Quaker State 400 from Atlanta Motor Speedway | NASCAR Cup Series Full Race Replay

and they're 2x2 getting ready for the start of this one steve and you mentioned everywhere on the racetrack this is a racetrack that right now is wide 55 feet you mentioned it's going to be narrowed to 40. but as we saw earlier on the pre-race show there's still a lot of room to move around even at that oh there's a ton of room and they just guys are going to use every bit of it the other thing is this has always been a 500 mile race we haven't seen a 400 mile race in atlanta for decades i think that's going to increase the intensity if that doesn't do it the weather will weather in the area we had a shower earlier you see right here weather's kind of creeping up it's not eminent it's kind of just scattering all around but if you know the atlanta area in the summer a thundershower could pop up that could be there at any time so i think these drivers have to go right away let's listen into the four radio i know how much this place means to you means a lot to us because of you so go out there and finish it off man have some fun today good luck have a good day in there in the pants boys kevin harvick's first cup win [Music] and now it's georgia's own chase elliot that is leading the field to the green flag here with kyle busch on his outside that inside line will be the preferred line on not only the start but restarts today too racing in atlanta georgia great start chase elliott rockets out to the lead christopher bell in the 20 on the outside of teammate and the 11 denny hamlin [Music] three wide entering turn three on this first lap jumped up there made it three wide on the outside joe logano filled that hole tyler redick in the eight on the inside now that 20 of christopher bell still trying to use that outside line and here comes the five of kyle larson that outside line in one and two will be a very popular place but normally as the tires age on these brand new tires it seems like you can make the best time right where the nine is chase elliot that lead car it's gonna take me a few laps as dave pointed out red and black new colors for the nine the 18 of kyle busch yesterday's winner right in tow [Applause] picking up some ground here is the aid of tyler reddick but there the momentum comes into play for denny hamlin in the 11. christopher bale to the inside of the eight car down the back straightaway using the momentum from the top looking at the racetrack it looks like it still has pretty good amount of rubber on it from yesterday's race in xfinity series these guys using the whole racetrack marty boyd juniors get the feel that atlanta's tyler redicks kind of racetrack you can go top bottom wherever you want to run here but before they came to the green he reported a problem to the team listen on the radio the cool shirt is working it was working but whatever is connected to the driver's van something's making a bunch of noise it sounds like it's burning up and i smell it burning up so i turned it off he also said that the driver air hose to the helmet is not working either so junior before you're coming the green flag is that something that would worry you a little bit cloudy a little bit cooler today i'm sure that will help yeah it's never good it's not going to be a comfortable day without helmet without air moving in the helmet but it's going to happen you want it to be on the day when it's not too hot it is a little humid out there as long as that sun stays behind the clouds though it doesn't heat up the interior that car too much he should be okay it's just gonna be a little more work he's been working really hard outside the race car to stay in better shape so that's gonna pay off for it he's also working really hard in the car he and maddie d with a big battle now redick on the outside trying to make it three wide larson on the bottom really going to get pulled back that run reddit got it from the outside big aggressive move i tell you one thing it worries me about both the the cool vest and the helmet blower going out steve is is that a bigger problem from an electrical standpoint i mean you those are two separate units and both of them going out that concerns me that they might have a bigger issue we worked together too long jeff because you were reading my mind i was thinking i don't know like two electrical things both going out at the same time we're gonna hope for this team that maybe they're on the same electrical circuit rick and there's something to do with the fuse uh because to jeff's point you know there are other things much more vital for the car's performance that unfortunately for the driver he can run without a little cool suit but the car itself is gonna have to stay cool we'll keep our eye on that 84 degrees currently the outside temperature as he tries to make the move now on christopher bell there you see martin trex jr working his way from the back of the field already gotten by kevin harvick who's struggling out of the gate here to track it we know he's very good at still trying to find the pace in that four car harvick started 21st down to 28th right now and it's just you expect them to move a little you know forward into the top 20 but to fall further back is something that you just don't ever see from this team the opposite of that as you guys mentioned mark trex jr up to 25th already after starting in the back and we talk a lot about kevin harvick because of his success and how important this race is to probably measure where the fourth car is with jeff you've been very vocal about your disappointment with the 19 of martin trex jr through the summer as well and i just feel at some point i have to see something out of this 19 car for me to have a lot of confidence heading into the playoffs and with road courses coming up and daytona super speedway there's just not a lot of what i'll call standard playoff type racetracks yeah we just really accustomed to seeing them they're just absolutely flying through the field when they start to back and he's made ground up but not like they do when they're at that rest and they just haven't shown it over the last few months yeah look at how hard it is for him to find out how to get the car to the bottom of the racetrack he missed the bottom of the track meaning that the car really has a lot more grip when you can get the left front tire on that little green stripe right next to the apron there's a lot more grip there grip there so you want to connect the tire to that unless you do run this hotline that he's running now but when you run that bottom you come up with that apron you really lose it's two to three tenths a lap when you do that [Music] marty what you got on the four car well yeah i think you guys are right we don't expect to see kevin harvick drop eight spots almost immediately back to 27th but when i talked to kevin pre-race he said i'm gonna be committed to the bottom in fact it's kind of become a verb here at atlanta it's called harvecking you run the very bottom of the racetrack he said i'm gonna be committed to it you have to stay disciplined to run it but you won't see me off the bottom the entire day and there he is right on that green line he said i'm gonna paint that all day long it may not be pretty early in the race but i know the longer this race goes it's worked for me in the past i'm hoping it works today but junior you can talk about that discipline it takes to run on the very bottom of the racetrack while everybody else is four and five lanes up high that's why i love running the top because it didn't take much discipline to right there you can just sail it off to the top and run right against the fence and the fence creates a little bit of a cushion a side force coming off the car that air and uh it gives you a little bit more grip in the rear in the side of the car and so see the 18 car using that to his advantage creating a lot of speed up there plus you're in the gas earlier than the guy on the bottom the guy on the bottle is feathering the gas trying to get it wide open having trouble doing it you on the top are to the gas and you beat him off the corner and then down the next straightaway when it works it is so much fun a couple options here then as the low line is being covered by chase elliot the high line the 18 of kyle busch can he get the lead here as he slides by on the outside they thought about blocking and said no better not just too much pace yeah when that when that car off the top has that much momentum and you pull up in front of him that's a that's a green light to get run over and turned into the wall so you don't want to do that and he did you give him a little bit of room to be able to keep that momentum that he worked hard to create on the top down the back straightaway watch this kyle bush has been really fast at 1-2 on the top because of the speed on the exit look at all of that speed he's got chase elliott can do nothing about it this time just nothing to do but to let him go down in three and four pow immediately to the bottom of the racetrack because chase was better than he was on the bottom in three and four kyle better one and two on the top kyle bush out front now chase elliott falls back to second and caution coming at 25. [Music] [Music] make sure to download the official app of nascar for all the action with free live scoring there's in-car cameras and radio broadcasts you can just search nascar in your app store to download and start a free trial today it's overcast day a good look from up above aerial coverage brought to you by geico as we see the 18 still out front since it led the first 13 laps kyle busch has been out front for six and these drivers we talked about this old surface and how difficult it is well this vantage point may be not that difficult but look at these guys saw on the wheels ryan newman through the corner that was hilarious i mean this is where you're going to see it the most of any other racetrack playing through the corner working really hard doing again look how rough the track is as well look how much the drivers are moving around [Music] we're on board of denny's car down the back straight away taking a breather man back to work look at the momentum he's gonna create off the top here off turning four on this nine car in front of him closes in so slowly he's gonna go to the bottom here so chase he sees chase at the last second decide to run that title and the instinct of the driver is to go where you're not get that clean air to the inside here off of turn two that was close off to making those decisions at the last six just like right there chase going to the bottom and he makes the decision at the last second to run the top instead and what that does is that you didn't enter the corner really the way you wanted to right have you had you been able to go in there with a game plan you would have entered high all in run high instead he kind of entered low and then went to the wall just trying to go wherever chase isn't this time he said i'm going to the top no matter what and he entered the corner accordingly look at the run he's got on chase chase has been committed to this bottom this entire run you mentioned the entire run jefferson to see benny hammer pull to the bottom see if he'll be able to clear the nine down here in three and four with the competition yellow just two laps away drivers didn't really have to worry about tire wear these tires can easily go 20 i say easily they should be able to go 25 laps without a lot of concern as the nine gets a great run off the top we'll cross the 11 over this battle is hot heavy here oh chase man really loose right there trying to keep that car right next to the apron through the bumps it upsets the car so much in turn one and two on the bottom of the track [Music] dave what you got on the nine car so he lost the lead to kyle busch now has lost second place to denny hamlin listen to what he said on the radio moments ago i'm just trying to figure out how to drive this it's very odd i'm having a hard time keeping it off the right front keep working at it so it's very interesting to me because when i talk to his crew chief alan gustafson this morning i said how different are you on the car than you were here in march he said yeah we're trying