There’s no doubt about it, if you poll the NASCAR garage, they’re going to tell you that the Hendrick Motorsports camp are the ones to beat for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN) at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Rightfully so too. They’ve had the fastest race cars all season and have been the best on tracks with aged surfaces.
But, one team that could fly under the radar is Stewart-Haas Racing. Kevin Harvick is listed as the obvious favorite to take the checkered flag first, but all four drivers have a chance to win this weekend.
Harvick, is a lap leader king in Atlanta. The California native has led 100 or more laps in six of his last eight Atlanta starts including 195, 116, 131, 292, 181 and 45 respectively in his last six tries. Harvick, also has 11 top 10 finishes in his last 13 starts on the Georgia race track too. However, despite all of that dominance up front, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver has only scored two victories in 29 tries there. The first coming in his first start in 2001 and the last coming in 2018. Over his last five starts, he’s finished second, sixth, ninth, first and fourth respectively. Also, on aged tracks, Harvick was ninth, first and third respectively on them this season. He’s also had a top 11 finish in literally every race run this year too.
Then there’s Clint Bowyer. He’s coming off of a runner-up last weekend in Bristol and was third in 2018 in Atlanta and fifth last year. Aric Almirola is another solid choice. He was eighth last year after starting on the pole and leading 36 laps. At Fontana and Darlington, older surfaces like Atlanta, Almirola was in the top 12 in all three starts this year including two of them in the top eight.
You can’t leave out their rookie Cole Custer. He finished runner-up in last year’s Xfinity Series race there too.
