HAMPTON, Ga. — No, I have never.
After a dull Saturday (Feb. 24) between the NASCAR Xfinity and Craftsman Truck series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Sunday’s (Feb. 25) Cup Series race was anything but.
Fans were treated to 48 lead changes (an Atlanta record), constant battles at the front of the field, constant action through the pack and — for a brief moment — four-wide racing.
The intensity only continued to pick up as the laps ticked down. There was a five-lap shootout to decide the finish, and with the checkered flag in sight, it was Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch and Daniel Suarez three-wide, nose-to-nose and neck-and-neck as the trio barreled through turn 4 toward the stripe.
The three crossed the line, and the finish was too close to call on first glance. Video review plus timing and scoring soon confirmed Suarez and the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Team as the winners by the razor-thin margin of 0.003 seconds over Blaney.
Three one-thousandths of a second. Not only was the third-closest finish in Cup history, but it was third-place Busch who crossed the stripe seven one-thousandths after Suarez.
Three cars, all within one one-hundredth of a second. What more is there to say about what the NASCAR world was treated to this Sunday night.
“It was so damn close, man, it was so damn close,” Suarez told FOX. “You know, it was good racing. Ryan Blaney there, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric also did a great job giving me pushes there. In the back of the straightaway [Cindric] didn’t push me because he knew that I was going to fight his teammate.
“Man, what a job. We wrecked lap 2. They did an amazing job fixing this car, so, I can’t think everyone enough. Trackhouse Racing, Freeway Insurance, Chevrolet, all the Mexican fans here. Woo! Let’s go!”
But for every sweet victory, there are bitter defeats.
Busch, whose last Cup win at Atlanta came in 2013, was the man in the middle during the three-wide run to the checkered.
“I got a little too far ahead of the No. 99, he got a good side draft through the corner,” Busch said. “I didn’t think the outside would prevail, but with the run down the frontstretch and the side draft, that’s what hurt us. But I was looking at the No. 12 (Blaney), I swore I was ahead of the No. 12 at the line, but obviously my eyes are bad, so I need more powerful glasses, I guess.”
“Towards…
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