some stuff but we're only about a two out of ten different apparently that's enough difference to make the car feel odd to elliot marty dave closing in on the caution here and a lot of drivers are saying they don't have their timing and scoring on their dash now this is not something that drivers have had forever just the last couple of years but they'll use that timing and scoring junior we had a robust debate about whether or not you actually would use it as a driver but i think in a place like atlanta where you're searching around as the comp caution comes out that timing and scoring can come in handy yeah i guess these drivers having that information in front of them for so many races now they're used to getting it they're used to using it as a tool to see whether they're making gains or changing their line is helping or not i could hardly take any time to look around the dash i was focused out the windshield trying to figure out how to get around the racetrack these guys have so much more to pay attention to these days yeah i enjoyed that information coming from the spotter every laugh i'd get a lap time just i just thought that helped me build a rhythm and on a track we just saw in 26 laps the times fell off two seconds two seconds of fall off so the drivers are constantly searching trying to find a way to make their car go around here the best they can all i needed to hear was that's a good laugh because if you sell it again if you said lap time i'm like i don't know if that's slow or fast i got i knew i did yeah uh yeah that's a good lap good lab and then unfortunately it'd be like hey man search around a little bit that's a polite way saying this these lap times are not working denny hamlin grabbing a moment here to get a drink under this caution nbc sports on siriusxm coming up live on wednesday at 9 a.m eastern jeff burton will join the crew that's nascar radio channel 90. jeff will be able to talk to us about what happened here at atlanta in this final race before the repave and also look ahead to new hampshire which is coming up next weekend talk a lot about atlanta a lot about the surface a lot about the drivers one other thing about atlanta is there's not a lot of gimmicks when it comes to pit strategy when the caution comes out if you have tires you're putting them on four tires every time down and that is why these men and women up and down pit road today is what you practice for you know you know it's like wow did that guy do two tires did that guy do this no no it's four tires up and down pit road pit stalls are pretty good size a good stop means a ton here a lot of pressure on the pit crews we saw a wrench in the one of the crew members mouths there obviously if they're going to change four tires want to make some type of an adjustment they got to do that as well marty that wrench belonged to denny hamlin's team and that was a spirited battle between he and chase elliott for the second position what denny was saying is i just can't finish the corner quite as well as i would like to a little too tight that's the biggest complaint for the 11 right now dave first place chase elliott said his car is quote loaded turning and he goes too far in his pit box has to put it in reverse he'll lose time there they were talking about making a big adjustment to help that now he's going to lose time just on that mistake by the driver meanwhile kyle busch his car very good right now just a little bit of looseness compressing in turn three but that's only on the low line the top line has been very good he's gonna lose first place to his teammate yeah we see tyler reddick making up a spot here i'm not sure he even stopped that was a quick stop if he was in there because he made up some ground well gains a spot well i was gonna say there's a full pit road you see the nine of chase celia long in his box he's gonna have to back up great recovery but the damage was done [Music] [Music] so so [Music] getting ready to restart here the nascar cup service racing from atlanta this telecast presented by press tree a little surprising here the 18 was the second car off pit road i thought he would have took inside lane behind his teammate we'll see how it works out there drivers that outside lane has always been very difficult to get launched at this racetrack but you're gonna have to learn it learn it right now early in the race does a nice job see if that high line will work tyler reddick and the eight pushing the eleven into turn one i think with the xfinity cars and more power maybe it's a little harder to hook up on that outside line whereas with this package today and that momentum that you see right there off of turn two that 18 car wanted that outside line he was fine with it trying to get to that right quarter panel he's there he is in the spot he wants to be in man i was surprised by the decision kyle knew exactly what he was doing that is impressive learned about it yesterday guys right that's right 30 race he ran yesterday and i i still say even if it didn't work early in this race learn what you can and can't do good run by the 22 joey legato look at the momentum turn two into the wall daniel suarez ricky stenhouse jr we're done running damage heavy front end damage [Music] left front not even spinning for ricky stenhouse jr a couple cars involved we saw the 99 and 47. suarez smoke rolling out from the left side also involved cody ware in the 51. left front flat on the 51. left rear as well look how bad suarez's car is working its way down pit road cody get loose right there but that was such a train reaction up the racetrack where the 47 is sent into the door of the 99 suarez down the racetrack what a great job by is that the 38 and alfredo yeah anthony alfredo wow look how fast it happens in real just 47 got hit then he got into the side of the 99 that's so frustrating lap 32 of a 260 lap race daniel needs every race going forward as they get close to the playoffs to go well this is exactly the opposite of that i mean this is going to hurt their chances of trying to follow their way back and make the playoffs steve it wasn't just the body damage that thing was sliding sideways even when it was going down pit road [Music] so chase elliott back in his home state of georgia trying to become just the second georgia driver to win at this racetrack like his father did actually chase took dell jr back to dawsonville to learn a little bit more about the journey of what this reigning champ has gone through to get to where he is where are we at now oddly enough this is elliott road this is first cup race car thing's probably got like six pounds of bondo in it welcome to the pool room check it out this is it do you know that was his first job no he did not say that is this top hobbies teaching my dad how to do it like last summer how to start are you ready dude yeah we'll get you junk on them chase goes out there and runs a totally different line runs faster than all of my old savings i mean what do you say and i said bill then you keep directing him and i will support you guys you could immediately see his driver craft was really high i remember being the first one to the car i didn't even know what to say just for him to have somebody to vent to from dawsonville georgia chase elliott is a nascar cup series champion [Applause] chase debuts on peacock in august you'll want to make sure to tune into that all right junior what was the biggest surprise that you found when you went to dawsonville chase elliot's first job you'll have to watch to find out what that is but i was pretty uh blown away by where he got his first job at and uh but it was a lot of fun i've always been interested in chase and knowing more about him and what it is what that place what dawsonville means to him you know we we know dawsonville is his father's uh hometown and and he made that famous awesome bill from dawsonville with chase has that same affinity for it and loves that place loves living there and loves being there so uh i got to understand a lot about why he's so connected to it and remains there today it'll be great we will look forward to that again airing in august on peacock so it's the 18 of kyle busch on the inside denny hamlin now has chosen that outside line joey logan will be on the inside of row two kyle larson on the outside of row two lines are off on the pace car meaning this time by they'll see the green flag and once again field approaching the geico restart zone [Music] we start not as strong for denny hamlin as we saw kyle bush use that outside line and really hold on to the spot kurt busch jumped on the outside of matt debenedetto and now look at him he's stuck in the middle everybody going by him on both sides look on the bottom beside him martin truex jr and that 19 car he has clawed his way up almost to the top 10. denny was able to use that momentum takes second joey logano back there in third a lot of blocking going on by the aid of tyler reddick alex bowman's gonna dive the bottom of the two car here bragging zolowski see how that works for him coming off the turn here i think this two car is gonna have the momentum down the back straight away he's gonna get a push from austin dillon now brad's going to go and use that momentum to the very top of the racetrack get the outside of kyle arson larson's gonna have to lift out of the gas the two car continuing that momentum down the front straightaway he's gonna get up here and push his teammate now what is he going to do he's got to go somewhere else where they're not now he's lost that momentum that he got alex bowman back to his inside side drafting trying to stay there having to get really aggressive with that side draft to make it work hey what do you got on the 22 card so it hasn't been good for joey logano in atlanta has not won here and it's been six years since he's finished in the top five so talking to his crew chief paul wolf this morning i said how do you guys make it better and he said do what our teammate is doing the 12 of ryan blaney won this race in march and he says we built the 22 car exactly like it it's not the way joey would normally like to run a race car maybe a little bit freer than he's normally comfortable with but they looked at each other and said we've got to do something to get ourselves ready for the playoffs and so far it seems to be working okay for joey two to three car lengths still separating the top two kyle busch and denny hamlin legato after starting up there in that second row dave has fallen back to the sixth spot now kurt bush's third reddick fourth alex bowman fifth right against that wall a little bit of cushion steve fresh tires on all these cars so are we gonna see with the competition caution coming out at like 25 then this stage going all the way to lap 80. are we gonna see how the tires wear and what kind of a fall off we talked earlier after 25 laps it was around two to three seconds already of a fallout yeah it's gonna be a big test for the tire wear on all of these cars you have to have your car handling well not just for speed but for abuse of the tires if your car is very tight meaning the front tire slides across the racetrack it's going to damage that right front tire in this stage with that competition yellow almost just short enough you can't really pit you can make it safely on fuel so i just don't believe you're going to see anybody pit under green marty steve almost a three-way battle for the lead here as kirk bush gets by denny hamlin a moment ago when right now denny sing on the radio car very tight but the one thing he's still talking about the time on the dash that he does not have that that's a little bit of a concern to denny listen on the radio all right so just to be clear your dash is still frozen on lap time is that right really hurts because when i move around i can't see if i'm better or worse yeah we've heard other reports of that as well uh lambert can feed you as much as you want lambert being chris lambert his spotter so jeff let's talk a little bit about that because denny was really asking where has kyle meaning his teammate kyle bush been so good where is he running then he trying to compare himself but that lap time could be crucial to place like atlanta yeah it is i do every driver takes information