Defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson dropped from contention Sunday afternoon after a crash with Shane van Gisbergen at EchoPark Speedway.
Larson was running third in Sunday’s Autotrader 400 on the final lap of Stage 2 when he dove low with his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet into the path of van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevy. The contact at the Turn 4 exit sent Larson’s car spinning into the outside wall on the frontstretch, leaving it with heavy damage.
From there, their fortunes were split. Van Gisbergen continued after repairs to salvage a sixth-place finish, his best oval-track result in the Cup Series. Larson, however, tumbled outside the top 30 after his car was towed to the garage for more extensive work before No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels called it a day.
“Well, it’s just more so frustrating because it was on me,” Larson said, absorbing the blame after his evaluation at the track’s infield care center. “You know, typically I get caught up in I feel like others’ mistakes on these style tracks, but that was completely my fault. So that’s what’s embarrassing and frustrating, and just glad nobody else, I don’t think, got taken out in it, too.”
Larson finished 32nd — 111 laps short of the full distance — and he was one of 13 drivers who were not running at the finish. Larson led 48 laps, second only to eventual race winner Tyler Reddick.
Van Gisbergen spun again 40 laps later in the same area of the 1.54-mile circuit, but recovered to finish with a remarkable top-10 outcome in double overtime. SVG is a six-time Cup Series winner on road courses, but the sixth-place result was his career best (in 52 starts) on an oval.
Kyle Busch found mid-race trouble in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader 400, crashing out at EchoPark Speedway after contact with Noah Gragson.
Busch started 14th in the 38-car field, but his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet turned sideways after he veered in front of Gragson’s No. 4 Front Row Motorsports Ford in the 125th of a scheduled 260 laps. Busch’s car, which was running 13th at the time, skidded and made heavy nose-first contact with the inside retaining wall on the backstretch before sliding to a halt.
Busch exited the car under his own power, and the 40-year-old driver was evaluated and released at the track’s infield care center. He was credited with 34th place in the final rundown.
Busch was critical of the 27-year-old Gragson in his post-wreck remarks for not allowing him an opportunity to right his No. 8 Chevy. Gragson drove for Kyle Busch Motorsports for two seasons (2017-18) in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
“I didn’t get the best of exits off of Turn 2 there,” Busch said. “Was a little crossed up, not bad when I got out there to the wall, and just perfect timing for the 4 (Gragson) to just ram me as hard as he could and send me spinning instead of just checking up for a second, making sure I was straight, hitting me softly. But it’s just what they all do. They just all run through you. Doesn’t matter if you’re aimed the right way or not.”
Busch entered Sunday’s race 14th in the Cup Series standings after a 15th-place finish from the pole in the season-opening Daytona 500. It was a split weekend for Busch, who won Saturday’s Truck Series race.
Busch is 24th in the Cup Series standings, just two races into the 2026 campaign. The tour will visit the Circuit of The Americas next Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) for the first road-course event of the year. Busch led the most laps in last year’s race at COTA before finishing fifth behind winner Christopher Bell.
HAMPTON, Ga. — In what sounds like something more akin to the Twilight Zone than reality, Kyle Busch found himself thanking Carson Hocevar for his outstanding sportsmanship as a Spire Motorsports teammate Saturday afternoon.
Rivals who fight for separate teams on Sundays in the Cup Series, Busch and Hocevar doubled as NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teammates Saturday at EchoPark Speedway, working well enough together to score a 1-2 finish that landed Busch in Victory Lane.
Nothing could have been more fitting or more ironic than it happening at EchoPark, where one year ago, Hocevar angered Busch so intensely during the Cup race that Busch radioed: “Go tell that 77 (Hocevar) he’s done that same [expletive] move 10 times. I don’t care if I wreck the whole [expletive] field. I’m over him. … I’m gonna wreck his ass.”
After Saturday’s truck race, that tone made a 180-degree turn.
