In The Know – Atlanta
We’re headed to the 404 of this weekend. Below is everything you need to know about SHR storylines heading into Atlanta and how to catch all the racing action over the weekend.
The Details
NASCAR Cup Series Overview
● Event: Folds of Honor 500 (Round 5 of 36)
● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 20
● Location: Atlanta Motor Speedway
● Layout: 1.54-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 325 laps/500.5 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 105 laps / Stage 2: 105 laps / Final Stage: 115 laps
● TV/Radio: FOX / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
The SCHEDULE
Friday’s on-track activity at Atlanta Motor Speedway was canceled due to weather, so NASCAR canceled Saturday’s qualifying session in order to get practice in. The lineup was set by the rulebook, and Chase Briscoe will the Cup Series field to green on Sunday.
The Cup Series’ practice is now set for 12:40 p.m. ET on Saturday, and the Cup Series race is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET. Catch all the action on Fox.
SHR FAST FACTS
Kevin Harvick:
Harvick has three NASCAR Cup Series wins at Atlanta. His first at the track was the first of his career, and it came a little over 20 years ago on March 11, 2001. The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500 was just Harvick’s third race in a Cup Series car. He started fifth in the 325-lap contest and led twice for 18 laps, including the final six. But Harvick had to earn the win on the final lap and hold off a then three-time champion in Jeff Gordon. Harvick succeeded, outdueling the eventual 2001 series champion to take the win by a scant .006 margin of victory – the seventh-closest finish in NASCAR history.
Of course, the backstory to that first win is significant. Harvick wasn’t just driving any racecar when he won at Atlanta. He was driving the racecar that less than a month earlier had been piloted by the sport’s titan, Dale Earnhardt. The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion died on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Team owner Richard Childress tabbed Harvick, who was racing for him in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, to pull double-duty and take over Earnhardt’s Cup ride. The No. 3, made iconic by Earnhardt, was changed to the No. 29 and Harvick made his Cup Series debut Feb. 25 at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham. Harvick started 36th that Sunday at Rockingham, but rain washed over the 1.017-mile oval just 51 laps into the 393-lap race. The race resumed at 11 a.m. ET on Monday, whereupon Harvick drove to a solid 14th-place finish. He then traveled to Las Vegas on Tuesday, married his wife, DeLana, on Wednesday, and was back in a racecar on Friday, competing in both the Xfinity Series and Cup Series events at Las Vegas. After finishing eighth on Sunday to score his first career top-10 in the Cup Series, Harvick headed to Atlanta where the first of his 58 career Cup Series wins was secured.
Aric Almirola:
Almirola’s average finish of 7.3 through the first four races tops all drivers this season. It’s his best average finish through four races in 10 full-time Cup Series seasons. His average finish is even more impressive in light of the No. 10 team’s average starting position of 23.5, which ranks 25th in the series.
Almirola’s track record at superspeedways provides a promising outlook for success at Atlanta this weekend, where drivers and teams are expecting pack-style racing akin to events at Daytona and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Almirola has two wins, seven top-fives, 13 top-10s and 84 laps led at Daytona and Talladega. Last June, he scored his eighth-consecutive top-10 at Talladega to tie the track record for most consecutive top-10s. The mark was originally set by Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr., between April 2001 and October 2004. Almirola finished fifth in his most recent superspeedway start in this year’s season-opening Daytona 500.
Almirola arrives at Atlanta sixth in the driver standings with 122 points, 14 out of first.
Chase Briscoe:
Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory Sunday at Phoenix Raceway. He joins Alan Kulwicki (1988) and Bobby Hamilton (1996) as the third driver to earn his first Cup Series win at the desert mile oval. He is also the first Cup Series driver to take a car carrying the No. 14 to victory lane at Phoenix, and is the 200th Cup Series winner of all time.
Briscoe started sixth at Phoenix and led three times for 101 laps. He held off a late-race charge from Tyler Reddick and Ross Chastain during a lap-293 restart and was in the top spot when the caution flag flew on lap 305 of the scheduled 312-lap race, setting up a green-white-checkered shootout. The 27-year-old from Mitchell, Indiana, then drove away from Reddick, Chastain and nine-time Phoenix winner and SHR teammate Kevin Harvick, among others, to score his first win in NASCAR’s top series and the first win for the No. 14 team since 2018. Clint Bowyer drove the No. 14 SHR Ford to victory in that year’s June race at Michigan.
Sunday’s Phoenix win came in just the 40th career start for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year. It was just the fourth race for the new NextGen car, NASCAR’s latest version of stock car that debuted in 1949. In four races this season, Briscoe has earned a win, two top-three finishes and his career-best staring position on an oval – third at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the previous weekend. He is tied with Kyle Larson for fourth in the driver standings and currently holds a spot in the 16-driver playoff field.
