There are several firsts this weekend, some more so than others.
A true first is the first race with the new bracket challenge. Normally, there’s no elimination in NASCAR until the end of the year. The summer races still matter – any winner gets an automatic Playoff berth and a few drivers can get in on points – but the intensity picks up at the end of the year. Not so this season.
NASCAR, inspired by the success of Denny Hamlin’s informal bracket, picked up by Dale Earnhardt’s Dirty Mo Media last season, is making it official and awarding $1 million to the winner.
Drivers have been seeded over the previous three races, with seeding determined by their best finish in those three races and their next-best finishes to break any ties. Like March Madness or any other seeding chart, the best-seeded driver is up against the worst. (Note that this process cut the field down to 32 based on points in advance so Shane van Gisbergen is not in it at all despite winning at Mexico City.)
Less a first and more of a return is the TV network. TNT Sports (including the TBS and TNT networks) aired NASCAR from 1983 until 2014. Now it’s back for a six-race stretch, similar to the previous stretch on Amazon Prime.
A lot will be similar to Amazon Prime, in fact, including the announcers: Adam Alexander will be the lead commentator with Dale Earnhardt Jr and Steve Letarte as analysts.
Something that’s not a first at all is in fact the track. NASCAR might be making its first race at EchoPark Speedway, but that is just a renamed Atlanta Motor Speedway. The track remains the 1.5-mile oval recently reconfigured into a high-banked superspeedway-style facility, and the race remains named the Quaker State 400 (airing on Saturday night at 7 p.m. ET on TNT, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
If past Atlanta races are anything to go by, getting the first round of the bracket correct will be a herculean task. The track inherits superspeedway-style unpredictability, with cars grouped close together and action on every lap. But it’s not like any other track from a driver perspective, as Corey Lajoie explained.
“Atlanta is like a speedway on steroids. Things happen so quickly, and you can get yourself into a bad spot,” Lajoie said.
The series raced at this track early in the season in February as well, where Lajoie finished 38th after being collected in a multicar wreck. While that race might give something of an indication, a summertime race (especially in a southeast heatwave) means the track will be slick and challenging. While it is a night race, temperatures should be above 80 degrees even when the sun goes down.
“I think it’ll make for tighter racing. Handling’s definitely going to be of importance,” Lajoie described the conditions to expect.
While getting caught up in crashes is an all-but-inevitable part of superspeedway racing, Lajoie has had his share of success at what is now EchoPark Speedway. In the summer race in 2022, he was leading the race late and lined up on the front row for an Overtime restart, but was pushed out of the way by Chase Elliott who went on to win. It would have been Lajoie’s first career win in any NASCAR national series.
“We led the final restart of the day, and then Chase Elliott got a big push, got to the lead, and I should’ve worked a bit harder to block that run for the lead,” LaJoie said. “I thought I made the right move on the last lap to get to his right-rear quarter, but he just threw his block a bit later, and he threw the block to win, right?
“It didn’t work for me and the help didn’t go my way, but that was pretty close to career victory number one. But that’s why I keep showing up, especially here at Atlanta. I feel that we can find ourselves in the same spot.”
Lajoie has a different perspective on this race. While he’s driving part-time this season in the No. 01 for Rick Ware Racing, he just came off a stint as a studio analyst for Amazon Prime. He said that watching other drivers perform took a lot of pressure off his shoulders.
“Driving the racecar can be a really lonely place,” he described. “You have all this weight of expectations to deliver for your team and your sponsors and yourself and your fans, and when you feel like you’re not doing that, it feels like everybody is looking at you. But what I realized these last five weeks during my time on Prime, I’m intently watching the race, but I’m really only focused on three guys’ races. The other guys who are there grinding away, unless they somehow factor into the main storylines of the race, they’re not top of mind.
“Before this opportunity to see the race from a TV perspective, I would feel like if I wasn’t running well, then I was letting a lot of people down. I think that I cared too much, and I would hold the outcome too tightly, as opposed to just enjoying it when I was doing it.
“Now that I’m back in the seat, I’m going to enjoy it,” LaJoie said. “I really like the atmosphere at Rick Ware Racing, and now we’re going back to a place where I’ve been close to winning before. It’s a great opportunity for me to run well and have some fun.”
