Lebanon, Tenn. -- The Ally 400 on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET on NBC) marks the fourth time the NASCAR Cup Series has competed at Nashville Superspeedway. It also marks another opportunity for Chevrolet to keep its perfect streak alive.
The Bowtie drivers are the only ones to achieve success at the 1.33-mile oval. Kyle Larson won the inaugural Cup Series race at Nashville in 2021 and then Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott won in 2022. Ross Chastain won last season's Cup race.
The wins are not the only sign of dominance from Chevrolet drivers at Nashville Superspeedway. Each of the three Cup races has featured three bowties in the top five.
The 2021 race had Larson, Chastain, and William Byron making up the top three. The 2022 race had Elliott in first, Larson in fourth, and Chastain in fifth. Last season's race had Chastain in first, Elliott in fourth, and Larson in fifth.
The members of the Chevrolet lineup have also combined to lead 457 of the 900 possible laps across the three Cup races.
"I'm looking forward to going to Nashville," Alan Gustafson, Elliott's crew chief, said. "I feel like overall it's been a good track for us. There's a lot of lanes and good opportunities for passing"
A new opportunity for one Chevrolet team
This sustained success at Nashville will be important for some of the drivers still seeking their first win of the season. This list includes two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, who enters the weekend 45 points below the playoff cutline.
Busch has won four races at Nashville across Truck and Xfinity. He has one top-10 finish at the 1.33-mile track in three Cup starts and an average finish of 13.7. He has led 76 laps while completing all 900 possible laps.
Sunday's race will be the first of a new era for Busch and teammate Austin Dillon. Longtime competition executive Andy Petree retired the week leading up to Nashville.
Keith Rodden then took over as the interim competition director, saying that Richard Childress Racing has talented people who can send fast race cars to the track each week. What they are currently lacking is the consistency to deliver solid finishes.
Rodden sees Nashville as a place where both cars could contend for stronger finishes based on how the No. 3 and No. 8 teams performed last season.
"I feel like at Nashville last year, the (No. 8) car had a car capable of winning," Rodden said this week during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "They had a flat tire. They got behind that way. And then they sped on pit road.
"And then they had some nose damage on a restart and ended up trying to run long at the very end of the race and pitted that way and drove -- normally in that scenario running long actually hurts your finishing position. And they drove all the way back into the top 10 by the end of the race. And on the 3 car, had a little incident trying to pass into the top 10 at the end of the race and guy kind of ran us off the track and lost a couple of spots. But still had two cars that definitely should have been in the top eight of that race."