“Carson Hocevar was a great teammate today,” Busch said. “Early on in the race, I was like, ‘Wait a second. OK, same old Carson.’ But as we got toward the end, we started working together and we started being able to maneuver our way through. At the end of the second stage there, I was behind him, pushing him. We were able to ratchet forward. And then there at the end, he was my wingman.”
Hocevar, who drives for Spire Motorsports in Cup as well, was just as surprised as anyone by his effectiveness together with Busch Saturday afternoon, with last year’s events firmly in his mind. What it led to was a dual-celebration, with Hocevar and Busch exchanging high fives while Busch performed his celebratory burnout.
“He deserved it,” Busch said. “He was the reason we won the race today.”
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
Hocevar seemed stuck in a state of disbelief even after getting out of his No. 77 Chevrolet.
“Especially a year from here — I think that’s when he was hating my guts especially in the Cup race — I don’t think I’d ever be excited to watch a Kyle Busch truck win […],” Hocevar said. “I had no shot to win the race, so if I wasn’t gonna have a shot, I was gonna make sure the company had a shot. And yeah, that was great. Yeah, I went over to just high-five him because I thought it’d be a good picture. Be good for the marketing team and good for the social. That was a business decision right there to do that.
“So I had fun. I wish there were a lot of truck guys that wanted to race more. They just want to sit on the top. I think I had my own fun and we had a blast, and me and Kyle worked great together.”
Is this the start of a sea change that will lead to more synergy between the veteran Busch and the up-and-coming Hocevar in the Cup Series? Probably not. But Busch did notice Hocevar’s progression throughout the race, and maybe even saw some of himself in Hocevar’s driving.
“I’m not a Spire Motorsports guy on Sunday, so I’m sure that’ll play some some differences,” Busch said. “But it was nice to see that he’s got it in him, right? Where in the beginning of the race, it was kind of normal Carson all over the place – not all over the place like out of control; just dicing it up, like cutting moves and making plays like I probably once was.
“But then in the second stage, I was able to kind of be his wingman for a minute. That worked real well. And I kind of wanted to say something like, ‘See? When you got a guy that will stick behind you, you can make some headway.’ But I kept my mouth shut. I just said it now. And then at the end of the race, that’s sort of how we played it, where I guess I had the track position, and so he had to play wingman for the day. Roles reversed, I’m doing the same thing. I’m trying to make sure that one of our trucks wins.”
Sunday will be a different story when Busch suits up for the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and Hocevar for the No. 77 Spire Chevy in the Cup Series race (3 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But maybe – just maybe – Saturday was the first step into the Twilight Zone before Sunday turns into a madhouse.
HAMPTON, Ga. — It turns out there is a way to beat Austin Hill at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway. You send him into a big slide and knock him out of the lead on the last lap.
Hill rallied several times from deficits during Saturday night’s Bennett Transportation and Logistics 250 to emerge in the lead as the white flag flew. NASCAR Cup Series invader Ross Chastain, who led 11 consecutive laps before Hill took first place, hit Hill’s Chevrolet as they wrestled for the lead with a mile to go, dropping Hill out of the top 10.
Among the results of that calamity was Sheldon Creed inheriting first place and ultimately the win, his first in the series after numerous runner-up finishes.
Another result? Bruised feelings on pit road post-race as Hill criticized the move by Chastain.
“When Ross is behind you, I expect to get put firewall deep in the wall,” Hill said. “I mean, that’s just the things he does. So, unfortunate, but what about that save, though? The save was, like, just insane.”
Hill masterfully regained control of his car, rejoined the front-running pack in the middle of Turn 3 and finished 12th.
“I could have very easily ended up hitting the wall head-on, but was able to save it and salvage a 12th-place finish,” Hill said. “So, all in all, it was awesome.”
Still, the failure to win at a track where he is a prohibitive favorite stung.
