Hampton, Ga.
The NASCAR team hasn’t slowed since switching from Chevrolet to Ford. Kurt Busch captured the season-opening Daytona 500, and Kevin Harvick followed up by earning the pole for today’s Monster Energy Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“Hopefully this is the start of something great,” Harvick said.
There was plenty of speculation about how the change would go, especially for a driver such as Harvick who had a long relationship with Chevrolet.
Turns out, he had no trouble getting back up to speed.
“It’s fun to open Pandora’s box,” Harvick said. “You have to turn every leaf over and look at everything in your company. Everything is different from top to bottom. But one thing that stayed consistent was very good people. It’s been fun to see a group of people come together and try to make things better. It’s a major undertaking to do what we did.”
Busch is still savoring the high from his Daytona victory.
It may take a while to come down.
“You take it all in, you absorb it,” Busch said. “Years ago, when I won the (2004) championship, you look at it and you think, ‘Aww, man, this is a lot that goes along with it.’ And maybe I didn’t soak it all in. This time around, my phone is still 400 texts deep. I can’t get caught up.”
While Stewart-Haas is showing early dominance, don’t forget about seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.
He’s the two-time defending race winner in Atlanta.
“It’s been a great track for me,” Johnson said. “The last two races we won here, we didn’t really get ourselves situated until late in the going. But able to come out on top. Just because you have a slow Friday or a slow start to the race, I don’t think you can count anybody out. We have a lot of chances to work on the car and make big stuff happen here, which is really neat.”
Here are some other things to watch for today on the 1.54-mile tri-oval track:
Rocket Man: Ryan Newman showed signs of bouncing back from a disappointing 2016 season, qualifying on the outside of the front row. While saying the No. 31 team still had a long way to go, Newman’s fast lap was a huge boost for the crew’s morale. Last season, he failed to qualify for the championship chase.
Stage Racing: This will be the second test of the three-stage format that is designed to add more drama and excitement to the racing. The first two stages are 85 laps apiece, while the final stage will cover 155 laps if the race goes the scheduled 325-lap distance.
Paving the Way: This will be the final race on the aging asphalt at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The track will get a new surface before the 2018 event — much to the chagrin of drivers such as Johnson, who relished the chance to wrestle with his car on a high-speed track that is especially hard on tires.
Kyle Busch Wins Support Race
Hampton, Ga.
With a helping hand from lapped cars, pole-winner Busch was able to hold off Brad Keselowski by 0.606 seconds. No one else was within 2 seconds of the winner.
Keselowski won the first 40-lap stage, Kevin Harvick took the next 40-lap phase and Busch was leading at the end — a promising start to a busy weekend in Atlanta, where he is competing in all three of NASCAR’s top series. Today, Busch will on the inside of the second row in the Monster Energy Cup race.