Ryan Blaney passed Kyle Larson with eight laps remaining in the 325-lap Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday to claim his first NASCAR Cup Series win 2021. With the win, Blaney extended the string of different winners to start the season to six while also claiming Ford’s fifth-consecutive win at Atlanta.
“Gosh, we had a great long-run car all day,” Blaney said. ”It took us a little bit to get going. I was pretty free all day, so we made a really good change to tighten me up where I needed it, and it looked like Kyle was getting loose, and I’m happy it worked in our favor that there was a couple long runs at the end that kind of let us get there. He got slowed up behind some lap traffic, but I’m really proud of this whole BodyArmor, Menards #12 group. We’ve been good this year and had some bad breaks, and it’s nice to close out a race like that. That was awesome.”
Larson dominated the race, leading 269 laps before losing the top position and eventual win to Blaney. Those laps led included stage wins on laps 105 and 210.
“I don’t know. I think he [Blaney] just got a lot better, there, that last stage, and it kind of changed up my flow of the race a little bit,” Larson said. “I could get out to such a big lead, and then, I could take care of my stuff and run the bottom where it was maybe slower, but I could take care of my tires. He was fast there, and I just wanted to maintain that gap that I had, so I had to run in the faster part of the race track and just use my stuff up. And, then, he was just a lot better than me, there, late in the run.”
Blaney ran second most of the laps Larson led.
“The 5 [Larson] was crazy fast, there, the whole race, and then, we started closing in,” Blaney said. ”Our car got a lot better, there. I think, towards the end of stage two, it was starting to get there, and then, before that last green flag stop, it really came to life, and he was starting to struggle, getting really free. I don’t know if the track changed or what, but we were just tightening it up all day. I’m happy there were a couple long runs at the end. That’s where our strong suit was, and we capitalized on it. I can’t thank BodyArmor, Menards, DEX, Advance Auto Parts enough for what they do and Ford. It’s cool to get a win at Atlanta. I love this place. It’s nice to have a good run here and win.”
Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman finished third, and the Joe Gibbs Racing duo of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch rounded out the top-five.
Hamlin led the first 27 laps of the race, losing the lead to Larson on pit road during a competition caution that came out on lap 25. Blaney was the only other driver to lead significant laps, running up front for a total of 25 laps. The eventual race winner also took the lead from Larson on pit road during a caution that came out when Chase Elliott blew his engine on lap 220.
Larson retook the lead from Blaney with 89 laps remaining.
The only other laps not led by Larson came during three cycles of green-flag pit stops.
“Hate to lead a lot of laps and lose, but we had a really good car that we brought to the track,” Larson said. Our HendrickCars.com Chevy was fast there for a long time. I don’t really know. I don’t know if we got that much worse or he just got way better and, like I said, it just kind of changed up the flow of my race.”
The caution for Elliott’s engine was the second of only two unscheduled cautions for on-track incidents, and Elliott sustained damage to his car in the incident that resulted in the first caution.
“Obviously we broke a motor, there, later on,” Elliott said. “We got some damage, there, on that restart. Kyle [Busch] kind of spun his tires, and then, I was pushing him and Kurt [Busch] was pushing me. We all just really jammed together hard and ended up hurting the nose some. So I don’t know if that had something to do with breaking the engine or not. I hate it, for sure. I feel like our car was pretty decent. We drove up there; we got up to 10th, or so, at the stage. I felt like we were in a decent position to work on it throughout the day. I appreciate all the effort. It’s great to be home in Georgia — home for me and home for NAPA Auto Parts. I wish we could have had a good result, but we’ll try again at Bristol.”
The first on-track incident that led to a caution came on lap 113 when Kurt Busch fell victim to an accordian-style pile-up when Kyle Busch spun his tires on the restart from the end of the second stage.
“I think the #18 [Kyle Busch] was the outside-lead car. The #9 [Elliott] kind of checked-up, too. I checked up; the #17 [Chris Buescher] hit us from behind,” Kurt Busch said. “It was just the accordion effect, and then, I jumped to the middle. I’m like ‘I’m here.’ I positioned myself. It wasn’t like I re-arranged my lanes and made another block. He didn’t do anything vicious or malicious, there. It’s a 500-miler and these are the days that it hurts the worst. This absolutely hurts the worst, because we had a top-five, winning, Monster Energy Chevy.”
Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski contributed the first four wins of Ford’s streak of five-straight Atlanta, but both drivers struggled Sunday. Harvick, though, did manage a top-five finish after recovering from a flat tire that sent him to pit road, again, just before the restart from the competition caution. He wound a lap down at one point in the race because of the extra pit stop.
Keselowski finished the race 28th, multiple laps down, after struggling with a damaged race car.
Austin Dillon finished sixth, and Chris Buescher was seventh. William Byron passed Martin Truex Jr. on the final lap to finish eighth. Truex was ninth, and Harvick finished 10th.
