Atlanta Motor Speedway. A 260 lap, half mile race that ended with record setting lead changes for the track. Let’s break it down:
After 467 Cup race starts, Michael McDowell got his first pole win. Our starting top-10 lineup for Atlanta was as follows: Michael McDowell, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Todd Gilliland, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe, and Austin Dillon. However, just before the start of the race, NASCAR officials announced that the 22 of Joey Logano would take a penalty due to unapproved gloves and fall to the rear of the pack. Additionally, the 9 of Chase Elliott was penalized and also started in the rear.
Atlanta ended with a total of 48 lead changes, which broke the previous record of 46 set in July of 2022. There were also only a total of six cars who were not involved in some sort of crash. In terms of crashes, the first caution came out only on lap two, mimicking last week’s first caution on lap six at Daytona. This caution took out 16 cars, but ended the race for three of those drivers. On lap 26, the second caution came out due to the 17 of Chris Buescher spinning and just barely missing the 24 of William Byron.
Lap 40 gave us a top-10 of Kyle Busch, Michael McDowell, Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Larson, followed by Chase Briscoe, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Bubba Wallace. The next caution following this round up came out on lap 53, when the 8 of Kyle Busch bumped the rear of Denny Hamlin and the 11 goes for a spin. Stage One ended under a caution with the 34 of McDowell getting the win, followed by Blaney, Chastain, Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch ending out the top-five.
The next notable caution flag came on lap 160 when the 17 of Buescher got into the wall, and collected the 22 of Logano and the 11 of Hamlin. The Stage Two win also came under caution on lap 162, and went to the number 2 of Austin Cindric. This is where it gets really good, y’all. Buckle up!
The first caution of Stage Three came on lap 174 with the 8 of Kyle Busch bumping the 15 of Kaz Gala, who spun out. Following this, on lap 200, the 1 of Ross Chastain bumped the rear corner on the number 9 of Chase Elliott. Five laps later, we got the green flag on lap 205 with Martin Truex Jr leading.
On lap 220, we had another caution, when the 6 of Brad Keselowski spun, hitting the 5 of Kyle Larson, and they both collected the 7 of Corey LaJoie. The green flag came back out on lap 225 with Denny Hamlin leading. We then got a red flag on lap 241, resulting from the 14 of Chase Briscoe spinning, hitting the wall and collecting the 11, 4 of Josh Berry, the 21 of Harrison Burton, and the 51 of Justin Haley.
After a red flag of 11:24, the race went green again on lap 245, only for it to be cut short again on lap 250, after the 2 of Cindric got loose and checked up, causing the 4 of Berry to go sideways and collect rookie Carson Hocevar of the 77 and the 9 of Chase Elliott, while the 99 of Daniel Suárez grabbed the lead up front. Lap 255 marked five to go, and also marked the last green flag. Daniel Suárez led the field with Ryan Blaney on the outside.
The 99 finished The Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway three-wide, with Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch in a photo finish at the checkered flag and .003 seconds, which is the third closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history. Following the 99, the top-10 was as follows: Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ross Chastain, Michael McDowell, Chris Buescher and Ty Gibbs. Five of the top-10 drivers were also in our starting lineup.
Photo Credits to @ NASCAR on X.
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