RELATED: Full race results and standings
HAMPTON, Ga. -- Elliott Sadler bounced back from a setback in qualifying while Darrell Wallace Jr. battled back from his own demons.
Both NASCAR XFINITY Series drivers scored top-10 finishes in Saturday's Rinnai 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, rebounding solidly following disappointing results a week earlier in the season-opening race at Daytona.
Sadler, who started 22nd after a tire problem during qualifying Saturday morning, scored a fifth-place finish at AMS. The qualifying issue turned out to not be an issue after all for the JR Motorsports driver.
He was fifth on a restart with 16 laps remaining, and quickly moved up to third, but couldn't hold off the charges of Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson during the closing laps.
"I wanted to tighten it up some so I could drive it hard there at the end, those last 15 laps, and I got them to go too far," Sadler said of his radio conversation with crew chief Kevin Meendering. "But we got beat by some of the best at this race track; I think the car was better than I was today."
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regulars dominated the race, with Kyle Busch earning the win while Brad Keselowski, Larson and Harvick placed second, third and fourth, respectively.
Sadler said he knew his car was a contender as early as Friday in practice. If there was any blame, he said, it was on his shoulders.
"This is a very line-sensitive track and those guys are so good at going around the bottom, they really are," he said. "And I didn't do a good job all day of staying on the bottom to run with those guys. But I'm very proud of my team. A fifth-place finish for us here at Atlanta we're ecstatic with that."
The finish vaulted Sadler to the top of the point standings a week after a crash at Daytona soured an otherwise solid opening weekend.
"We've been fast both races so that's all we can ask for and we'll move on from there," he said. "We had the winning car at Daytona, we had a top-five car here today. That's very impressive coming out of the chute with all these new rules and new stuff going on for my guys to prepare my cars this way."
For Wallace, the trip might not have been as far numerically -- he finished sixth after qualifying 13th – but it was no less difficult. It was a top 10 he talked himself into, he said.
"It all starts with me not getting frustrated," said Wallace, driver of the No. 6 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing. "Not replaying things from last year. I was doing that. I was doing that that whole first segment. I'm like 'Stop! Stop!' I was talking to myself."
Surprisingly, it took golf lessons to put the 23-year-old in the proper frame of mind.
"I went and took lessons and the four things he told me to be better, I used those to kind of help me relax, although they had nothing to do with racing," Wallace said.
"Really keeping a cool head, no mistakes on pit road -- I thought I was flirting with speed lines all day and didn't get busted there -- and we were able to capitalize on those last restarts. We needed it."
Wallace had come away from Daytona with a 33rd-place finish. Saturday's result propelled him to 14th in points.
"That's just the never-give-up attitude we've got going this year," he said of his RFR group. "Look at Ryan (Reed) last week at Daytona, spun out twice, mangled car comes back and wins it. Now we're here.
"We know we need to unload a little bit better to have a better shot at winning one of these things. Just a great day for us, to keep our heads calm, to run good for Leidos.
"I was fighting hard for that top five and then I burned my stuff up. Then the veteran Harvick got by me. Good day here in Atlanta; we needed it, especially to rebound after Daytona."