By Holly Cain / NASCAR Wire Service
NASCAR Cup Series carries season-opening momentum to Atlanta
ATLANTA, Ga. (February 20, 2025)– While last weekend’s 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season-opening DAYTONA 500 provided all the drama expected of The Great American race, fans have every reason to anticipate the same sort of high-excitement in Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 (3 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Last year’s three-wide photo finish among winner Daniel Suarez and runners-up, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch creates huge excitement for both fans and teams returning to the recently-revised 1.5-mile Atlanta high-banks that race like a small superspeedway.
Suarez’s 2024 victory – by less than the blink-of-the-eye at .003-second – actually turned out to be just one of the amazingly close finishes of the season topped only by Kyle Larson’s win at Kansas by .001-second over Chris Buescher last May. Suarez has now finished first or second in the last three Atlanta races.
“It was a lot of fun,” Suarez smiled and recalled of the Atlanta race. “Even more fun for me, right, because I was the one that won the race. Probably wouldn’t have been that much fun if I finished second or third.”
Teams arrive this weekend after a full contact edition of the DAYTONA 500, won for the second consecutive year by Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron. Tyler Reddick, last year’s Regular Season Champion, was runner-up and seven-time series champion Jimmie Johnson was third in his best outing since stepping back from fulltime competition.
Last year’s Atlanta February race final standings read like a typical superspeedway event – those drivers who are up front at Daytona, were largely in the group up front that next week at Atlanta.
For example, reigning series champion, Team Penske’s Joey Logano, who led 43 laps last week in the 500, has a pair of Atlanta wins (2023-24) as does Daytona winner Byron (2022 and 23). They along with Hendrick’s Chase Elliott (2022) and Penske’s Blaney (2021) are the other most recent Atlanta winners – always contending for wins at Daytona as well.
Austin Cindric, whose 59 laps out front were most in the DAYTONA 500, was fourth in this spring Atlanta race last year. 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who also led laps Sunday, was fifth at Atlanta. Former DAYTONA 500 winners Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael McDowell, as well as Daytona summer race winner Chris Buescher all had top-10s at Atlanta as well.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin (2012), RFK Racing owner-driver Brad Keselowski (2017 and 2019) and Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch (2008 and 2013) are the other active drivers with Atlanta trophies too.
This race last year, featured a record 48 lead changes by 14 drivers – a full-on day of tight racing. And that’s exactly what the field expects Sunday. The pass for the win at Atlanta has come in the final two laps in four of the last five races there; including this one a year ago.
The work out front last week by Austin Cindric, Logano and Team Penske teammate Blaney was impressive at Daytona and makes them favorites again this week. They all three led at least 20 laps on the superspeedway – something a team has accomplished only four times in series history. In just the last two years, the Penske team has combined to lead 898 laps – more three times that of any other team on drafting tracks such as Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega, Ala.
“It’s amazing how much Atlanta has changed from the repave, and then to the new version of the car and how much we’ve had to adapt to the new style of racing at Atlanta,” Suarez’s Trackhouse Racing teammate Ross Chastain said. “It’s kind of wild to think how Atlanta is now a drafting a track but it has created some exciting finishes. You look back at last year’s race with my teammate Daniel’s win and how close that finish was. It’s cool to see the fan’s excited for the racing at Atlanta and I hope to be the guy in Victory Lane this weekend.”
Blaney’s seventh-place finish at Daytona combined with good stage points, gives him a single-point edge over Byron and three-point lead over his teammate Cindric atop the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings.
There is no practice session this week and Busch Light Pole Qualifying is set for 11 a.m. ET on Saturday – the broadcast available on Amazon Prime.
Michael McDowell won the pole position at both Atlanta races in 2024 driving a Ford. However, this year Toyota returns to the track hoping to extend a mark of six consecutive poles dating back to October last year, when JGR’s Christopher Bell started the streak at Las Vegas. Chase Briscoe won the pole position for last week’s DAYTONA 500 in his first start for the JGR Toyota team.
Georgia native Austin Hill is the one to beat in the Xfinity Series at Atlanta
The NASCAR Xfinity Series is the second half of an exciting racing doubleheader on Saturday with the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 (5 p.m. ET on The CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the lightning-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway 1.5-miler.
Austin Hill, who was trying to win an incredible fourth straight February Xfinity Series race last week in the Daytona season-opener, swept the stage wins and led a race best 56 laps only to retire early with engine problems on his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. His RCR teammate Jesse Love ended up winning the race.
Hill gets another shot at track domination this weekend at Atlanta where the Georgia native is going for his fifth win in the last six races. He swept both race victories last season. In a sort of ironic inversion to last weekend at Daytona, Hill led only the final two overtime laps in last February’s race win at Atlanta while his teammate Love led a dominating 157 of the 169 laps and finished 12th.
With its recent reconfiguration, Atlanta certainly presents itself as another “superspeedway” only 1-mile shorter than Daytona. Judging by the racing last weekend, expect a highly-competitive look again at Atlanta.
Eleven drivers led laps at Daytona from veteran championship favorites such as Hill, Justin Allgaier and Sheldon Creed to talented young drivers such as Love and highly-touted rookie Connor Zilisch, who joins former NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series standouts Christian Eckes, Nick Sanchez and Taylor Gray among the new mix of promising young stars. Harrison Burton, who returns to the NASCAR Xfinity Series after three years in the NASCAR Cup Series ranks is also expected to consistently run up front and challenge for trophies.
Creed takes a nine-point advantage over Love atop the championship standings heading to Atlanta, where Allgaier (2021) and Hill (2022, 2023, 2024) are the only fulltime series drivers with victories.
Qualifying is set for 5 p.m. Friday and available on the CW App. Sam Mayer won pole position in 2024.
CRAFTSMAN Truck Series to kick off Atlanta’s Saturday doubleheader
The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series follows up its dramatic Daytona season-opener in the first half of Saturday’s NASCAR double-header at Atlanta Motor Speedway with the Fr8 Racing 208 (1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Championship favorite Corey Heim was declared the winner of the Daytona opener after Parker Kligerman’s team was disqualified after post-race inspection. The turn of events earned Heim his first-ever visit to Daytona’s Victory Lane and gives him a slim 3-point advantage over 2024 series champion and Daytona third-place finisher Ty Majeski entering the Atlanta race.
The Daytona top-10 may be a good indicator of what to expect this season in terms of competitive highlights with perennial title-favorite Grant Enfinger (fourth) and a handful of talented full-timers joining the grid from Chandler Smith (sixth), who led a race best 34 laps, to former NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Daniel Hemric (seventh) and highly-touted rookie William Sawalich (ninth).
Frankie Muniz, the television and movie star, eager to cement a new career in fulltime NASCAR competition, finished a career best 10th-place at Daytona. Two-time series champion Ben Rhodes led 22 laps but finished 20th while young talents such as Rajah Caruth and Tyler Ankrum were collected in crashes.
Among the fulltime drivers, there are three former Atlanta race winners entered this weekend, including Heim, who hoisted the trophy in 2022, Enfinger, who won in 2020 and Matt Crafton, the 2015 winner.
Kyle Busch is the seven-time and defending race winner and will be competing Saturday in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.
Qualifying is set for 3 p.m. ET on Friday (FS1). The polesitter has won five times – the most of any position on the grid; the last time was in 2017 with driver Christopher Bell.