differently denny obviously uses that dash a lot to look at timing and scoring to determine if he made a change in his driving style that was positive currently he could gauge off those cards in front of him kurt busch got by him kyle bush is driving away from him and we can hear how much did he's out of the throttle then he's not happy with the way his car is handling right now well i think experience definitely helps on a track like this when you talk about not just adjustments but what you have to do with your race car and a driver with a ton of experience the one of kurt bush the 42 year old out of las vegas nevada shocking as i did my homework 740 starts in the cup series uh i know i knew that but to read it rick i mean that is a gigantic number uh three-time winner here and you look doing a nice job right back in charlotte he was all the way back in 19th and he has made a great push to try to find his way into the playoffs now currently 25 points above now that's not comfortable by any means he's the last guy in but that's a whole lot better than 19th being three guys out yeah a lot of momentum looking very strong now at this time of the season let's listen to his radio ready to stop short and angled out i gotta try to carver on that nine great information as far as what he needs to do to position himself on pit road to be able to get in and out of the box learning with every lap and every stop on pit road kyle bush out front here [Music] atlanta [Music] [Music] so [Music] so in the 90s the season used to end here in atlanta we saw drivers like alan kawicki and dale earnhardt champions jeff gordon how about texas terry labonte a couple hendrick drivers claiming the top prize dj also winning here at atlanta claiming that championship so much history from this race track as we continue on with the quaker state 400 from here at atlanta motor speedway we go inside the headset with access to nascar scanner for only 299 per month you can listen in on the pitt strategy the spotter's communication crew chief calls everything visit nascar.com scanner to start your subscription today kyle busch out front his brother is closing the gap the older brother kurt busch about a half a second back now those two painting that green line on the bottom of the track here get a few updates we'll start with dylan well guys we're talking about hendrick motorsports and that 48 car right there alex bowman the best of the bunch right now as he runs in the fourth spot you know he's got wins in his career at the two mile fontana configuration and at the mile and a half in chicago two places that we no longer race at so greg ives's crew chief this morning kind of said tongue-in-cheek that alex is the track killer with this being the final race here at atlanta before the reconfiguration but they want to win here too before it is reconfigured for the simple fact that this is the driver's track the driver can make things happen if the crew chief is on his game and gives him the car to do it they're pretty happy right now moving through the field telling them that run that harvick line down there on the bottom don't burn the tires off run to the top side marty dylan if there is a story 53 laps into this race it's that that hendrick motorsports has not been maybe as strong as everybody predicted although bowman running pretty well kyle larson struggling though right now larson sitting in the eighth position said the coat with a car is quote draggy at the start of the race at the start of a run also way too tight in the short run for kyle larson who dominated here in march everybody expected him to be the guy up front today dave and right now he's not marty the hendrick car that started on the pole today that was chase elliott in the nine getting a challenge here from bubba wallace in the 23. remember what happened to chase when he was coming down pit road had an issue with his brakes was surprised they locked up as he was turning into his pit stall he had to back the car up and lost all kinds of spots restarted in the 25th position has made up six spots since then but it's gonna be a it's going to be a slow pace back to the front for chase elliot guys you know you know just going past cars here at will it's difficult uh chore and dylan you mentioned uh alex bowman in running that lower line let's listen into his radio still just a little tighter than i want to be when i try to save it here for the long run get out the back here just do the old harvest line hook help you out as much as you can nothing's coming right now there it is the harvick line and what he means by that is he's staying lower on corner exit staying connected to that apron using that paint has a little added grip and that does do less damage long term to the tire the tire is going to wear out it's going to fall off but that line you're a little bit out of the gas you're not really laterally loading the tire just quite as much as you just sort of roll around the bottom here and those guys running the top are sending their cars into the corner a lot harder you're really leaning on those right tires sliding them across the racetrack it's faster but it's going to eat the tire up on the long run it's going to hurt you on the back end let's go back and check out martin truex jr the toyota driver update he is in 10th place had to start all the way back in the pack and he's worked himself up doesn't right now have carr winning race winning speed but they're pretty close not very far off this is a little bit of a gain from where they've been recently marty yeah and i think if you're james small you feel pretty good about this game from 37th to 10th but truex has been saying the entire time it feels like it's floating the nose really bad when i'm in traffic and i just need more of front grip overall so steve if it's floating the nose when you're in traffic what are you gonna do to adjust on it if you're james calls the next stop well it's hard a lot of those adjustments have to be done you talk about shock absorbers and controlling the front the easiest one how was that engine running because you're floating the nose and i can add a little bit of tape that's some front down force that would help in and out of traffic so but you know something that you would definitely could adjust on a pit stop but that's the challenges of atlanta you know you can't just lock these cars down in a great arrow position because the track's so rough you end up skipping the tires over the bumps trunks junior up into the top ten now going byron in front of him in ninth but it's kyle bush and kurt busch that are now negotiating through lap traffic yeah there's a few cars are going to pass down the back straightaway here and then it's about a half a straightaway to the next car but this is the opportunity where the guy in second has a chance that leader's no longer in clean air when he's in this traffic that's his opportunity to try to find that leader in a compromised situation and make a pass we saw that changed the complexity of the race earlier this year when kyle arson got in traffic late and allowed ryan blaney to get around it for the win dave busch brothers show right now isn't it rick younger brother kyle leading older brother kurt in the one car for kyle's sake of remember if we take a quick look at kurt right here three-time winner at atlanta and 30 starts here the experience that he has is almost second to none he's still fifth on the all time on the active drivers win list here so kurt has made his way to second place meanwhile kyle up front just think of all the experience he got yesterday and we've already seen him trying both lines on the restarts here had a chance to try the low one earlier the high one after that the low is typically better here but now kyle has seen it yesterday and he's seated in both views today getting more knowledge as he tries to stay ahead of the field here because there will be more restarts today we can expect it a little further back in the pack ryan blaney won this race in the spring in 14th place right now started 15th you know this track steve i would imagine that the difference in the track tip between the spring race and this race is large and teams had to make some decisions how much to change the cars from the first race to this race and right now we're seeing you know larson not running as well and also this car 12 car or ryan blaney not running as well dylan and jeff they felt like they were making gains on the race car in their mile and a half program since that win here just a few months ago but uh and felt like this would be a good benchmark for them just to know where they're at as we get closer to the playoffs but today they are not happy ryan was too free on the first run before the competition cautioned so they adjusted for it went way too far the other direction super tight now ryan came on the radio set a little bit ago that feels like we're gonna cord the right front if it keeps up this way so biggest adjustment that they're gonna have to make is taking the one out that they just put in the race car the last time down pit road so struggling right now but long way to go still here as we got 17 to go in stage one but definitely more to be desired for the 12 car as they run just inside the top 15 now and you're absolutely right jeff you talk about a track that really depends on mechanical grip that track temperature from march to now a big change the setups are gonna have to manage it and i get a little nervous as you see right there working the wheel he talks about courting the right front 29 laps under green right here 16 to go in the stage rick these drivers have to manage their tires to finish his stage definitely sawing at the wheel nascar cup series racing from atlanta telecast presented by breast tree just under two weeks to the olympics they begin july 23rd live from tokyo that's on nbc great competition there great competition here right now kyle busch out front by a second we saw kevin harvick earlier in the race we talked about he was running way further back than we anticipated well things have changed kevin harvick we heard from marty from pit road that kevin was going to be committed to the bottom of the racetrack no matter no matter what well guess what he is right on the bottom of the racetrack and over the last several laps he's had the fastest car on the racetrack by about two tenths of a second so kevin harvick marty has got it rolling on the bottom i mean jeff for 15 straight laps he has been one of the fastest five fastest cars on the racetrack and is this my question to you jeff is this where that pays off for kevin harvick the very end of the run as we're coming nine laps to go here on the stage as ryan newman hits here before the stage ends is this where that pays off for harvick saving those tires his entire run here at the end he's one of the fastest cars he mentioned saving tires nine to go in the stage ryan newman on pit road no way this is a scheduled stop rick this is basically tire issues look at the right front tire you can see it as it rolls right there the fabric coming out of the side of the tire basically wore through the rubber that's the under layer and the tire coming out he was running 17th so eight to go i'm not even coochie but i just got nervous jeff eight laps i mean how can his tire be worse than mine and look at that right there that is yeah this is completely unwound here and uh you can see rob lopes the long time tire guy for this team checking it out man that is completely unwound there steve for ryan newman unwound is basically rick when the wear gets very high it finally goes down and catches that fabric and it unwound it unwinds like a ball of yarn let's listen into the one of kurt bush and his tire thoughts yeah i just did something entirely [Music] we talked about experience i like that right there jeff i gotta i gotta simmer down i'm going a little too hard he drove up to within a second of the leader he's running second i don't care if you slow down a second a lap just hit me seven more laps i don't want to pit under green yeah that's you know we're hearing these drivers talking about being hard on the right front it won't turn those that's a recipe for disaster on the right front tire you're asking so much of it