“He got into my left rear and just didn’t lift,” Hill said. “I wouldn’t have lifted either, probably. We’re all just going for it. Unfortunately, we lost the race. He didn’t win the race, either. Finished sixth or whatever it was, then ol’ Sheldon got it done. I’m very happy for him.
“There’s only so much space you can cover [trying to protect the lead]. It’s worked in my favor so many times here. Eventually, it’s not going to work in my favor, and tonight was one of those nights.”
Chastain said he pursued Hill after Hill made the white-flag pass.
“If I would have went to his right rear, I think I would have had to lift out of [the gas], versus going to the bottom, I’d have been wide open,” Chastain said. “Coming to the checkered, I pulled out of line and he chased me down. I don’t blame him. I believe it’s a racing crash. It’s not an accident. We crashed. But yes, it was racing.”
Asked if he planned to discuss the finish with Chastain, Hill said, “I couldn’t care less to talk to Ross Chastain. I have nothing to say to him.”
Likewise, Chastain doesn’t anticipate much conversation following Saturday’s race.
“I’ll see him in the gym on Monday, so we’ll be on the treadmill side-by-side going through a Chevy workout,” Chastain said. “But no, nothing crazy. I think he’ll realize the run I had felt very similar to the run he had the lap before.”
HAMPTON, Ga. — Incredible. That’s how Sheldon Creed described his first career victory in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, and that’s likely how anyone who watched the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 would describe the final dramatic run to the checkered flag Saturday evening at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway.
While racing hard for the win on the final lap, the Chevrolets of five-time EchoPark race winner Austin Hill and NASCAR Cup Series full-timer Ross Chastain collided while running first and second, clearing the way for the 28-year-old Californian Creed to emerge from his third-place position just behind. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Creed raced his No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet cleanly through the incident coming out of the last turn in front to earn his first career trophy in the series after setting a series record 15 runner-up finishes.
“Incredible,” a smiling Creed said after accepting his first series checkered flag from the flagman after the race. “It worked out. Finally a winner.
“Obviously had a lot of good runs, but never finished it up, never won,” he said after hoisting his trophy in Victory Lane — his voice a little softer after screaming with emotion on the cool-down lap and later after celebrating with his team.
“To finally do that, after it looked like another second place for awhile coming off of [Turn] 2, it just all worked out for us tonight.”
It was a fitting ending to an action-packed race that featured 11 leaders and a record 24 lead changes on the 1.54-mile EchoPark high banks, with Creed ultimately besting Viking Motorsports’ Parker Retzlaff by 0.309 seconds. AM Racing’s Nick Sanchez, a former EchoPark winner, finished third, his third top-five finish in as many starts at the track. Hendrick Motorsports’ Corey Day was fourth, with Hill’s Richard Childress Racing teammate Jesse Love rounding out the top five.
Chastain recovered from the contact with Hill to finish sixth in the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet, and after watching a replay post-race, explained there was no intent to spin Hill.
“No excuse, I turned him OK, for sure,” Chastain said of the late race contact with Hill. “And I hate that I did that to another Chevy, but I’m glad Sheldon was there to pick it up. … I don’t want to spin these guys I’m not trying to crash coming to the checkered. But to get the run down the back, I did not execute it very well, that’s for sure.”
A two-time defending winner of this race, Hill, finished 12th after a dramatic day of racing at his home track.
“We did everything right to get into the lead,” said Hill, who started an uncharacteristic 20th in the 38-car field but ended up taking the point for the first time at Lap 105 and ultimately leading the most laps on the day (34 of the 163).
“Coming off of Turn 2, I let it drag back a little bit to not get too far out, but kind of got a little further out than I would have liked. I knew I was going to have to throw a block [on Chastain] and was trying to get squared up, but it looked like he just drove into my left rear on purpose.
“I don’t know. We’re going for the win, so not going to say, shoulda done this or shoulda done that.”
Creed’s Haas Factory Team teammate Sam Mayer finished seventh after starting from the pole, followed by JR Motorsports’ rookie Rajah Caruth, who led a career-best 22 laps. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Taylor Gray and Brandon Jones rounded out the top 10.
