Harvick Takes the Checkered Flag in Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500
The NASCAR restart to their season is three weeks old at this point in time and they’ve run several races over that span. After racing twice at Darlington and Charlotte, the circuit moved to The World’s Fastest Half-Mile at Bristol before having a week off before Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway yesterday afternoon. The race kicked off a busy week for the circuit, with stops at Martinsville Speedway Wednesday night followed by Sunday’s stop at Homestead-Miami Speedway. This will prove to be the biggest test thus far for the circuit in regards to their plans for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The race was a solid one for NASCAR Cup points leader Kevin Harvick, who had a strong car all afternoon long and ended up taking his second checkered flag since the restart by prevailing in the race Sunday afternoon. He cruised to a 3.527-second margin of victory over Kyle Busch. Martin Truex Jr., who had a strong showing of his own, winning the first two stages of the race en route to a third-place finish, while Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin rounding out the top five on the track. It was a pretty clean race all things considered with just five cautions covering 24 laps in the race. There were 21 lead changes among nine drivers.
Harvick took the lead for good on lap 271 and held the rest of the field at bay over the final 55 laps to earn the victory. The top 10 cars finished on the lead lap in the race with the next 15 finishing a lap down. All told, three-quarters of the 40-car field finished at least 321 laps in the race. Harvick led a race-high 151 laps, Truex Jr. led 65, Clint Bowyer 58, Chase Elliott 26, Joey Logano 10, Kyle Busch seven, Brad Keselowski five, Ryan Blaney two and Kurt Busch one in the race. There was one big incident in the race as the heat and humidity appeared to get the better of Bubba Wallace, who was unable to stand after getting out of the 43 car after finishing 21st in the race. He was treated by medical personnel on the infield of the track and was treated and released.
The field was pretty consistent throughout as eight racers were in the top 10 of the first two stages of the race. Truex Jr., Harvick, Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson and Blaney each were solid in those first two stages. Seven of those guys were in the top 10 when the race came to a close as Truex Jr. (third), Harvick (first), Hamlin (fifth), Kyle Busch (second), Elliott (eighth), Johnson (seventh) and Blaney (fourth) all turned in good showings while Bowyer had a rough pit stop late and skidded to a 20th-place finish.
If you looked at our review of the top prop bets for Sunday’s race and followed some of our advice, you had the opportunity to cash in on some favorable options. Out of the six potential options we presented, four of them came in as winners, which is fairly successful given the vast number of potential outcomes and the uncertain variables that come with an actual race. We hit on picking Ford as the manufacturer of the winning car (+140), which was a solid option given the drivers that are part of the Ford squad. Harvick (+500) was the winner, taking the checkered flag for the third at Atlanta Motor Speedway and adding to his total laps led among current drivers on the track, which now sits at 1,348, which is 545 more than second-place driver Kurt Busch.
In addition, Kurt Busch finished in the top-10 (-137) by turning in a sixth-place showing while Truex Jr. also logged a top-10 showing (-220) by finishing third Sunday. Even the two options that we missed on were near misses: we took Brad Keselowski to finish in the top-five (+138): he finished ninth. Meanwhile, Busch’s sixth-place finish was solid but not enough to earn the best showing in Group C (+250), which was a loaded group as it turned out. Blaney finished fourth in the race, Jimmie Johnson was seventh while Erik Jones logged a 28th-place showing in the race.
The circuit now heads to Martinsville Speedway for the Blue Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 on Wednesday night. Harvick enters the race with a 48-point lead over Joey Logano for the top spot in the NASCAR Cup standings. Elliott (56 points back), Keselowski (75 points behind) and Truex Jr. (87 points back) round out the top five of the standings.