at this racetrack and handling matters right it's we talk about saving tires or driving saving tires well guess what the best setup saves tires i mean that's really what helps the driver doesn't have to push the car as hard to make good lap time that's easier on tire wear keeps tire temperature down yeah so we mentioned different cars well after that competition yellow during break we asked the pit reporters and dave i asked you which tires had issues you said the inside of the nines right front had a little bit of fabric and all day on the radio he's talking about not being able to get the car off the front front like it's tight this got to be concerning for the nine that's exactly right steve hasn't said anything on the radio like i'm coming i can feel it coming apart they did make a big adjustment they took a spring rubber out of the right rear to try to compensate for that so he wouldn't have used it as much but he does say again during this run i feel like i've killed it so we'll take another look at that right front but yeah some damage when they pulled the first set off so dale jr running 20th that's not where chase elliot wants to be but surely you know he's using that experience not sliding the right front knowing that he has to get his car back to allen dustin make adjustments and get the car turning better there's only so much he can do he can't burn the right front office well you see he's backed off there and allowed bob wallace to go back by him so he's back his pace down enough to hopefully save the save the tire to get to the end of the stage not backing down as the 19 of martin shrek's junior he goes by keselowski tricks junior in the ninth spot now and started this race at the back of the field after failing technical inspection before the race twice it's funny when i look out the window rick there is a distinct difference in pace there are some cars out there that want nothing to do with the last four laps they are nursing these cars to the finish as a driver you're terrified i mean this is the time in this run where you're terrified you're gonna go right front but with only three to go you unless you know you got a problem like ryan newman you have to just ride it out under three to go in stage one stevie told us this at the top of the show they weren't gonna be able to make a whole fuel run these tires potentially would be wearing out and it's a battle you heard jeff just say that the fear will kyle bush is out there trying to lap as many as he can right in front of him the 10 of eric almarola you see him just he's two cars in front of that red car of the 18 accomplished the anchor has come out on the 10 and i feel bad for aaron right he's either fighting a little bit they'll handling carve him and core legera here trying to stand the lead left trying to get those tires to the finish i mean this is 50 laps on these tires i mean look at this that's 171 miles an hour on a set of tires you know you're not sure how much tire is left i mean it's obvious jeff like if you look out the window just i know i don't want to pick on these drivers they are working so hard but they are parking the core of the in the middle of the corner and just trying to get through this stage don't have a problem so your day is over well now you have the final lap so these cars right here they have to run basically two because it's the final lap for kyle busch but if they can just beat cobblish back to the line they run one more lap or at least until the yellow comes out and they've made it to the end of this stage on the lead and go really slow i'm telling you kyle busch is going to win his fourth stage right here only had three all of 2020. brother curt bush finishing in second and then you talked about the pace being off quite a bit with the guys behind him there's denny hamlin going by alex bowman and tyler reddick the top five of stage one larson logano william byron martin trex jr and kevin harvick they round out the top ten all gaining points at the end of the stage racing in atlanta on a 24 year old surface it's tearing the tires up nascar on nbcsn is brought to you by breztree for more information visit breaststreak.com credit one bank the official credit card of nascar visit gocreditone.com and buy toyota well the big news this week heading into atlanta motor speedway was the resurface of atlanta motor speedway which turned into a little bit of a reconfiguration track hadn't been repaved since 97 we all knew the repave was coming while atlanta motor speedway says you know what since we're going to do all that work we're going to increase the banking a little bit we think that'd be better for racing here make some tweaks to the banking and the width of the track um big news maker and not all the stars loved it kyle busch danny hamlin two drivers that were pretty outspoken about they don't love the idea um we're gonna i'm gonna respect their opinions as drivers but at the same time i'm gonna be very open-minded the rovel wasn't really loved early by testing and it puts on great races right so uh i love the fact that our stars can speak their mind but i'm even more excited about the smith family who owns atlanta atlanta motor speedway's commitment to nascar to spend that much money on this facility jeff to make sure racing stays here in the future is great for nascar and grace for the city of atlanta yeah we're fortunate to have a company that wants to reinvest and rebuild this racetrack and reinvent it a lot of concern about the width of the corners well that's the same width as daytona the same width as charlotte so i don't know why there's a concern about that being too narrow party rick's still too tight for danny lamb hamlin who hits pit road running third he set out by was patient with it on entry that would help but he said that just makes me feel like i'm way too slow the other interesting thing minus 30 on the temperature so you're gonna see that carrier come around he's gonna slap a piece of tape on the front of the 11 car that'll help with downpours as well dave kurt busch made his good your tires last he needs to be freed up just a little bit on this one three pit stalls ahead younger brother kyle his car was very close he said just a slight right rear slide and as the crews go to work we'll see who puts on the four goodyear tires puts in the sunoco fuel and gets them off pit road first looks like it's going to be big brother this time great job by the one team getting kurt out there in front that means kyle busch loses a spot hamlin bowman reddick all holding position legano byron grabbing a couple spots as well we saw chase elliot had trouble in that first pitch well guess what had trouble again had to go around cole custer look at the contact he made with the tire man hope everybody's okay pit road is definitely a dangerous place steve yeah john rosselli front tire change with the 41. when we watch this replay watch the contact to the tire there and then bam hits the tire changer right in the upper back man it is very very dangerous great to see john up and around in the pit box i mean look tire hits him right back to hitting lug nuts talk about coaching and focus that is unbelievable but it's a little bit to the story though and dave it's great to see john up and around it is and you saw his head go toward that race car remember some of us have been around long enough when they did not wear helmets on pit roads so i don't know if he actually made contact with it but that was one of the safety features that nascar implemented for everyone that goes over the wall and for john roselli it was a good thing and hopefully he'll not be too sore tomorrow so pit selection is always a topic of conversation the nine was actually the pulsator got to choose first but they chose that pit stall that they're having trouble with going around the 41 they didn't take pit stall one i asked alan gustin hey why everybody takes pit stall one he goes man tire spin is a big issue here i didn't think i could get out of that box i wanted to be in the other one he probably felt like he could have a better chance of getting in and out he also mentioned how you always have a fast car in pit stall 2 which the 22 did take we saw kyle bush lose the lead this whole pit selection will keep an eye on it all day long push the control car on the inside and the number one kyle bush on the outside and the 18. it's on the floor if kevin harvick come to pit road just before this restart it was running 10. there was a lot going on with that crew member but we'll have to follow up with the four as we get going hey steve real quick they had some contact on pit road just wanted to clear that right front fender all good for kevin harvick it wrote a busy place so is the back stretch three wide as they go into three lots of pushing and shoving there they're all teammates you got the gibbs boys working together the penske boys working together the hms hendrick boys that top is just so dominant on these restarts hard for those guys on that bottom groove to make any headway and how many crew chiefs right now are looking at the radar because it's starting to look a little bit more ominous to the south and that's moving this direction [Music] brian blaine to the inside of joey logano to the inside here into three or three larson thinks about three wide not enough grip for him to take the five cards through the middle here comes bubba wallace to the inside down the front straightaway he has a run it's gonna be difficult to complete that pass if your larson in the middle of three wide is never a comfortable situation larson's car just does not look good today seems sliding around having to lift out of that situation bubba wallace makes it work tyler reddick to the inside reddick trying to take second away from kyle busch i told you on lap 90 where larson is running where blaney's running and said kurt busch and tyler reddick will be first second that would be considered an upset these two guys are having really good days curt bush the question mark will be out there because of the sale of chip ganassi racing where will curt bush end up in 2022 boy tyler reddick went to the bottom there and got a little free kyle bush is going to try and take advantage here and get the second position but give a tip of the cap to reddick and also randall burnett as crew chief they came here in the spring felt like they could run top five top ten all day long and they hit the wall almost immediately in lap four they hit the wall and they slipped around the rest of the day but today showing the speed that they have in this eight car and the improved performance tyler rubidic loves this racetrack showing up right here right now staying in front of kyle busch in the second spot he'll be hard to get around because he knows how to run that top as good as anybody else in the field battle right here between bowman didn't handle it down into turn one bowman working that bottom really really well tons of grip in the front of that car today able to make that pass denny back to the inside though down the back straightaway just not enough momentum off the top i really like the way that 48 car is hooking the bottom keeping that left front next to the apron while the rest of the hinger cards are struggling just a bit to find that speed he's got it today and that's a relative term when you say the hendrick cars are struggling because right now you've got william byron seven kyle larson running eight guys that normally we would see up in the top five but once again they have had so much success over the past few weeks dylan and guys another guy who's having a strong run so far here in the early goings of stage two is the 23 car bubble wall as you see him at the bottom of your bottom of your screen there under fire from joey logano but this is another group that felt like they were better than they finished up in the spring felt like they had a car capable of running in the 10th to 12th place positions which is where they run right now so talking with bubba this morning this is a new team baby steps every weekend but he said feels like for them it's hard to get into rhythm because once they finally get rolling they go to a road course and takes a step backwards so that was the case for them last week