The battle for the win in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway came down between two brothers – Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch.
In the end, it was Kurt Busch wrestling the lead away from Kyle Busch with 24 laps to go in the Quaker State 400.
Kurt Busch then went on to hold off a late charge from Kyle – including a big move in turn one that had the lead duo side-by-side off turn two – and drove to his first victory of the 2021 season.
“Hell yeah, we beat Kyle!” Busch exclaimed after climbing from his No. 1 Chevrolet in front of the grandstands. “I taught that kid everything he knows, he should be grateful.
“What a battle. What a genuine, awesome, old-school racetrack, and I just asked the track today, last time here on your old asphalt, can I have an old guy win, and she answered. Thank you, Atlanta Motor Speedway!”
It’s the 33rd win of Kurt Busch’s career, tying him for 25th on the NASCAR Cup Series all-time win list with NASCAR Hall of Famer Fireball Roberts, who coincidentally recorded the first win at the Hampton, Georgia speedway in 1960.
He led 144 laps en route to the victory, which locks him into the Playoffs with just five races remaining before the cutoff.
“This has been one of those years where I knew we were going to have our back up against the wall with trying to get above the cutoff line and race hard and race smart, and to have GEARWRENCH in Victory Lane, this is their last race of the year, they’re with us all year, and with Monster Energy, I couldn’t have two great primary sponsors,” Busch said. What a Chevrolet today, hell yeah!”
The win comes after the announcement last week that car owner Chip Ganassi will be selling his NASCAR team to Trackhouse Racing in 2022, leaving Kurt’s future uncertain after this season.
“It’s wonderful,” said Kurt Busch of the win. “You know, for all of Ganassi, Trackhouse bought our team, I don’t know where I’m going, but I just love racing cars and I want to race that Next-Gen car. That’s why I’m trying to stick around.”
Kurt then turned to the grandstands and asked, “Will you guys have me next year if I stick around?”
The crowd responded with cheers for the 42-year-old Las Vegas native.
The two brothers split the opening segments of the race, as Kyle Busch won the first segment with Kurt Busch in second, while Kurt Busch won the second segment with Kyle Busch in second.
After leading much of the latter half of the race, Kurt Busch saw the lead go away when Kyle Busch beat him on the final green flag pit stop of the day to take the lead on lap 213.
But with 24 laps to go, with the leaders in lap traffic, Kyle Busch found himself stuck behind Kurt Busch’s Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Ross Chastain.
That gave Kurt Busch the opening his needed, as he powered to the inside of his brother. The two battled side-by-side, with Chastain helping in the draft behind Kurt Busch.
That helped Kurt Busch pull past Kyle Busch to take the lead for the final time.
Kyle Busch mounted one last charge with seven laps to go, using momentum off the high side of turn four to make a big run on the inside in turn one. But Kurt Busch held tough on the outside, and swung back to the lead as the two raced down the backstretch.
From there, Kurt Busch went on to win by a 1.237-second margin. He was quick to thank his teammate for his help in the clutch.
“Shake and bake!” Busch exclaimed, in reference to the 2006 film Talladega Nights. “Yeah, and the 42 (Chastain), he did his job as a teammate. Ross is going to get a little flak for it, but that’s what it takes to be a good teammate at the right moment, so I couldn’t be more proud of Ross Chastain.
“I’ll pay him back eventually, but right now this is our No. 1 car in Victory Lane.”
Kyle Busch settled for second after leading 91 laps on the day, and was not happy with Chastain afterwards.
“It’s just the same as always. We just don’t have enough front end with laps on tires,” said Busch. “I had everything I had early in the run and then just smoked it behind the 42 (Chastain), obviously. It shows you what kind of driver he is. Just tried to fight hard after that when I got passed and had one valiant effort off of (turn) two, but didn’t have enough momentum to drag him down and make him go high in (turns) three and four, and after that the tires were smoked.
“Great effort. Guys gave me a great piece. We were fast. The No. 1 (Kurt Busch) was definitely better than us today. I just thought I had him. And we did. But racing just didn’t play out that way for us.”
For Ross Chastain, it was a matter of giving his teammate the line on the race track that he asked for.
“Kurt asked for the bottom so I gave him that lane,” said Chastain, who finished the day one lap down in 21st. “I was racing to stay on the lead lap. I’m very aware of what’s going on on the track around me. Kurt asked me for the bottom and I gave it to him.”
Chastain said there was nothing he wanted more than seeing a Chip Ganassi car in victory lane.
“One team, one goal and that’s to win,” Chastain said. “I hate that Chip wasn’t here to enjoy this. But for our Clover Chevrolet to be so far off as we were and have a teammate go win, that’s a best-case scenario for us.”
Martin Truex, Jr. came home in third on a day where he had to start dead last on the field after twice failing pre-race technical inspection.
“If you look at the stat sheet, it’s going to say we started fifth and finished third, it looks like a pretty solid day, but I had to start in the back and then getting towards the front, I think we got up to eighth or 10th or somewhere in there and we had contact on pit road,” said Truex, Jr. “The 4 (Kevin Harvick) ran into us and we had to pit and pull the fender out and start in the back again. I got all the way back up through there. It’s one of those days. Passed a lot of cars. The first two stages was the same cars over, and over and over, which is frustrating, but in the end our Auto Owners Toyota Camry was really, really fast. We closed in to within two or three seconds from leaders, but just ran out of time there.”