After so many runner-up finishes and Victory Lane near-misses, even Creed’s competitors made a point to congratulate him on finally scoring that elusive first win. He is an accomplished driver, having claimed the 2020 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship with a five-win season. And as his 15 runner-up showings indicate, Creed has consistently been a front-runner in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
“It just wears on you to not win,” Creed said, conceding he was feeling both a huge sense of relief and a huge surge of happiness for his work. “I don’t think one win is going to change things a whole lot, but I think a few might. I might get back on the radar for Cup, and obviously, I’d love that. … to get one of the way is great but I want to win more.”
“It’s been four years since I stood in Victory Lane and you miss that feeling — that’s why you keep working on it,” Creed added.
Even with his 12th place, Hill — who won the Daytona season-opener — holds the championship lead by 22 points over Caruth.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series moves to Austin, Texas, next week for the first road course test of the season in the Focused Health 250 at the Circuit of The Americas (3 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Post-race inspection in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Creed as the race winner.
HAMPTON, Ga. – Ben Rhodes led a race-high 70 laps, ran out of fuel and rallied back for a fourth-place finish in Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at EchoPark Speedway.
All he could do was wonder what could have been if not for that miscalculation.
In the final 10 minutes of a thrilling, time-shortened race due to the impending NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race and earlier rain that soaked the 1.54-mile drafting track, Rhodes charged his No. 99 ThorSport Racing Ford back from 19th on the final restart at Lap 107 to fight for the win when the checkered flag fell at Lap 126. How did he get there in less than 20 laps?
“Well, we had some new tires on the truck and a lot of anger behind the wheel after we ran out of fuel,” Rhodes said with a laugh.
His bright orange Ford was leading the field when it sputtered entering Turn 1 with two laps to go in the second stage, the only truck of the leaders to run out of gas before the stage end. Due to the earlier inclement weather, the field ran extra pace laps before the race officially got underway. Crew chief Vance “Bud” Haefele believes that was part of what led to the team running short.
“We just missed it by one lap,” Haefele told NASCAR.com. “We didn’t account for enough when they rode around at the beginning of the race under the five or six laps. We missed it by a lap.”
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
That, combined with a two-tire pit stop at the conclusion of Stage 1, left Rhodes in his pit stall for a shorter interval than his competitors. Everyone else, though, was able to make it to the green and white checkered flag at Lap 80. Rhodes was not.
“When you have two tires, and you run all those laps, I guess there was just a miscalculation on fuel. I was ready to fight, though,” Rhodes said. “Can’t fight your own team, but I was ready to fight.”
Thankfully, Rhodes’ only fighting was done for position on the race track. The No. 99 Ford lost a lap by running out of fuel, but a caution at Lap 101 allowed Rhodes to get back on the lead lap via the free pass. Rhodes followed with a fierce drive forward with an ill-handling race truck, combining for both an exciting show and a good finish for his ThorSport crew despite their mid-race adversity.
“I think it speaks volumes of the team, especially here where you have no practice,” Rhodes said. “The speed is made at the race shop, right? So we showed up, we had great speed. Kudos to the guys. But man, not getting the stage points really sucks. That’s the name of the game right now because the points are changed. Because it’s all about attrition. It’s all about consistency. So I was really hoping to be in the top five in points after Stage 2.”
The good news is that goal was accomplished. Rhodes leaves Georgia sitting third in the Craftsman Truck Series points standings, 35 points behind points leader Chandler Smith. But the credit for making that strong of a comeback?
“Ben Rhodes,” Haefele said. “That’s all you can say.”
HAMPTON, Ga. — Kyle Busch took his third consecutive and record ninth win of his career in the Fr8 208 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at EchoPark Speedway on Saturday afternoon, capping a dramatic push to the checkered flag to collect his record 68th series victory.