felt like they put a couple of good weeks together and then struggled last week at road america's hoping today and louden goes well next week but then they've got a couple weeks off to regroup and try to go after for two more road course races but nice to see them having a good top 10 run here in the early going bubba's pretty happy with the race car was a little too tight but made some adjustments and he's holding strong right now in 10. and we heard from team owners denny hamlin michael jordan they wanted to see improvement that's what they were looking for in the 23 this year improvement from week to week to week and i think we're starting to see that now a little bit past the halfway point of the season wallace and michael jordan were like we're going to win and and oh carl and then he's like wait a minute let's just make realistic expectations and just get better every week he tried to temper that a little bit he saw it coming knew how hard it would be dylan what do you have well just quick yeah just quickly on the 48 jeff so he's got a pretty solid vibration right now so they're looking back at the pit stop to see if it's a lug nut related issue or something else but uh what a derailment that would be he's clearly been the best hendrick car so far today challenging for the race lead here in just a moment as he tries to track down kurt bush but maybe a potential problem behind the wheel of that 48 car yeah the vibration doesn't seem to be hurting the pace of the car as long as it doesn't get worse i don't think that's going to have a problem here for this 48 team right now alex bowman up to the second spot curt bush still leading here in atlanta [Music] so [Music] the 149th open championship the best golfers in the world will battle on the rugged shores of the north sea at royal st george's golf club in england the open championship that's next thursday to sunday on nbc and golf from high above atlanta motor speedway our aerial coverage brought to you by geico as we see the eighth of tyler reddick trying to get by that 18. and now kyle bush surging to the inside and he will get in front of the eight we'll see how the momentum works here kurt bush out front alex bowman running second this fight for third continues though kyle bush has the spot reddick ran right up on his bumper but didn't try to move around him the guy was overtaking reddick there and i think reddick just said okay you're faster i'm not going to try to cross you over we talked about kevin harvick having to come back down pit road making contact well here it is you see three wide leaving his pit box actually got into martin truex jr martin trex jr also had to come on pit road to fix his car so they just had to make sure steve that this right front was not going to rub that tire and cause a problem it's so difficult right you just don't know where the dent is a lot of travel a lot of bumps here a lot of opportunity for the car to have an issue if you do have damage i think the favorite coming into today's race kyle larson was struggling just a little bit from the drop of the green flag but it seems like they've worked on this car and improved it the last few times they've come down hit road as it goes the inside of denny hamlin down the back straight away this is for fifth position two good buddies i think this is the kyle larson we expected to see today here the car much better on this run he said the entire first couple runs said just the fronts were not working it would not work for anything at the beginning of the run he used that word quote draggy but it's been much better on this run in fact he radioed in almost immediately to cliff daniels and said i can tell the fronts are working now we're in a much better position with lap time and showing also on the pylon up to fifth dave joey logano on pit road right now and guys i am not entirely sure why we will check the tires that are coming off of this 22. no urgent report from them last time he was down pit road but remember joey working with a setup he hasn't run here before to try to get better at these low horsepower and high drag racetrack configurations they're gonna make big chassis adjustments as well looks like they're swinging for the fences to make sure their driver can find what he needs in the future seems very early to me we haven't heard anything about a vibration i mean you can try to pit twice in this segment but the segment only being 80 laps long i just don't see the math working i think it's a simple one-stop stage in about 13 or 14 more laps this is really really early you'd have to go oh man you'd have to go a long way it's 53 laps on this set of tires to get to the end so i can't believe this is a planned stop but we'll have to get a report and see paul wolf may be playing a little cards here didn't you say earlier that if a driver comes to pit road he normally pulls the whole field with him yeah even though this is early i think this is so early and when i say bring the field with them it's like the next lap and the fact that nobody else is coming off from the racetrack onto pit road tells me that they also believe that the 22 had some sort of issue um if they thought this was a strategy they would have all came on pit road i believe hey guys left rear on joey logano's car was vibrating and uh just heard from travis geisler the competition director that it was a left rear that was the issue that brought joey to pit road yeah so there you there you go [Music] here's the gap getting closed now kyle bush has caught up to the 48 of alex bowman 24 laps on these tires already in this run you work and work and work trying to get to this guy trying to figure out how to create the momentum you see the 18 accomplish using the top to do that down the back straightaway he's going to have the run to the inside [Music] now he's got to be patient to make that bottom and hook that car down around the bottom he's got a lap car here it's going to make him go up the track he's going to have to lift a little bit 48 is struggling now in the wake of that 18 car off the corner i think out morale is bowman at the end of that first long run he complained about being really tight wonder if that's not starting to happen right now kurt bush out front as we go nascar nonstop you can get gear for race day check out the greatest selection of t-shirts and hats die casts and more all for your favorite drivers visit nascar.com shop for all of your gear today you're watching nascar cup series racing from atlanta this telecast presented by brez tree so right now a lot of crew chiefs and teams are looking at the radar as we're taking a glimpse at it as well atlanta motor speedway the dot right in the middle one of the things that makes an official race is if you get to the halfway point which we're closing in on that steve yeah basically the rule is it's either the end of stage two or halfway whichever is sooner in this case the way this race lays out it would be lap 130 currently at lap 117 so 13 laps away the interesting thing about the situation is you know green flag pit stops should be upon us in about maybe seven or eight laps will someone decide to stay out on the racetrack hoping to get a lucky rain shower or will they stick with their plan to pin under green dave so steve crew chief matt mccall and kurt bush agree with you that's their point here but not too soon that's right don't want to uh take that away from them but last time a little bit of courting on the front tires so kurt has been managing the car a little bit more he also said i'm managing their car because we're not chasing kyle like we were last time and steve i got to tell you a few sprinkles down here on pit road right now so when i look at the radar i don't see race ending rain although of course anything to build but but definitely maybe a yellow and the point is you're going to lose a lap here if you pit under green even as the leader so you don't want to come under green right drivers as much as you want new tires the last thing you want to do is roll off pit road and see the caution you know you're behind we got william byron coming on the pit road right here i think that's the schedule stopped as well as matt de benedetto oh it's decision time right do you think it's going to rain or not dylan 24 william byron is in kicking off green flag pit stops here he reported that he was just a little bit too tight chassis-wise on that run he was tight last time crew chief rudy hugo opted to make just some air pressure adjustments i think they're going to take a bigger swing at it this time down marty and jonathan hassler making the call to bring matt divinity down they've had a terrific run been in the top ten for a bunch of today matty d has been very happy and i can hear on the radio the floodgates are about to open you see denny hamlin coming down pit road and steve i agree with you i'm surprised that more teams are not deciding to stay out here because it is starting to rain a little bit more here on pit road but danny hamlin coming down still too tight that's the biggest problem on denny hammond especially in three and four that's where he's losing his speed but you're gonna see a whole host of teams coming down here comes ryan blaney in as well made themselves aero tight that last run chunked and corded a right front they're much happier with the balance this time ryan moving around on the racetrack self diagnosing and medicating that race car four tires and fuel for delaney gamble rick you know you could stay let's wait for the rain but the gambles we see kyle larson on pit road marty you know two seconds slower on old tires yeah kyle larson on pit road again said the car worked much better that run drove into the top five alex bowman also on pit road and here is bowman into the pit so he was reporting that vibration early in the run felt okay about it later all the lugs were tight he's reporting this run he's tighter in the center of the corner and so they made an adjustment there with the track bar and air pressure to help him get that car turning a little bit better kurt busch couldn't stand it any longer the team brings him to pit road now the driver of the one car see if he hits his marks perfectly yes a little damp maybe on pit rope but just scattered sprinkles right now didn't really need too many changes in the car although a little bit free as he entered the corner so slight air pressure adjustment to keep up with that four goodyear tires and a phillips fuel [Music] christopher bell last time i was scored as race leader mark trex jr out there as well there you see 42. ross chastain on pit road having a decent day as well his teammate kurt busch leading most of this event here so far today and he'll get his four tires in the league too marty martin jr on pit road so we talked about them coming down to fix that damage earlier dave when they came down to fix the damage they put on a new set of goodyear tires so they were able to go just a little bit further than everybody else here and speaking of the rain it has led up a little bit here so we might get through this entire green flag cycle with everyone coming and the rain not coming that would be good for everybody on the track 41 of cole custer still out on the track he is now the current leader there's still 38 laps to go in this stage we're lying along with austin dillon looking up there at brad keselowski austin dillon running in the 14th position just behind kozlowski [Music] albarola now the race leader brian priest running second kurt busch has been to pit road and says kyle busch those two running third and fourth right now [Music] and curt bush and kyle busch both have led more laps today than they have led all season one of kurt bush you see in the third position waiting for the last two to make their pit stops you mentioned kurt busch will be leading once everyone has cycled through their pit stops fixing the fastest lap going to the driver of the one kurt busch [Music] last lap 168.866 miles per hour compared to almarola's last lap of 161.035 that's how much difference fresh tires can play into what kirkbush is able to do versus almarola right now that's right it's quite a bit for one almarola is telling him it's raining a lot her bush and his team they did a nice job they had