The NASCAR Cup Series Ambetter Health 400 started with a crash on lap two, had many more crashes throughout and ended with a three-wide photo finish.
Just as the field was passing the start-finish line for lap two at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Austin Dillon got turned side-ways. The ensuing incident involved 16 cars as the race was just getting started. There was a total of 10 caution periods including the end of the first two stages of the race and one red-flag period that lasted 11 minutes and 25 seconds. By the end of the race there were only three cars in the field that had not been involved at least slightly in some accident.
The excessive crashing doesn’t mean the cars weren’t working for the lead of the race. There were 48 lead changes among 14 different leaders in the race. Michael McDowell claimed the win in stage one of the race. Austin Cindric was the winner of stage two. Todd Gilliland led the most laps (58), but had to pit near the end taking him out of contention for the win.
The race re-started after the final caution with just a handful of laps to go. Defending NASCAR Cup Series Champion Ryan Blaney was able to be the leader for four laps of the last five. However, on the last lap Daniel Suarez and Kyle Busch battled Ryan Blaney to gain control of the race. Coming out of the final turn the three cars ended up side-by-side, three wide. That is the way the three would finish forcing NASCAR to go to a photo finish and examine video footage to determine the winner.
It was determined the Daniel Suarez was the winner by a margin of 0.003 over Ryan Blaney. Kyle Busch was just ever-so-slightly behind for third place. The win was Daniel’s second career win in the NASCAR Cup Series. See the complete race results here.
Kyle Busch moves up seven spots to take over the lead in the point standings. William Byron slips back to second place. Austin Cindric moves up eight spots to third in the standings. See the complete NASCAR Cup Series Point Standings here.
Next on the schedule is the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday, March 3rd.
By: Buck Stevens