In the closing laps, Busch, 40, exchanged the lead with series veteran Stewart Friesen in a flashback from the 2025 race on the 1.54-mile Atlanta high banks when Friesen finished runner-up to him. Ultimately, Busch’s No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet was again able to get the best of the duel, benefiting from a timely push from his teammate, Carson Hocevar, to reclaim the lead for good in the final seven laps.
The race went to an “adverse conditions” time-limit rule and ended on a pre-determined deadline, only 10 laps short of the original 135-lap scheduled distance.
Busch ultimately held off Hocevar by 0.114 seconds, with several trucks trying unsuccessfully to line up and make a run to the trophy in the closing laps. Hocevar was runner-up in the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, followed by Tricon Garage’s Gio Ruggiero, ThorSport Racing’s Ben Rhodes and 2025 series champion Corey Heim in the running order. A frustrated Heim, who drove the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota Tundra and won Stage 1, said post-race he didn’t know the race had been officially shortened.
“It got dicey there at the end,” a grinning Busch said after giving his trademark bow to the crowd at the finish line. “Certainly, a great race and it got exciting there at the end.
“Had a great teammate [Hocevar] behind me and have to give credit where credit is due. Early on was a little worried he wasn’t helping but there at the end he was right there … definitely made it a whole lot easier.”
It was actually Rhodes, a two-time series champion, who set the pace for most of the race — hoping to celebrate his 29th birthday by claiming his first trophy in more than a year. He led a race-high 70 laps but ran out of gas mid-race, forcing him to rally from a one-lap deficit at one point. Rhodes got back on the lead lap, however, and was challenging Busch in the final laps, just never able to get around the veteran and stay there.
In the final stage, Friesen, who won Stage 2, made a dramatic push forward, putting his No. 52 Friesen-Halmar Racing Chevrolet nose to nose with Busch’s Chevy Silverado lap after lap in the closing portion of the race. But again, Busch was able to prevail with the help of Hocevar’s push.
Last week’s Daytona winner Chandler Smith finished sixth, followed by Saturday’s polesitter Jake Garcia and a pair of NASCAR Cup Series regulars in John Hunter Nemechek and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Justin Haley rounded out the top 10, driving the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Ram in the manufacturer’s 2026 return to the series.
There were five leaders on the afternoon and 14 lead changes.
And even after all the victories at the track, Busch said he genuinely had to work for it this week, noting that with all the success comes a certain target on your back — less willingness for others to pull out of line and run with him.
“If there was a confidence meter on me, the start of the race it was at a 100 but then as we got through the second stage of the race it was dipping, it was a 40 just because it seemed like everybody had talked, and no one was helping Kyle today,” said the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Busch, whose last win in a major NASCAR series was his truck victory at Texas last April.
“Every time I pulled out of lane and looked for two or three to go with me in order to get to the front, not one of them ever came to my rear bumper to push,” he said.
“Just seemed like at the beginning and middle of the race, I was having a tough time being able to make the moves I remember making last year by myself. Today it was harder to do that.”
The Front Row Motorsports driver Smith’s top-10 finish was enough to keep him atop the early championship standings, 28 points ahead of Tricon’s Ruggiero.
NASCAR officials announced before the race began that the event would have a time limit, following adverse weather that had delayed the start. Time expired at 4:20 p.m. ET, at which time the field ran two more green-flag laps — with no overtimes — before the end.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series makes its debut at the downtown St Petersburg Road Course in the OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 at St. Petersburg next Saturday (noon ET, FOX, NRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It will be the first street race in the series’ history.
Note: Post-race inspection in the Craftsman Truck Series garage was completed without issue, confirming Busch’s victory.
Racing Insights’ projection model has processed recent drafting-track trends, team strengths and overall superspeedway history to forecast how Sunday’s Autotrader 400 at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) could unfold, and it could portend great things for a pair of NASCAR Cup Series champions with Georgia ties.