a two second lead pitted a lap after his brother did but kept that two-second lead nice work by him getting on pit road and a team also pick it up stay with it here there's that strategy play stay out as long as you can because they think the rain is going to come yeah i mean it's pouring if you're a 10 car there's debris everywhere i've never spoiled all over the track remember almarola right now 27th in the point standings he's 154 points back really he's in a must-win situation if he wants to make the playoffs back around second place 48 cars worked his way around kyle busch kyle's car struggling just a bit we've seen it all race along that 48 car fire off on those new tires working that bottom really really well here he goes to the top of the racetrack lap cars in front of him trying to get that clean air junior we've seen alex bowman get slower at the end of long runs maybe don't run quite as hard early in this run you know like bring it back a little bit it's raining a lot [Applause] almarola still wanting a caution for rain staying out there on those older tires here comes ryan preece in the 37. i think nascar is going to need a few more drivers to join that wagon well he's not going to get cory lejoy he's trying to unlap himself right no rain for the seven track is perfect lejoy a little wiggle there as he goes around the outside of almarola and the gap closing again here comes eric jones in the 43. so this strategy only works if it really starts raining hard enough where they have to throw the caution yeah because unfortunately you can see just how much slower the 10 is leading the race than the 43 and the seven the cars that have fresh tires easily can dispose of the 10 and drive off you're this far into this gamble though right you may as well see it through unless the radar clears up then you just gotta fit yeah he's almost once he gets caught by kurt bush which he's two seconds away from that happening that strategy goes out the window well yeah i mean right now he would like to see an absolute downpour that never lets up the race just became awesome 41 running up top there you go halfway that time i mean this is a car that arguably doesn't think they can make the playoffs on points i mean you know they why not i mean they're sitting at the roulette table junior right and they're trying to find a way to get somewhat even with the house the only thing they know is to put all their chips in and hope the thing goes his way it's unfortunate because i just don't know if the radar looks bad enough but i like the gamble here comes ryan priest he takes the lead away from almarola but look at the one those pressure tires so strong as he goes through the middle and curt bush about to take the lead back here at atlanta and so it is curt bush out front he has the pressure tires now the 37 and the 10 really no reason to stay out on the race track curt bush back out in front already has led 38 laps here at atlanta we go nascar nonstop [Music] so [Music] so coming up on just 23 laps to go in stage two from atlanta you're watching the quaker state 400. and rutledge i know that it might have been raining a little bit in turn one but i think you're over in turn four probably uh clear skies up there right oh rick i'm up on the high side it's beautiful up here we got a few light sprinkles everybody looking majestic up here we're at the very top hanging with the coffee family uh this is a racing family they live here full-time their son alex used to race bandoleros uh against uh chase elliott used to race legends with uh william byron austin centric so mr coffee i gotta know what's it like to live here year round these places are beautiful it's awesome we uh we downsized about four years ago and probably one of the best things we ever did we have a real tight-knit community here and everybody has a lot of fun and now miss coffee you're like the racing mama everybody knows you around here is it as much fun to live here as i would think because it's everything you could ever want we love it here it's awesome living here if you're a race fan it's wonderful even if you're not a race fan it's wonderful hey guys you can't beat the view it's incredible up here uh they've been picking some favorites obviously chase elliot's uh hoping to get to victory lane for these two guys and right now chase elliott uh running in the 12th position as we showed he was going to be one of the favorites for today's ranks there he is running right up against the fence jumped out of the gas a little bit there yeah that high side works when you can stay in the gas sometimes especially off of turn four that wall wraps around really quick and you have to lift there kind of takes away all that advantage you're trying to create he shouldn't been making it work he just got by matthew benedetto now he's running down bubba wallace he's been making this highline much better pacing when he's on the bottom all right drivers how uneasy are you we're seeing a little bit of drops on our camera which is on the top of the car but you as a driver are going to see those drops on the windshield how uneasy does that make you to feel like there's still traction in this racetrack it doesn't bother me at a place like this the place is so porous and so rough that even when it's damp there's a lot of grip out there and i mean it's a slick track but it doesn't get worse when it gets a little damp a little bit of a drizzle like this i think they can race through it um it's going to take a lot of water really getting this thing to where you lose the racetrack as terms they like to say but right now they're you know the cars going around the tracks creating a little bit heat in the tires got the heat they're keeping that groove dry keeping it warm they're running all over the place so [Applause] lots of cars are moving around there and the rain doesn't pick up anymore i think they'll be okay you mentioned it to me during break the 10 of eric amarola finally did hit he came out he's one lap down and about a quarter lap behind the leader on those fresh tires trying to get his lap back right along with chase elliot [Music] to how much longer he's out of the gas on the bottom and three and four versus what he was able to do on the top and one and two had to get into three and four and just tons of discipline get your mark be perfect on speed now up here he just kind of hustle the car dave get whatever he can and the car is a little bit better you see him changing lines and bubba doing the same thing trying to fight back they made a suspension change on the left front took a little extra time a couple of pit stops ago and that seems to have helped alan gustafsson thought it would and chase is now driving back toward the front we'll see how far the pole sitter can get hey joining the 19 different paint scheme there for chase elliot here in georgia good looking car rick i like the paint skin i love listening to the throttle as he's trying to work that top in and out of the gas dave what do you got on the one car so you guys know it takes everything to win these races and put your car out front the pit crew today for kurt busch has been outstanding this was the green flag stop that they just made and you can see the artistry here and the choreography that they had it was a very smooth stop and even though he wasn't the first one to hit he did get back to the lead there that's the kudos also remember under that one caution they came down pit road not in the lead and left in the lead two of their fastest seven pit stops all season have come today at atlanta yeah it's incredible what these guys are able to do when they go over the wall in 13 seconds changing tires adding fuel making adjustments real athletes amazing the work they do guys i know this is a little early to have this conversation because we know how races go but if kurt busch wins this race clearly that puts him in the playoffs as a winner he came into this point into this race only 25 points in 16th right look at chris busher if kurt wins this race chris busher is a hundred points behind he came in 25 behind chastain would be 148 behind he came in 69 so this would be a huge blow to the hosts for busher chastain maddie d if kurt is able to win this race marty jeff the other thing to look at that is tyler reddick plus 101 above the cut line last week at road america nobody in the field gained more points in that race than tyler reddick today having another solid top five run they haven't been out of the top five all day long gaining points as well they got points in stage one they got six looking at getting more points right now so tyler reddick in addition to kurt bush doing everything he needs to do to make sure he's part of the 2021 playoffs tyler reddick a part of richard childress racing rcr as well as austin dillon and then they currently helping out track house racing as well with that organization as again kurt busch out front here at atlanta [Music] [Music] so drivers continue to work hard here at atlanta motor speedway laps winding down in stage two but they're adding up as far as how many green flag laps they have had on this set of tires this is the longest green flag run of the day at 66 laps again in the middle of that we had pit stops the radar currently clearing up a little bit we're seeing a little bit of sun peeking through as this stage coming to an end man watching these guys drive look at chase elliot he is so loose on corner exit turning to the right off the turn four and off return to this last lap he's lost three spots in the last two or three laps drove up into the back side of the top ten and now he's fell back outside the top ten in the 15th place kyle bush one stage one let's listen into his radio as he runs second here on the front side i think we've heard the splitter we've lost down forward it's not going to turn as good we got to find some truck steer here we got to get it off the splitter with steer can't lose the back steve sounds like they made a height adjustment either with air pressure or packer rear something about you know he feels now that what they did didn't help enough on the splitter they need to go with a different direction that's the tough part about this place drivers right it's so rough on new tires you have to hit the splitter but how much and how much can you stand because it's just going to be high as the tires you know grow over the life cycle of a run and something i heard him say steve was we've hurt the splitter does he think you've worn enough of the splitter off to where now you won't ever get that downforce back is that what his concern was i don't know or is it just he's on the splitter too hard but it kind of led me to believe he was afraid that they would never get that downforce brad because they've worn so much of it off hey jeff he used this phrase he said we are so on the splitter you're killing it so those were the two things i heard him say about the splitter how hard he was hitting it yeah so probably on it too hard to go on new tires and jeff to your point maybe doing permanent damage changing the shape of that under area very important for front downforce and sensitivity this is perhaps the worst track for that because when you do run that bottom and you put that left front tire on that line that we've been talking about like harvick does so well it puts the splitter on the racetrack and it really is easy to eat through the left front of that [Music] watching tricks junior byron and harvick all battling to get inside of the back the top 10 here truex takes 10th spot now harvick takes 11th from byron harvick and truex both gaining a few spots here to get in the side of this top 10 and close in on the end of stage two neither one of them had flown back through the field since they had the pit after that but they are clawing themselves back these long runs that's what kevin harvick needs he needs long runs for this race to work out he's really fast at the end of them joey logano is in jeopardy of going a lap down here at the end of stage one as we see denny hamlin working to the inside of tyler reddick but right there in front of curt bush the race leader is the 22 of joey logano remember rick moore laps on those tires he was the first one to hit pit row with that loose