One thing to keep in mind is that Lajoie is not in the bracket challenge, since he’s not a full-time driver within the top 32 in points. So he’ll be racing at Atlanta just for the win for Rick Ware Racing, trying to beat every driver and not just one.
Odds via BetMGM
+800 – Ryan Blaney
+1000 – Austin Cindric
+1000 – Joey Logano
+1600 – William Byron
+1600 – Brad Keselowski
+1800 – Kyle Busch
+1800 – Chase Elliott
+1800 – Kyle Larson
+1800 – Christopher Bell
+2000 – Denny Hamlin
Of those three guys at the front that Corey described watching on TV, there are a few who you might expect at EchoPark Speedway. Two drivers have won multiple times at the track since it was repaved into the superspeedway-style layout in 2022: Joey Logano and William Byron.
(Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch both have multiple wins at the old Atlanta, but that was when it raced like a more typical mile-and-a-half.)
While it is superspeedway racing, certain drivers seem to find their way to the front. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t unpredictability. Three other active drivers have a single win at the track since 2022: Christopher Bell, Daniel Suarez, and Chase Elliott.
Austin Hill Has Been Three-Times Lucky in Atlanta
Austin Hill loves his home track. Not only is he back in Georgia, but he’s been hugely successful at it. Hill has won all three of the last three races at EchoPark Speedway outside Atlanta, and five of the last six races. That means he’s only failed to win twice in seven races since the track was reconfigured in 2022 to race like a superspeedway.
That doesn’t even tell the whole story of Richard Childress Racing’s domination at EchoPark Speedway: Hill’s teammate Jesse Love has earned the pole position in each of those last three races as well. RCR has been able to build the fastest cars and execute the race.
It’s not just Atlanta: RCR is good on the superspeedways. Hill remains the only driver in the series to have won on all three drafting tracks (EchoPark, Daytona, and Talladega).
Hill will try to go for a fourth in a row in Friday night’s Focused Health 250 (7:30 p.m. ET on CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
He can be beat, certainly, but the two other drivers who’ve won at EchoPark Speedway over Hill (Ty Gibbs and John Hunter Nemechek) are both in the Cup Series now.
Justin Allgaier, defending champion and points leader, is also a past winner at the track, but he won in its previous configuration when it raced more like a mile-and-a-half than a superspeedway. His strategy to get a win on this new configuration is to be in contention at the end.
“Hopefully, we can keep our nose clean all night long, work well with our teammates, and be up front fighting for the win when it counts,” Allgaier described.
Of note, former Cup Series driver and current part-time Xfinity Series driver Aric Almirola will be driving the No. 19 for Joe Gibbs Racing at EchoPark Speedway, an extra challenger to face down Hill besides the full-time field. Almirola has already won once this season at Phoenix.
Truck Series Makes a Northern Debut
The historic Lime Rock Park road course in Connecticut has played host to everything from IMSA to IROC since it opened in 1956. Now, though, the sports car course will see something unique in the form of NASCAR race trucks.
The 1.478-mile left-and-right turn track hosts Saturday’s Liuna 150 (airing at 1 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). And there will be more than just a fleeting IMSA connection. Ricky Taylor, who drives GTP prototypes in the highest class of IMSA, will be driving the No. 7 truck for Spire Motorsports.
For Taylor, there is a pretty steep learning curve ahead of the weekend to make the jump from a high-speed GTP to a truck designed primarily to turn left.
“I think everything will be different,” Taylor said. “The truck will be much heavier with less downforce, less braking capabilities and much higher tire degradation.
“Sportscars have been using paddle shifters for the last 10 or 15 years, so going back to the old-school H-pattern shifter with the ‘heel-toe’ technique will take some laps to get used to.”
Another driver to watch is Australian Supercars driver Cam Waters. He’s raced against Shane van Gisbergen (who’s already proven a NASCAR standout and multi-time winner in the Cup and Xfinity series) and has the results to back it up with multiple runner-up finishes in that championship. Waters will be driving the No. 66 No. 66 ThorSport Racing truck in his third-ever Truck Series start.
Those two will face down points leader Corey Heim, who’s already won four times this season. Heim has won twice on road courses before, including the two most recent last season. If he can win on Saturday, Heim will be the first driver in series history to win three road courses in a row.
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