With qualifying canceled due to inclement weather on Saturday and the starting lineup set per the rule book, track position will evolve organically in the draft after Daytona 500 winner Tyler Reddick leads the field to the green flag. If the data dive is any indication, here’s how the field could stack up after Sunday’s event at the 1.54-mile drafting track.
JOEY LOGANO: Logano stands as the model’s projected winner, and few drivers manage this style of race better than the three-time Cup Series champion and former literal EchoPark Speedway resident. Logano’s pack-racing decisiveness and ability to control lanes have made Team Penske a perennial drafting benchmark, led by the No. 22 team. On a track where momentum shifts in milliseconds, he consistently positions himself to dictate the final move rather than react to it. Of course, Georgia native and most recent EchoPark winner Chase Elliott could have something to say about it, and he’s projected to finish second.
BRAD KESELOWSKI: Superspeedway pedigree still matters, and few in the field own a deeper resume in the draft than Keselowski, who was moments from his first Daytona 500 win not even a week ago. RFK Racing has shown consistent pack speed in the Next Gen era, and the 2012 champion’s timing and spatial awareness remain elite, even in the waning years of his career. If the race turns strategic late, as it likely will, expect the No. 6 to surface near the front.
KYLE BUSCH: Projected to land inside the top 10, Busch’s experience in managing chaotic lanes and split-pack scenarios makes him a legitimate threat, and we know he’ll have the speed – that was evident throughout Speedweeks at Daytona. That has historically been the case during his time at Richard Childress Racing at EchoPark, and he should have the ability to be opportunistic in Atlanta’s draft action, with his veteran instincts paying dividends. The winless streak, pushing three years now, could snap here.
FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR 2026 AUTOTRADER 400 AT ECHOPARK SPEEDWAY (3 P.M. ET, FOX)
HAMPTON, Ga. — Spire Motorsports driver Daniel Suárez shared he always arrives at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway feeling particularly optimistic. The 34-year-old from Monterrey, Mexico, won the NASCAR Cup Series race here in February 2024 – and had runner-up finishes in the races immediately before and afterward. And he’s got a top-10 at EchoPark, even going back to his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series days.
Suarez is coming off a 13th-place finish at Daytona in his debut in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and will start 12th on Sunday’s grid after qualifying was canceled.
“Really, since before the configuration, I used to do pretty well here,’’ Suárez said. “I think, honestly, half of the battle is mental. You know, when you come into this place, and you’re already like, ‘oh man, there is a high chance I’m going to crash,’ I feel like there is a good percentage that you’re going to crash.
“So, I think I just try to enjoy it and have fun. I’ve been fortunate enough that I have had good race cars here, as well. It’s not just myself … it’s an entire army behind me. I’ve been fortunate enough to have good race cars here in the past, and we’ve been able to take advantage of that.
“It’s a combination that you have to have between driver and the car,” he added. “And I believe that we’re going to have another shot at it tomorrow because based on everything I have seen from Spire Motorsports, they were also very, very sporty here. It’s been a lot of fun to do our homework preparing into this weekend.”
HAMPTON, Ga. — Another week, another superspeedway, and another opportunity for crew chiefs to strategize their drivers into race-winning contention.
With EchoPark Speedway next on the NASCAR Cup Series docket on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), fuel strategy will be top of mind once again, just as it was last week in the season-opening Daytona 500.
But two other unique variables separate EchoPark’s 1.54-mile high banks from Daytona’s 2.5-mile layout: new Goodyear tires and a far trickier pit road.
No practice and a washed-out qualifying session Saturday leave teams with no track time ahead of Sunday’s Autotrader 400, but crews will have some familiarity with Goodyear’s tire compound heading into the event with the same left-side tire that has been used at the Georgia race track since 2023.
“Typically, the tires we use at EchoPark Speedway are only used at this track, and its smooth surface doesn’t naturally lead to much tire wear,” Rick Heinrich, Goodyear’s NASCAR product manager, said in a press release. “As such, we develop tires that encourage wear, and we have seen consistently good racing here since it became a superspeedway.”
