Daniel Suárez narrowly beat Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch throughout the end line to win the Ambetter Health 400 by 0.003 seconds, the third-closest end in NASCAR Cup Series historical past. The unimaginable finale overshadowed the pointless pile-ups and multi-car wrecks that stuffed the 400-mile race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It’s Monday, February 26, 2024 and that is Racing Recap, your abstract of final weekend’s motorsports motion.
Atlanta Pack Racing’s Double-Edged Sword
Yesterday’s NASCAR Cup Series race ended with an unbelievable five-lap dash. Unbelievable due to how shut the end was and that nobody crashed to ship the race to additional time. One might guess that Suárez’s momentum on the surface carried his No. 99 Chevy Camaro forward, however there’s no technique to show it definitively. It wasn’t solely an in depth battle for the win however throughout your entire subject. Roughly a second covers the highest 20 drivers throughout the road, one thing that wasn’t potential at Atlanta till just a few years in the past.
The 1.5-mile monitor was reconfigured forward of the 2022 season to extend the banking to twenty-eight levels. NASCAR additionally mandated that vehicles race at Atlanta beneath the principles package deal used at Daytona and Talladega, bringing superspeedway pack racing to a 3rd monitor regardless of being a mile shorter than the opposite two.
While pack racing is inherently shut, it additionally makes huge pile-ups inevitable. Yesterday’s first multi-car wreck occurred after solely a single lap. Yes, Lap 2. The sheer quantity of incidents may be irritating for the drivers collected in them and the followers who’ve to look at lap-after-lap of pacing beneath the yellow flag. Fox ultimately began itemizing the drivers who hadn’t been concerned in a crash as a result of it was simpler to indicate on display screen.
I perceive NASCAR needs extra pack racing as a result of individuals merely can’t look away. However, trying to fabricate dramatic moments simply makes thrilling racing uninteresting over time. If each race is particular, then none of them are.
Race Results
1. – Daniel Suárez (Trackhouse)
2. – Ryan Blaney (Penske) – +0.003 seconds
3. – Kyle Busch (Childress) – +0.007 seconds
4. – Austin Cindric (Penske) – +0.077 seconds
5. – Bubba Wallace (23XI) – +0.112 seconds
Source: jalopnik.com