With the best cutoff race in the history of the NASCAR Playoffs in the books, we have officially arrived on the doorstep of the postseason.
Speaking of that race, let’s take a look at the Southern 500.
Last Week at Darlington…
A horde of 20 hungry drivers entered the confines of Darlington Raceway with a chance to end their miseries and enter the Playoffs with a clean slate the following week with much of the coverage centering on the battle for the regular season title and the battle at the bubble.
Tyler Reddick started the day with a sizable gap to second place Kyle Larson, but his day quickly cratered as he spent the entire 500 miles fighting his stomach and his Upper Deck Toyota Camry.
His teammate Bubba Wallace was lights out in qualifying, securing the pole when he desperately needed stage points to get him to the Playoffs on points. The drivers Wallace competed with directly were Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, and Ty Gibbs.
I would’ve included Martin Truex Jr., but a cataclysmic event would’ve had to take place to drop him from the Playoff grid.
Wildly enough, that cataclysmic event occurred! On the third lap of a 500-mile race, Truex got loose under William Byron on the entry to turn 1, made contact with Byron’s door, and slid down the track before overcorrecting into defending champion Ryan Blaney, ending both of their days three miles into the event.
The remainder of stage 1 played out naturally as Larson’s HendrickCars Camaro charged to the point and claimed his series-leading 11th stage win of 2024 with Wallace in hot pursuit.
Stage 2 went by without much issue as well, ending similarly to stage 1 with Larson on top and a new contender in his tire tracks: Chase Briscoe.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s newest recruit crept behind Larson’s Chevy like a lion pursuing an antelope. Briscoe qualified high in the running order, and despite his pit crew’s woes, he kept finding ways to get to the front of the field.
Most of stage 3 was more of the same with the familiar #5 car pacing the pack and pulling away. It was a night reminiscent of his dominant 2018 performance where Larson ultimately came up one spot short at the end of the night.
Both Wallace and Buescher saw their cars lose their handling in stage 2 with both hanging out between 7th and 13th, drawing the focus of the broadcast to the points battle between the two former RFK teammates.
As Buescher started to lose more ground, Carson Hocevar spun out with close to 60 to go and completely altered the complexity of the race.
The caution came as green-flag stops finished cycling through, meaning most of the field would still retreat to the pits for fresh rubber to avoid the pit falls associated with running on Darlington’s abrasive track surface.
One of the drivers that stayed out was Bubba, and it would be a fatal mistake.
Another quick caution brought the entire field down to the pits for service right as Buescher pulled up to Wallace’s rear bumper. For a few laps, it seemed like Bubba and crew chief Bootie Barker dialed up the perfect gameplan to get the #23 back up front, but it was not meant to be.
Bubba’s team owner Denny Hamlin dove to the bottom of Josh Berry and Ty Gibbs heading into turn 1. Hamlin’s slight bobble either caused slight contact with Berry or disturbed Berry’s car enough that the #4 machine forced Gibbs into the fence, setting off s chain reaction that claimed the nights of many drivers.
One of them was Bubba Wallace; trying to as he might, he did nothing to cause the incident. Yet, caution found him with Noah Gragson shipping his car around the outside and plowing into Wallace’s bumper. Despite a fast car and determined drive, Wallace’s Playoff hopes rested in the misfortune of others from that point onward.
Not long after that, one of the other protagonists of the race became an antagonist to some when Todd Gilliland and Chris Buescher made contact on the exit of turn 2. The Texan scraped the outside wall, and it certainly looked like Buescher had performed a retaliatory right-rear hook.
Despite what looked like incriminating in-car footage, Buescher was not penalized in the race or during the week for the maneuver. It’s another in an ever-increasing list of questionable judgment calls by a sanctioning body that doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the word “precedent” or their own rulebook.
Though he spent much of night battling to stay on the lead lap, Ross Chastain entered the fray late in the race, staying out on nine-lap older tires than his closest competition in an effort to get track position for another restart. Chastain held serve on the restart, leaving Larson in the dust.
Down the backstretch is when the newer tires started to take heat and grip the track, allowing Briscoe to go for the move of his life, burying his #14 on the apron on turn 3 entry.
He blew by Larson and Bell before miraculously clearing Chastain as well in what should be considered the move of the year in the Cup Series.
Even that restart was quickly truncated by a quick caution. Drivers closer to the front stayed out, creating a substantive buffer between Briscoe and the fresher tires.
Brad Keselowski was surprisingly not penalized for leaving more than a car length between him and Larson, slowing down the fresh tire brigade that restarted behind him.
This didn’t slow down Kyle Busch too much. The 38-year-old from Las Vegas has made it no secret that he wants to further his yearly winning streak to 20 this season, and for much of the final run, it looked like driver #8 might just pull off a stunning walk-off in a Crown Jewel he hasn’t won since 2008, his first year at JGR.
And, here he was, sitting in the wake of a guy on the horizon of being at JGR. It felt familiar, almost like deja vu.
Four years prior, NASCAR became the first sport “back” after the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown with Darlington hosting the first race.
In the Xfinity Series, their race featured a war between Briscoe and Busch in the closing stages where the drivers did everything but wreck each other. Briscoe emerged victorious that day in with a statement win.
The race came down to dirty air on Busch’s car while Briscoe ripped the top, taking away the fastest line from Busch. Briscoe scuffed the wall a few times, but it wasn’t substantial enough to slow the 29-year-old Hoosier on his way to his second career Cup victory with Busch falling just short of that elusive win and Playoff berth.
