FULL RESULTS (PDF)
William Byron saw both sides of the field in the Quaker State 400 Sunday. He recovered from a mid-race spin to be up front at the right time and score the win as rain shortened the race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Rain may have stopped the event early, but there was plenty of action throughout the race. The looming threat of that rain made track position vital in every stage of the race, producing high-intensity side-by-side and three-wide racing throughout the field and strategies that varied widely.
It was No. 24 Hendrick team that played the perfect strategy that put William Byron up front when it mattered, even if it didn’t look like he would be there. He went spinning on Lap 81 of the eventual 185 off the bumper of Corey Lajoie, who later apologized to Byron. That came after a pit road penalty during the Stage 1 pit stops when an ineligible crewmember came over the wall during the stop and sent Byron to the back of the field.
“We went through so much throughout the night,” Byron acknowledged: “spinning through the infield, destroyed the bottom of the car dragging it around the apron trying to stay on the lead lap.”
The fortuitous choice to stay out at the caution that ended Stage 2 gave Byron track position, and he raced his way around leader AJ Allmendinger to get the position.
“Just teamwork,” Byron said. “Honestly, I don’t completely understand this one. It’s a really good feeling. I’ve never had a rain victory like this, it’s cool.”
“Rudy (crew chief Rudy Fugle) made a good call to pit there and then stay out, and once we got towards the front it was okay. We could honestly make the right decisions, block okay, and got the lead from AJ and just was able to manage the run.”
“Just a crazy night,” he summed it up.
The win puts Byron in the lead of the point standings.
Daniel Suarez pushed Byron around Almendinger, following himself to end up second when the final caution came out for a wreck involving Bubba Wallace, Ryan Preece, and Ricky Stenhouse.
After driving through the field, Suarez wanted another shot to go for the win.
“I really wanted to do one more restart,” he said. “I have mixed feelings because I really wanted one more shot at it.”
Still, he’s happy with second, knowing that he had more to lose than to gain if the race restarted.
“At the same time, the two cars behind me, the cars that needed to push me, they also needed to win, so who knows if they were actually going to help me get the win,” he acknowledged. “It’s not in their best benefit.”
“We’ve been very fast lately, and I haven’t been able to give the team the result they deserve, so this is very good for our group,” Suarez concluded.
The result is critical for his Playoff picture, moving him above the cutline by three points with seven races remaining in the regular season. He came in six points out.
AJ Allmendinger, who started the final restart on the point, ended up third. He was more of a fan of NASCAR’s call not to restart the field, remembering what happened last season in the August race at Daytona, when most of the field was taken out by light rain in the first corner on a restart.
“We’ve all been on the end of trying to race into the rain,” he explained. “At a racetrack like this, just like Daytona last year, it’s hard to put us at risk to all of sudden have a rain shower down the backstretch when you’re running 190 wide-open and there’s nothing you’re going to do.”
“I’d love to have one more shot at it, but I’m also happy that they didn’t try to force us into making one or two laps before the rain hit,” he added.
As for whether he could’ve won, Allmendinger wasn’t so sure. He certainly was always going to lose the lead on the last restart, he said.
“I think I could’ve kept the track position, just trying to lead the race was the tough thing. Once I would get in the lead, it was hard to defend because they would get big runs on me. It wasn’t going to be defending them for five laps and winning the race. I was going to have to it right on the back straightaway and go for the win.”
Like Suarez, Michael McDowell benefitted from a strong result to improve his Playoff outlook. For McDowell, a fourth-place finish moves him above the cutline by three points, which actually ties him with Suarez.
Like Byron, McDowell suffered damage earlier in the race after contact with Truex on pit road, but it didn’t hurt his speed.
He was happy with the result and complimentary of crew chief Travis Peterson’s strategy call to stay out.
“It’s a good day,” he said. Of course, “you’re bummed that you didn’t get to victory lane. But I think we executed well, and Travis did a great job. The strategy put us in position to win the race and we’ve just got to keep doing that every week.”
Kyle Busch, who joked that he was “still confused” with the race strategy, was content with stopping the race in his fifth-place position.
“There’s more for us out there. Yes. I would love to race. I’m a racer, I want to go get more. But I can be content in fifth.”
Brad Keselowski was the first driver to pit on the final stop. He made his way up to sixth in the fifteen laps of racing but didn’t have time to put his fresh rubber and full fuel tank to use.
“Just didn’t catch the breaks we needed at the end,” Keselowski summed it up.
JJ Yeley, who finished seventh, got the Rick Ware Racing No. 15 its best-ever finish. It’s Yeley’s first top ten in a decade: since the 2013 Daytona 500.
Ryan Blaney, Justin Haley, and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. rounded out the top ten.
It was an intense race, with rain motivating close side-by-side battles throughout. Those resulted in six cautions for accidents, with most of those being multi-car crashes in the second stage.
One special highlight came at the beginning of the race: Richard Childress paced the field in the actual No. 29 car that Kevin Harvick won in back in 2001 after being called up to succeed Dale Earnhardt. Harvick drove door-to-door with his old team owner in the car that he, retiring, made his final Atlanta start in.
The Cup Series returns for the Crayon 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 16th.
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