left rear wheel can he stay on the lead lap coming up on one to go for kurt busch here in stage two denny hamlin working the high side now trying to get by tyler redick on the bottom of your screen see if kurt bush wants to cut joe legato a break or if he wants to try to put him a lap down so he has to take the free pass and this is important for tyler to try to race for this position he's right there at that cut line the play also gets to work hard i don't know if he'll keep it right here dean he's going to have big speed off the corner did that tell you as far as curt bush coming to the back of the 22 and not going by him looks like a nice move from a veteran to a veteran and so it will be stage two winner kurt busch this time the brothers have swept the stages here at atlanta kyle busch won the first stage kurt busch wins the second stage powell finishing second in stage two alex bowman kyle larson denny hamlin the top five third stage win of 2021 for the driver of the one kurt bush points adding up for kurt bush a win obviously would secure a spot in the playoffs but every point you can gain helps get you to that point his singing got her through brain cancer it's a powerful new episode of summer's number one show america's got talent it's new tuesday on nbc and you're watching nascar cub series racing from atlanta this telecast presented by brez tree dave rick corey lejoy is running the colors of boss baby today and that's not the best news the best news is that he got the free pass here but remember when they first announced this paint scheme for corey he brought his one-year-old boy levi there because he was so darn cute and he also kind of liked the boss baby corey told us that before the race and levi's at home watching with mom and making sure that dad does the right things today because he's the boss i like his little chuck taylors looking good there boss babies in theaters and on peacock as pit road is open and anticipating everyone on the lead lap coming down here that includes joy logano who finished 21st in that second stage good morning rick cliff daniels told kyle larson the good news is we started that green flag cycle six seconds behind the one car we ended it six seconds behind the one car so they feel like they're as good as kurt busch with a lot of room to make this car better larson's saying i need help everywhere car way too tight they're going to free him up here dylan marty his teammate alex bowman getting tighter as the race goes and their adjustments keep taking the rear of the car out of the racetrack gonna make an air pressure adjustment for alex bowman in the 48 dave everything's relative kyle busch with all of the input for his 18 car was still was running second so you saw a chassis adjustment there meanwhile kirkbridge said these tires were a little bit too squishy on the beginning of the last run there will be a little air pressure added to him this time brothers stay one and two off of pit road and the top four all holding position denny hamill loses the spot on pit road so does ryan blaney [Music] nascar on nbcsn is brought to you by ford built ford proud the red white and blue slush float for a limited time only at sonic and by coca-cola together tastes better with coca-cola now let's go back to rutledge wood vic you know there's tons of history at this track we're actually at the back stretch which used to be the front stretch this is the old pedestrian walking tunnel not creepy at all but when you talk about the history here you got to talk about the movies that were made here especially so many that people love how about stroker ace we know he was born to race clyde torkel of course shout out to the best chicken pit ever how about smokey and the bandit not to mention maybe the greatest racing movie ever six pack all of those movies had a little bit shot here a ton of history i know it's gonna look so different when we come back but a lot of great movies there that people love were shot here at atlanta motor speedway yeah so much history and entertainment that has taken place at this venue i want to make it known that uh steve the tart has not seen any of those movies yeah well you've seen smoke in the band haven't you seen smoking smoking the bandit for sure i've seen multiple times but and six-pack you haven't seen either of those no yeah we got to figure that out not okay okay on a side note run i think that tunnel was unlocked i don't know why you didn't go down in and check it out see if there's steve you're gonna do that after saying you didn't see those movies not creepy at all we're going to like steve in that tunnel with the ipad we'll bring in dvd players watch movies uh also not good the 11 on pit road speeding it's his fourth speeding penalty this season so denny hamlin after trying to make up some ground gets caught for speeding too fast entering do a little bit of track cleanup here oh they got some uh what do we got going on here looks like they're gonna uh little caulk or filler oh wow yeah there's a little problem right here with the track coming apart that's asphalt coming that's a big problem yeah well junior they said they got to resurface it this is why right i mean you said yesterday during the broadcast that chunks of the pavement could come up and here we go [Music] they keep they've kept putting this off this pavement off because you know drivers didn't want to pave it and kept putting it off and it's just gotten to the point where they absolutely have to pay but there's no there's no getting around it where is that i'm trying to turn right here on the front straight away the dog leg right before the start finish line you were watching your stroker ace movie could you couldn't see out the window trying to get caught up well and even in front of that you see a little bit more of it coming out that looks like so you jump at the gas at the geico restart zone and then go through the pothole that's gonna be a tough spot to avoid unfortunately a big piece of that didn't come out and go through somebody's grill radiator oil pan aka martinsville and jeff gordon i don't want to talk about it rick sorry about that but you see it it could have used dover you could use someone else's example you see a little bit more of it coming up there but this again it's a 24 year old surface 10 minutes to fix that track repair there so you're hearing some spotter driver crew chief communication back and forth as they're assessing this and we're hearing that there will be a red flag that will come out they'll stop the field you know back in the 90s and what's now the xfinity series we'd go to south boston volusia we would tear race tracks completely up and it would destroy race cars you mentioned martinsville with jeff gordon but chunks of that asphalt do incredible amount of damage so this has happened before and most recently maybe i guess at daytona and they used a bondo substance to be able to fill that in and allow the race to continue it will take a minute for it to be applied and for it to dry we'll see if they use that again or if they go another route but they don't figure out a way to make that you know patch that up some way it's just going to continue to break apart the cars go across it and they got to make sure that whatever they put down there stays down so the field has stopped on the front stretch here atlanta motor speedway two stages complete kurt bush won the second stage kyle bush won the first stage and we're doing a little track repair all right you racers you've been looking forward to this next sunday spot in the playoffs and lobster there on the line for the cup series in new hampshire it's going to be the race team broadcast dj and kyle petty will be down there three of you guys calling the race uh that starts at 3 p.m eastern on nbc sn and there's also going to be another great race taking place on the 8th and for more on that here's some of our friends i can't walk the streets of nashville without thinking of legends like johnny cash loretta lynn mario andretti hello cheryl bro mario what are you doing here carol haven't you heard indycars coming to the streets of nashville mario that is music to my ears my intune big machine music city grand prix all the states on nbcsa it's gonna get loud mario i love loud what a day of racing that will be again that's august eighth the cup series will be at watkins glen and then indycar music city around pre nashville they'll be going over that right there the korean war veterans memorial bridge over cumberland river what a great venue in sight that's going to be [Music] a little fun day race in new hampshire we watch this win you see there and then what great timing for the end of that indycar race they can go straight from that to the party in downtown nashville we've experienced that a few weeks ago i just can't wait to see him race over the bridge man that's that's to be the late that's like a fantasy layout right that that sounds crazy but it's going to be a reality and uh just watching the cars crest over that now they how they navigate that's gonna be fun i'm looking forward to next weekend too new hampshire with us in the broadcast booth we're going to miss you rick no you're not things are going to go off the rails you're going to love it you're not going to be there to keep us in the right direction but we're going to have a good time hey jeff uh see if you can dial up kurt busch while we're under this red flag condition and they're working on the track here hey curtis the guys up in the booth you with us well bud things are going really well so far what do you got to do to stay on top of this yeah things have been going great with our ganassi chevy uh giving gearwrench a great ride right now man these these guys with gearwrench they come on board for four races a year and they're like which one's your favorite track like it's atlanta right now we're doing it and we got to stay focused here for these final 100 laps make sure we keep up with the track conditions and the way things are changing but it's fun trying to dance with this old atlanta surface one more time before she's gone curt you said it's your favorite track tell us why uh the ability to slide the car around overdrive some corners under drive corners the ability to change the car's feel with throttle brake steering and just letting it rip and trying to slide around this racetrack at 180 miles an hour it's fun i got a great crew and a great group but continuing to push out all the pit stops for us and we keep coming out on front we're just going to keep executing as a team you mentioned going 180 miles per hour did you notice that big crater in the racetrack that 180 miles an hour i'm more focused on the banking making sure our car is handling good there so just make sure we get the track safe and ready to rip and we got to keep this uh this bush guy behind us and a few other fast guys that i'm sure right there all right kurt thank you for taking some time bud good luck thanks guys i like that this bush guy my little brother uh but i got to keep him behind me which they have had some interesting battles between the two of them great success in their careers in nascar for both kurt and kyle bush so the track repairs going on right now we'll get those done and hopefully get under green here quickly track repair is getting close now as they're packing in the new asphalt they're putting down there in those holes that were in the front stretch so as they're continuing to work we heard kurt talk about his brother and trying to keep him behind him earlier before the season started rutlage woods sat down with kyle busch and they fielded questions from kids what kind of m ms do i like oh man that's a tough question because they're all so good and there's a ton of them out there the r d department's very busy but uh i tell you what my all-time favorite always is the crispy m ms i always just kind of revert back to that that was my favorite as a kid growing up they went away for a while and then when they came back we reintroduced them in 2015 with the green card oh yeah won a championship with that thing so yeah green is money baby i love it what's your favorite win dad i know that kid yeah exactly uh my favorite win got to be 2015 homestead you know just what that