The Food City 500 is a NASCAR Nextel Cup stock car race held at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. This is one of two NASCAR races held at Bristol, the other being the Sharpie 500.

One of the most popular tracks in NASCAR, this all-concrete construction is similar to Dover, except far shorter. The advertised banking of 36 degrees in the turns makes Bristol the most steeply banked track used by NASCAR. However, the track is so short that speeds here are far lower than is typical on most NASCAR oval tracks, but very fast compared to other short tracks due to the high banking, making for a considerable amount of "swapping paint". Also, the initial starting grid of 43 vehicles extends almost halfway around the track, meaning that the slower-qualifying cars begin the race almost half a lap down. Another anomaly is that the short overall length means that there are two sets of pits. Until 2002, slower starters were relegated to those on the backstretch. In 2002, the rules were changed to form essentially one long pit road. During caution periods, cars wishing to pit must enter pit road in turn two, drive all the way down the back stretch, through turns three and four and down the front stretch, exiting pit road in turn one. This rule eliminated the inherent disadvantage of pitting on the back stretch. Pit stops under green flag conditions have different rules. Cars with pits on the back stretch enter the pits in turn two and exit in turn three; Cars with pits on the front stretch enter the pits in turn four and exit in turn one. Confusion has occurred from drivers thinking that even during green flag runs, that they would have to drive through both pit roads.

Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing found mainly in the United States and Great Britain held largely on oval rings of between approximately ½ mile and 2.66 miles (about 0.8 to 4.2 kilometres) in length, but also raced occasionally on road courses. Ovals shorter than one mile (1.6 km) are called short tracks; unpaved short tracks are called dirt tracks; longer ovals are typically known as superspeedways. Top level races are generally 200 to 600 miles (300-1000 km) in length. Average speeds in the top classes are around 160 mph (275.5 km/h), compared to 220 mph (354 km/h) in comparable levels of open wheel racing. Some NASCAR races can get up to speeds of 200 mph at tracks such as the Daytona International Speedway and the Talladega Superspeedway.