Cole Custer:
Cole Custer, driver of the No. 41 Dixie Vodka Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), will be making his milestone 80th career NASCAR Cup Series start during Sunday’s Folds of Honor 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But even though the 2020 Cup Series Rookie of the Year has made three previous Cup Series starts on the 1.54-mile oval and another four in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series combined, he will in essence be seeing the 62-year-old facility for the first time this weekend. The track underwent a wholesale reconfiguration and repave since Custer and his fellow Cup Series competitors last raced there in July, its banking increased from 24 to 28 degrees, the racing surface narrowed from 55 to 40 feet wide, and it has been completely resurfaced with fresh asphalt and an improved, high-tech drainage system.
OUR WEEKLY WRAPS
Harvick flying with the Mobil 1 Pegasus. Almirola sizzling with Smithfield. Briscoe in HighPoint.com blue. Custer looking smooth with Dixie Vodka. We’ve got some great wraps heading to Atlanta.
What Our Drivers are Saying:
Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
You’re going to a whole new Atlanta with a whole new car. How do you tackle that?
“Atlanta is a race where you have some actual practice, so that’s a good thing. It’s another element that you have to add in there with the grip level of the racetrack and the new asphalt and everything that comes with that, and where to run on the racetrack. So, you have things that are just going to chew up time on practice day as far as learning what you need to do from the driver’s seat, and that progression of the racetrack definitely affects the handling of the racecar. There are just so many challenges in the beginning of the year with new racetracks and new cars and logistics and you just have to be very open-minded. You have to take it one step at a time and not get too frustrated with everything that’s going to be going on because there’s going to be a lot to digest.”
Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Do you think the configuration will race similarly to Talladega and Daytona?
“I don’t know. I don’t think so because it’s not as big of a racetrack. The corner radiuses are a lot narrower and tighter and so I don’t know how it’s going to play out. I know that our cars will probably drive fine. I think there is going to be a ton of grip with that high of banking and a newly paved track, but I don’t know how the cars are going to race. Are we going to pack race or not? All of those things are a big question mark.”
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Have you noticed any significant strides in yourself or the team compared to last year?
“I think from a confidence standpoint I feel like I belong this year. Last year, it was very ‘eyes wide open.’ I was racing against guys I had watched on TV for years and that I’ve looked up to. Now I don’t look at the 18 car and go, ‘That’s Kyle Busch.’ It’s just the 18 car, another guy out there. I think that confidence has come a long way. Obviously with the results, the confidence builds. I feel like I belong. Especially, now, winning, I’ve proven I belong in the Cup Series. When you come in in your rookie year, you think you’re ready, but you’re never ready. To run up front and lead laps is special, for sure.”
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 Dixe Vodka Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
The Daytona 500 and the West Coast swing are in the rearview mirror. How do you like the new NextGen car, so far?
“I think from my experience with the car they’ve done a solid job. Obviously, the mile-and-a-half tracks, where a lot of aerodynamics come into play, has been very interesting. You don’t have the sideforce that you want in the car to really have the confidence that you want, but it makes it very interesting as the driver to kind of find that limit and try not to go over because I think we’ve seen a lot of guys do that. And then, I think we’ve seen a lot of people who aren’t usually in the top-10 from the past racing up front. It’s been crazy. Even after four races, I think it’s still very much an even playing field just because nobody has figured out this car completely, yet. It’s anybody’s game right now and this weekend brings another new adventure.”
OF INTEREST: ATLANTA’S RECONSTRUCTION
Atlanta’s sports venues seemingly age quickly. The Georgia Dome, which played host to the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and was the site of two Super Bowls (1994 and 2000) and the 1996 Summer Olympics, only lasted 25 years before being demolished in favor of the state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened its doors in August 2017. Nearby Turner Field was home to the Atlanta Braves for just 19 years before the MLB team moved to a brand-new stadium – Truist Park – just north of the city in March 2017. (Turner Field still exists, but it’s now a football stadium for Georgia State University, whose football program debuted in 2010.) Atlanta Motor Speedway has taken a page from the playbook of its stick-and-ball neighbors and reinvented itself for a second time after a massive reconfiguration back in 1997 changed the track from a regular, 1.522-mile oval to a quad-oval that measured in at 1.54 miles. That layout quickly became one of the fastest on the entire NASCAR Cup Series schedule, a point proven when Geoff Bodine ventured onto the new surface on Nov. 15, 1997 and turned a lap at 197.478 mph – a track record that was never broken. Now, 25 years later, like its Atlanta sports venue brethren, the Atlanta Motor Speedway we once knew is all new. It is still 1.54 miles in length, but the banking has been increased from 24 degrees to 28 degrees, and the track has been narrowed from 55-feet wide to 40-feet wide, and it’s all covered in fresh asphalt. The goal of the reconstruction was to re-create the kind of pack-style racing seen at the behemoth, 2.5-mile Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and the even bigger 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Will it work? We’ll find out when cars hit the track this Friday for practice before qualifying on Saturday and the Folds of Honor 500 on Sunday.
