The 20th race of the NASCAR Cup Series season brought all the action to EchoPark Speedway when a late day weather red flag turned this track into a Sunday night showdown.
4th of July weekend saw Chase Briscoe raise his stock into the top 10 for the season, but with a new week comes a new challenge and the fans in attendance and at home tuned in for a great night of action at the Echopark Speedway in Atlanta. A clash that many did not expect to reach no limits when it came to a timed race, but when a red flag shook things up heading into the second stage, everyone knew they were going to get their money’s worth.
All it took was a simple 3-hour, 9-minute delay for weather, but when engines re-fired, the competition was still on fire and pressuring through, no matter what time it was, every driver knew they had the exact same advantage as the others to pass that checkered flag in the end and pick up a huge victory in an already jam packed season.
One of the biggest stories heading into the final laps for stage two saw Carson Hocevar start to fall back from the top 3 to being in 29th place when his tires started to experience problems. Bubba Wallace was pacing himself to finish in the top 10, but the final lap of stage two saw him spin out and get placed in 30th.
The bigger story of the race was the success of Ryan Blaney, who led five times in stage one and was in the lead for a majority of stage two, including winning it despite having Wallace, Hocevar, Reddick and Logano trying to catch a draft and make their way through to P1.
In the final 90 laps, Ty Gibbs started the final stage after pit stops with Reddick and Hamlin in the top 10 fighting to get into the top 5 and gain points over the other for the Cup Series standings. but a yellow flag from a spun-out AJ Allmendinger would extend the time for the final 60 laps. When the race resumed after pit stops, the top 3 was Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, and Erik Jones, but things quickly changed up when Blaney found himself back in P1 with a full tank keeping him ahead of the traffic.
1 in the morning with 45 laps to go and not a single eye was tired in that crowd when Reddick found his way back into the top 3 with the battle between Blaney and Chase Elliot getting tight between both drivers as the final 30 laps came up and all of a sudden, it was Wallace in first place after spinning out in the final lap of the second stage and Hocevar found himself in P5 after being down to P32. Despite that, it was a yellow flag from Allmendinger again, but also Blaney was squeezed into the wall by Wallace and was not all that happy about it either.
The final 20 laps soon became the scene of the spin out into the grass from Larson that turned the restart grid into a 15-lap clash between Hocevar, Blaney and Bell. Wallace got himself slipped into P3 and with 10 laps remaining, Reddick got himself into P4 with a battle with Bell and in the final 6 laps, a Hocevar lead into P1 also involved Larson, Riley Herbst, Briscoe, and Austin Hill behind him involved in a wreck that sent the race into overtime with Hocevar, Blaney, and Wallace in the top three.
In the end, the Sunday night showdown ended with Blaney picking up the high-tense final lap pass victory at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, a race involving a three-hour delay due to weather turned into a battle for speed and endurance as Blaney led in dominant fashion before finding a way to turn a close overtime into a win at almost 2AM ET for fans in attendance and in the East Coast.
A momentum shift could come for Blaney in similar fashion to what Hamlin figured out a couple of races ago when he went on a three-race winning streak, the race is still tight in the top three for the Cup Series, the next track will be North Wilkesboro Speedway on July 19th. Another night race that is surely can’t miss with things continuing to heat up.
Rami J. Hanna has written about combat and motor sports, as well sports such as baseball and basketball for a number of publications over the last ten years. In addition to his new role at CBC/DSR, Rami also recently began new roles at WrestlePurists and False Finish, and launched his own YouTube channel, VALUABLE with Rami Afif.