How that factors into Sunday’s 260-lap feature remains to be seen, but Travis Peterson, crew chief of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and driver Michael McDowell, carries little concern into Race 2 of 2026.
“Goodyear has done several of these types of construction changes, and they’ve been fine,” Peterson told NASCAR.com Friday. “If anything, they’ve probably been a gain in terms of not seeing people pop tires and not be really significant otherwise. It’ll be interesting to see, though, because we haven’t done a lot of that on speedway-style tires. Typically, you come to speedways, and you don’t think about it being a big deal on tires and all that. But here you definitely see more of it. So it could be a dynamic, but like we’re all going to find out together in Stage 1.”
With qualifying canceled, the starting lineup set was per the rule book, using a metric that factors in last week’s results and current owner points positions. As such, McDowell is set to roll off 20th on the starting grid and Chase Briscoe 34th. That meant worse pit-stall selection as crew chiefs select their respective stalls in order from first on the grid to last.
Why does that matter? EchoPark’s pit road is arguably the most unique on the circuit. Its pit entry starts at the beginning of Turn 3, making its 3,900-foot pit road the longest on the NASCAR schedule. However, its pit stalls are tied for the shortest on the calendar at just 27 feet, 6 inches long. To make matters more challenging, pit-road speed limits differ under green-flag conditions — a 90-mph limit from Turn 3 to the actual pit-road entrance before it reduces to 45 mph — and yellow-flag conditions, which maintain a 45-mph limit for the entirety of pit road.
Chris Graythen | Getty Images
That’s why Briscoe’s 36th-place finish at the Daytona 500 hurts most this week. With limited options for crew chief James Small to pick from, Briscoe will have pit stall No. 25 in Sunday’s race, trapped between Austin Dillon’s No. 3 team and Alex Bowman’s No. 48 team.
“This is the hardest pit road I think we have, just from the standpoint of the room,” Briscoe said Saturday. “And when we come down pit road, the whole field is going to be on the lead lap. So it just makes it where you’re always going to be coming around somebody or have somebody in front of you. So yeah, it will not be ideal at all (Sunday), but that’s the cards that we’re dealt, and we’ll make the most out of them.”
What complicates matters further is many teams will be aiming for quick refuelings, limiting the amount of time the car is stopped in its box before returning to action.
“When you do these style stops, and you’re either doing short fills, or you’re doing group choreographed stops, being able to qualify well to give yourself selection is very important,” Peterson said. “And then you think about even like what happened at Daytona, it’ll happen here too. If we get cautions at certain times, you’ll see us all come take a splash and go. Well, that’s when your pit-stall selection matters more than any time because it’s not everybody doing the same thing, and you’re trying to pull in and out of your box, and everybody else is still coming down pit road. And it can get really messy depending where you are on pit road.”
Peterson nearly calculated fueling to perfection one week ago in Daytona. Peterson kept McDowell on the track by his lonesome in the closing laps of the Daytona 500 in an attempt to stretch the fuel tank over 65 laps and win the race. Those dreams were thwarted by a late crash farther behind him, drawing a caution flag, bunching the field back to his rear bumper and leading to a late-race restart before the No. 71 car was collected in a last-lap crash.
If that caution flag doesn’t fly at Lap 192 of 200, though, Sunday’s outcome could have been different.
“When the pack started saving so aggressively there, and we were kind of already at the back and a little bit wounded,” Peterson said, “we started to look at the mileage we were getting and started to do the math and saw there was a chance. And it was just going to be dependent on how late everybody else waited to pit. It worked out where the opportunity presented itself. …
“But the two laps of data we got lap-time wise and mileage wise, versus what the pack was running, I did a little bit of math this week, and obviously it’s only two data points, but I do believe we would have finished probably about a second ahead of the pack with just barely enough fuel. And I think even worst-case scenario, it would have been quite the finish with our car out of gas coasting.”
