jimmie Johnson is attempting to nab his 300th national series top-ten finish. The breakdown of the first 299: 275 in Sprint Cup and 24 in Nationwide Series. Johnson has started one Camping World Truck Series race, but finished 34th – at Bristol in 2008.

Friday marked the first edition of the new knock-out qualifying session at a short track. Keselowski and Logano have started on the front row in each of the last two races and Keselowski is making it three-in-a-row by starting in second-place on Sunday. Denny Hamlin broke the track record  with a time of 14.761 and speed of 129.991 to take the pole for the Food City 500 at Bristol.