The News
On Friday at midnight, NASCAR announced that 13 of the 15 teams in the Cup Series accepted the proposed charter agreement that would see the teams and NASCAR sharing the revenue for the next seven years.
The two teams that are holding out? 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports.
23XI team owner Denny Hamlin and investor Curtis Polk have widely maligned the charter negotiations and are likely to continue fighting this for as long as they feel is necessary.
Track History & Description
A 2022 repave ripped up the worn-out track surface that looked closer to loose gravel than asphalt, but the surface wasn’t the only change made. The track received a complete overhaul , raising the banking in the turns from 24° up to 28°.
These adjustments turned “Hotlanta” from the fastest track on the NASCAR calendar to a site of mayhem and destruction as the sport mandates the teams to use the 550-horsepower, high-downforce package to keep the cars bunched up in a pack, much like the racing we see at Daytona and Talladega.
Since the debut of the new track surface, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron has claimed two of the five victories while Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, and Daniel Suarez fill in the other slots.
NASCAR’s brightest stars must survive 260 laps and 400 miles clustered together like ants on a piece of raw meat while moving forward and keeping their noses clean, something that’s easier to say than to execute.
The pack has to be patient and use the lessons learned from Daytona two weeks ago to master the art of drafting to weave their way to the front of the field by the time the checkered flag falls Sunday evening.
Weather & Fast Facts
Rejoice, folks!
There’s no rain in the forecast on race day, can you believe it? Not a drop in the forecast, but a sweltering day awaits the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series when they embark on this 260-lap, 400-mile odyssey later today.
With a high of 81°F, the humidity will play a factor for the spectators as it will rise to 56%, making an already-warm afternoon even hotter. These conditions should make the track slicker and harder to get grip on, something that’ll be especially treacherous as cars run just inches from one another.
An average race in Atlanta looks like this: 9 caution flags for 54 caution laps, 32 lead changes, 5,735 green-flag passes (27.8 per lap), and a shocking lack of Overtime finishes for a superspeedway circuit.
Based on all five races after the repave, the final caution is due to come out around 16 laps to go, and if you thought you might be able to get something done within a reasonable time after the race is over, strap in because this is going to be a long one.
The average Atlanta race lasts over 3 hours and 13 minutes, and with a 3pm Eastern start time on USA Network, you probably won’t be able to get up until at least 6:30pm.
The Odds
Austin Dillon (+4000) rolls into the Peach State with sour feelings after his banishment from the NASCAR Playoffs. The 34-year-old driver seeks to put the past behind him and return the legendary #3 to its former glory, and at a style of track where he’s collected two key victories, AD could use that uncertainty to his advantage, confidently avenging his Playoff ouster by spoiling the opener.
Chase Briscoe (+2800) represents Stewart-Haas Racing as its lone Playoff participant. The season appeared to be slipping away from the #14 team a month ago. Now, they’ll be swinging into the postseason with the wind at their backs off of their Southern 500 triumph. SHR knows how to get a car through the postseason, so perhaps that will pay dividends for the young Hoosier.
William Byron (+1400) enters the Playoffs on a cold streak that extends back to the Coca-Cola 600, nabbing just 4 top-10s in the last 12 races. That said, Byron remains the only two-time winner on the current Atlanta configuration, meaning he should be the favorite this weekend to stamp his ticket to the Round of 12.
Since 31 is the closest number to 29, Daniel Hemric (+11000) slots in next among the Fortune Cookie numbers. The 2021 Xfinity Series champion looks to establish himself as a Cup-level driver, and what better place to do that than in the Playoff opener? Hemric notched a top-10 here in the spring, and it’s possible he and Kaulig Racing return to their Xfinity Series roots to claim a surprise Cup win.
Following Hemric is Michael McDowell (+2000). Front Row’s strongest soldier has held down the fort for this team since 2018, bringing them a few pole positions and career-defining wins at Daytona and Indianapolis. Playing spoiler to the Playoff field can be done from both inside and outside the Playoff grid; look for McDowell and his teammate to bring the Arizona native’s career at Front Row with one last victory.
Speaking of his teammate, Todd Gilliland (+2800) looked like he was ready to land his first Cup victory here in the spring, leading the most laps before getting lost in the shuffle late in the going. Armed with the pain that result brought, Gilliland gets to show his development in real time on Sunday, assuming Front Row rolls out another hot rod in Hotlanta.
Writer’s Pick
Daniel Suárez (+3500) was my pick in the spring. He won by .003-of-a-second over Ryan Blaney and .007 over Kyle Busch in one of the greatest finishes in NASCAR history.
I would be silly not to ride with him again, and I am as serious as a heart attack: Daniel Suarez is my pick to win this weekend!
His stats here in the NextGen era are quite literally unparalleled. Three top-5s, four top-10s, and a win in the spring. Though William Byron has won here twice, Daniel Suarez finishes races here better than anyone, even coming up just one spot short last summer when the rains fell for Byron at the perfect time.
In possession of the lone Playoff spot for Trackhouse and a contract extension, Daniel no doubt wants to put on a show for the NASCAR faithful by sweeping Atlanta to further energize his home country for NASCAR’s return to Mexico City next season.
(Top Photo Credit: John Bazemore/AP Photo)
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