Eric Smith

5 burning questions for Sunday’s Quaker State 400 (7 p.m. ET, USA, PRN)

Why Is Atlanta Tougher Than Daytona and Talladega?

Some look at Atlanta and think you can use Daytona and Talladega as reference points. In theory, you can. It’s a similar package. However, Atlanta is much more challenging than their superspeedway counterparts.

The track being a mile shorter than Daytona and Talladega doesn’t lend much time to breathe. You’re constantly in traffic and in turn, it causes chaos. At least at Daytona and Talladega, you have 2-3 and even sometimes 4 lanes to work with. For Atlanta, there’s 2 lanes max and not much time to regroup.

Can Harvick Score Win?

Kevin Harvick won his first ever Cup race at Atlanta in just his third career start. Now, Sunday will mark his 36th and final start on the 1.54-mile track. Can he win his last 22 years later?

While drafting tracks haven’t been necessarily Harvick’s strongsuit, he still was leading in the spring race before being crashed out late.

Harvick has 3 wins, 9 top five finishes and 16 top 10’s in his 35 career Atlanta starts including 1,360 laps led.

From 2015 through 2020, he had two wins and a runner-up in six races during that span. He’s since finished 10th, 11th, 21st, 12th and 33rd.

HAMPTON, GEORGIA – JULY 10: Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 10, 2022 in Hampton, Georgia. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)

Can Hendrick Motorsports Respond?

Last year, Hendrick Motorsports swept both Atlanta races. This year, they struggled in the spring race. How will they respond on Sunday?

They only qualified 8-18-23-36 on Saturday.

Now that this race shifted to a speedway type of racing package, that negates Kyle Larson’s advantage. Larson has never won a superspeedway race and has just 1 top 5 in 37 starts on them at that. He was 30th and 13th here last year, 31st this year and 18th and 33rd respectively in Daytona and Talladega in 2023 as well.

William Byron won last year’s spring race here after leading 111 laps in the process. The thing is, he was 30th and 32nd since and 34th at Daytona and seventh at Talladega this year too.

Alex Bowman was only 10th and 32nd respectively here last year and 14th this past spring. He was fifth (Daytona) and 13th (Talladega) this year as well.

Chase Elliott may be their top threat. But, can they get back to glory?

HAMPTON, GEORGIA – MARCH 19: Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Autotrader Ford, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 19, 2023 in Hampton, Georgia. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Is This Ford’s Race To Lose?

Ford had the top 8 starting spots this past spring. They have the top 6 on Sunday night. However, starting position typically doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot on drafting tracks. Plus, Chevrolet had won 5 of the 6 races on drafting tracks in his Next Gen era including sweeping both here a year ago.

Which gave in March?

It was Ford dominating to where Chevrolet struggled.

Ford’s led 221 of the 260 laps and took home the top two spots and 3 of the top 7. That equaled the amount of laps led the first four weeks of the season too (221).

In fact, Ford has led the most laps in all three drafting tracks this season. They led 122 of 212 laps in Daytona, 221 of 260 laps here and 88 of 196 in Talladega.

That’s 431 of 668 (64.5%) of all laps led on these tracks by the blue ovals. When equating that to the rest of the season, Ford’s have led 1,144 laps all year. That’s 37.6% of their laps led all year coming on these three tracks.

They led nine or fewer laps in a race in five of the last eight including one at Sonoma, two in Nashville and ?? in Chicago the last three races.

Chevy is 2-for-3 this year on superspeedway’s and went 5-for-6 last year. However, even being 2-for-3 this year, they led the least amount of laps among the manufacturers in two of them.

They led a combined 106 laps on these tracks this season but won two races. By comparison, Toyota has led 131.

Chevy led 44 laps in Daytona, trailing Toyota’s 46 too. For here, they led 19 laps, Toyota led 20. In ‘Dega, they led 43 laps compared to Toyota’s 65.

Ford’s are leading, Chevy’s are winning and Toyota’s are just there.

Back in March however, Toyota’s actually had 3 of the top 6 finishers which was a far better finish than we’d have expected out of them. We all figured they’d struggle that weekend, especially after qualifying on Saturday. Just one Toyota even made the final round of qualifying with them starting 10-14-16-19-29-35.

Plus, they’ve won just twice in the Peachtree state and have failed to reach victory lane there since 2014. They’re 2-for-the-last-18 in Talladega and 1 for the last 8 at Daytona.

Chevrolet only had 3 cars in the top 11.

Which happens this time around?

HAMPTON, GEORGIA – JULY 10: William Byron, driver of the #24 Axalta Chevrolet, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #47 Kroger/Ball Park Chevrolet, and Tyler Reddick, driver of the #8 Alsco Uniforms Chevrolet, race during the NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 10, 2022 in Hampton, Georgia. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)

Will Sunday Night Work?

A daytime summer race is brutal in Atlanta so it was wise to move this to a primetime event. However, they’re not doing so on a Saturday. It’s on a Sunday night. How much of a role does this play in the attendance and viewership?

It worked in Nashville with a sold out crowd and a big rating. However, that was on NBC. This is on USA. How much of a dip is taken out of the ratings?

That will say a lot about where this race goes in 2024.

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