Alex Bowman finished in fourth, with Ryan Blaney in fifth, and Tyler Reddick in sixth.
Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott started on the pole and led the first 13 laps of the race, but a pair of issues on pit road derailed his day. The first came on the first pit stop of the day when he overshot his pit stall, forcing him to back up before his team could work on the car.
The second issue came when his No. 9 Chevy made contact with a tire carried by another team member on his way into his pit stall.
From there, Elliott’s team fought with handling for the rest of the day, finally soldiering home to seventh place result.
“We had a long day, for sure,” said Elliott. “The Adrenaline Shoc Camaro was not so hot there to start, and really just worked a lot. We changed a bunch of stuff throughout the day and just kind of kept grinding. I feel like we got to a decent spot there at the end. We weren’t anything special. But it was a heck of a lot better than where we started today. So, I’m happy with that.”
Christopher Bell, Matt DiBenedetto, and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10.
Pre-race favorite Kyle Larson struggled for the firs two segments of the race, but had moved into the top five over the second half of the event. That run went south when Larson sped on pit road, drawing a penalty on the final green flag pit stop. He would go on to finish 18th.
The race was only interrupted by caution once for an on-track incident. That came on lap 31, when contact between Cody Ware and Anthony Alfredo sent Ware into the car of Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., who also tagged Daniel Suarez, sending all three spinning into the inside wall. Alfredo was able to avoid spinning and continued on.
The race was also halted under the red flag for 20 minutes after the completion of the second segment of the race when a portion of the 24-year-old asphalt in the first dogleg on the frontstretch began to come up. The cars sat silent under the red flag while crews worked to patch the track.
The speedway is due to be repaved as part of a major reprofiling project on the track slated for completion in 2022.
NASCAR Cup Series
Atlanta Motor Speedway – Hampton, Georgia
Quaker State 400 – July 11, 2021
1. (8) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 260.
2. (2) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 260.
3. (5) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 260.
4. (17) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 260.
5. (15) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 260.
6. (7) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, 260.
7. (1) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 260.
8. (4) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 260.
9. (12) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 260.
10. (14) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 260.
11. (21) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 260.
12. (13) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 260.
13. (3) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 260.
14. (24) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 260.
15. (11) Chase Briscoe #, Ford, 260.
16. (18) Chris Buescher, Ford, 260.
17. (23) Cole Custer, Ford, 260.
18. (6) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 260.
19. (10) Joey Logano, Ford, 259.
20. (19) William Byron, Chevrolet, 259.
21. (9) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 259.
22. (26) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 258.
23. (20) Aric Almirola, Ford, 258.
24. (22) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 258.
25. (34) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet, 258.
26. (32) Anthony Alfredo #, Ford, 257.
27. (25) Michael McDowell, Ford, 256.
28. (29) Ryan Newman, Ford, 256.
29. (28) Justin Haley(i), Chevrolet, 255.
30. (36) B.J. McLeod(i), Ford, 254.
31. (37) Garrett Smithley(i), Chevrolet, 253.
32. (33) Bayley Currey(i), Chevrolet, 253.
33. (31) Cody Ware(i), Chevrolet, 253.
34. (30) Josh Bilicki, Ford, 248.
35. (35) Quin Houff, Chevrolet, 248.
36. (27) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 243.
37. (16) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet, Suspension, 178.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 141.207 mph.
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 50 Mins, 8 Secs. Margin of Victory: 1.237 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 4 for 21 laps.
Lead Changes: 10 among 7 drivers.
Lap Leaders: C. Elliott 1-13;K. Busch 14-27;D. Hamlin 28-29;K. Busch 30-83;K. Busch 84-121;C. Custer 122;A. Almirola 123-130;*. Preece 131;K. Busch 132-212;K. Busch 213-235;K. Busch 236-260.
Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led) Kurt Busch 3 times for 144 laps; Kyle Busch 3 times for 91 laps; Chase Elliott 1 time for 13 laps; Aric Almirola 1 time for 8 laps; Denny Hamlin 1 time for 2 laps; * Ryan Preece 1 time for 1 lap; Cole Custer 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 18,1,11,48,8,5,22,24,19,4
Stage #2 Top Ten: 1,18,48,5,11,8,12,2,3,19
Playoff Standings: 1. Kyle Larson – 826 (4 Wins); 2. Martin Truex, Jr. – 671 (3 Wins); 3. Alex Bowman – 609 (3 Wins); 4. Kyle Busch – 739 (2 Wins); 5. Chase Elliott – 704 (2 Wins); 6. William Byron – 733 (1 Win); 7. Joey Logano – 700 (1 Win); 8. Ryan Blaney – 639 (1 Win); 9. Brad Keselowski – 623 (1 Win); 10. Kurt Busch – 530 (1 Win); 11. Christopher Bell – 492 (1 Win); 12. Michael McDowell – 436 (1 Win); 13. Denny Hamlin – 836 (Points Leader); 14. Kevin Harvick – 626; 15. Austin Dillon – 571; 16. Tyler Reddick – 563.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2021/7/1021399/kurt-busch-bests-brother-kyle-for-atlanta-cup-victory