year meant being able to bring home a championship brexton just being born that year winning the brickyard that year was awesome but capping the whole year off with the championship at homestead was was pretty phenomenal so that was super super cool great question young man yeah hi my name is evan i am six years old and my question is which driver causes most crashes which driver causes the most crashes uh-huh it's gotta be ricky spin house right is that what y'all are calling him i mean that's been around for a few years we'll see how far that takes off but uh you know uh he's in quite a few of them maybe [Music] holy cow that hurts my face that's so funny i didn't you're more red than this yeah we was not prepared for that being your answer hey well it happens that's solid great question everett great question kyle caused him a wrecky spin oh it's okay uh ricky stenhouse jr there behind the wheel of the 47. steve your speech i want no part of this i just i don't know if i've ever seen you speechless before i was hoping the drivers over there were going to jump in well his car does have a lot of duct tape on it's hard to argue with uh with kurt today or kyle today watching these guys patch this up looks like they've done this before stamping down the asphalt and again still under red flag condition let's see if we can chat with tyler reddick jeff hey yeah i got you guys [Music] things have gone well so far today tell us about your car yeah the uh the car has been really good um all the men and women on this uh chevrolet uh here here at the track and back hit the shop um i've brought a really good uh just trying to figure out the the one or two small details uh that we need to kind of get here uh just closing a bit of this right so we go up there and contend with 48 i feel like the five got better you know the 18 and kurt who's been able to stretch it out so uh just trying to figure out what we got to do you know um in our car and maybe maybe not just try and get a good pit stop so just laying that as i sit here tyler what do you think what part of the racetrack are you i know you're fast but you need a little bit of speed is there one place in particular you're looking to be better in i think the biggest thing right now is just a little bit more versatility it seems like uh when you get one thing working or the other um you know in this cup field you know you got guys that are really smart and can see that they take it away so just continue to try and be better across you know all the lane choices that you have which which are a lot here at atlanta and i think that that'll help us probably more than anything so like i said hopefully that's one one more adjustment away here hopefully this last adjustment gives us that direction but it's been a great day and just uh like we're running hopefully we can have a good restart here do a few things right and find ourselves in position to go for it early in the race junior i got real concerned about you because you said you didn't have uh your cool vest wasn't working your helmet wasn't working any of that stuff get fixed yeah um that's the sort of issue with you know cool air or any kind of airflow through the helmet which is not ideal but uh the cool suit works pretty good once we get up to speed that's still working thankfully so if i didn't have that um i don't know i think i would be in a little bit of trouble but thankfully you know i can open up the uh the ducks in here and get some air flowing to me at times and get my hand out the window but uh i think the sun not being out much today is kind of it's kind of saving me a little bit right now so we'll see uh let's see if we can see hotter but it feels pretty good honestly right tyler thanks buddy and have a good rest of the race yep thanks everyone enjoy the show hopefully we can make it entertaining here he talks about that cool suit that's something that i think jimmy johnson might have been the first guy to introduce that to the series but a lot of drivers are wearing it today yesterday when austin dillon subbed in the one car in the spinny race he wore annette's cool suit for the first time he'd never wore one i saw him after the race to thank him and say man i appreciate you filling in for us there and he goes hey i'm great i'm going to wear this he's like i didn't know if i wanted to get in there because it's going to be hot but this cool suit i've wore it for the first time and it's incredible and he's like i'm going to be wearing this the rest of the year going forward because it it's probably the most uh it's probably the best thing that's happened to driver comfort in a long time it's way better than even what you get in the air uh the the helmet the air into the helmet is probably only about 20 degrees cooler than the temperature ambient temperature inside the car so it's a little bit better it's not cold air it's not it's not like what you're feeling in your car driving down the street an air conditioner that cool vest though is absolutely at least probably 40 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature in the car it's a tremendous breakthrough and it covers your whole torso and it really helps these drivers be able to withstand cars that i think have gotten hotter over the years they start to seal these cars to the ground and different things are happening with the way they build the cars i think the temperature inside has went up and got more difficult but that cool suit's saving a lot of these guys hey dale you know it's interesting kevin harvick is trying a cool suit for the first time today and you know i talked to him before the race and he said hey man this day and age you got to take advantage of every little piece that you can and it might help you know now i think it's much cooler as tyler mentioned than people thought it would be today but man it was hot here yesterday in atlanta so i think all the drivers saw that austin dillon experienced that and kevin harvick said you know what i'm going to try it for the first time today blaney and denny hamlin waiting for them to go from red to yellow we've seen the work the patches that have been done in the asphalt they're complete so at some point i'm guessing that we'll see some vehicles run over the top of those look at the playoffs and as they're running again everybody in yellow has won one race locking themselves into that field that playoff field that everyone is fighting for and then you see austin dillon chris busher those guys right there on either side of that uh playoff line that cut off line for them getting in well and you know dale and jeff pointed out kurt busch winning really has changed that came in 25 points above and we put the graphic up earlier he's gone from about 80 or 90 points out of the playoffs back late spring early summer worked his all the way worked his self all the way up to plus 25 so doing a great job but this is the creme de la creme i mean the win the trophy the guaranteed golden ticket into the playoffs now your mind and your pressure and your stress goes away you could stop counting points go to the road courses enjoy yourself try to find some playoff points not go to daytona the pressure cooker at the end of the regular season so this trophy uh for chipping nasty raisins think about the last two weeks right they here last week they've been sold to track house what does that mean we don't know as far as the employees the team the driver so many open-ended questions if if kurt could come and win this and kind of let everybody maybe settle down and just focus on trying to win a championship i think it'd be a huge morale booster for that entire team and give them a great goal heading in uh to the last 10 races of the season and obviously help curt bush in a situation where he doesn't know his future you know with chip ganassi racing getting sold he doesn't know what 2022 will look like for him all right drivers we have seen already two stages of this race 93 laps remaining we knew that it was going to be a lot of work did you expect it to be this hard on these drivers today yeah i think it's been everything we expected it's a difficult race track but the temperatures are a little bit down today compared to what we expected at this time of year in atlanta but it's been pretty interesting to see everyone seems to be able to run with the hinder cars i mean they've been the dominant cars throughout the year but today they're kind of right in the mix of the top ten some some runs they're very fast some runs are not but they are improving but they're not dominating so does this mean that everybody's called up we'll have to see a few more races i think going forward but i think that it's going to be a battle for this championship i don't think it's going to be easy cakewalk for henrik motorsports and we're already seeing the field get there yeah i think this is an opportunity day for kurt busch for tyler reddick for guys like that alex bowman we know he already has wins but the other thing i'm thinking about right now as a driver is i've sat in this car in a red flag situation for a long time and every time that happens to me as a driver my car drives completely different when you drop the green flag the tire pressures are sitting there getting lower and lower it just never is the same car so i know it's only one run but the next change you make is going to be based off of this run that you make so how does this red flag going to affect the way your car drives and then the change you make after that can determine if you're going to win this race or not we heard the engines get fired up the flag has changed from red to yellow so the cars will begin to roll now around the track and they'll be coming back to the choose square block that we had seen earlier when they were making the decisions we talked to joey logano about that this morning because a couple guys in the expenditure series actually ran over that box that's uh just past the start finish line and joey said why don't they put it right at the start finish line so that we know exactly where it is there it is right there but it's hard to see obviously when you're in a car being told nascar has told the drivers they'll come back with two to go 19 minutes for the red flag to repair the track we have to hope that that repair is going to be able to hold up that'll be one thing that i'd be watching is for that hole to come back uh big chunks of asphalt to to be moving around on the racetrack getting into people's grills knocking the radiators out of their cars things like that that could happen could be unfortunate for somebody hopefully the repair is done and we can continue this race to the finish hopefully there's not enough another hole somewhere that's going to develop i mean this really literally has stretched this track beyond i mean they were talking about repaving it two or three years ago and drivers begged them not to and they said okay we'll try to stretch it out they did more and more work trying to seal this place up and keep this con keep this asphalt together but it's just pushing it too far now you have a yearly sealer budget for the seams going up every year we look at the plates and they left those safety vehicles out there so that the cars wouldn't roll over that new patched asphalt this time by it's an interesting spot so junior you're talking about willow will hold up right middle of the back stretch you would think it would you know not have a lot of load on it but right here out of the restart zone you know these guys are going to be shifting gears trying to accelerate i mean it's better than the corner for sure and having the cornering on them but you just hope that stays down position kurt busch said that he didn't even notice it i thought that was pretty interesting go back and watch replays of it it's ryan blaney you know that right front for sure had some movement this track's just rough enough anyway that there's another bump well that's just another one yeah that thing happened in pocono on the straightaway you'd notice it that's as smooth as that place is [Music] so curt and kyle will get ready to make their decision as to which line they're going to restart in as will everyone else when they come by this time we've seen that inside line be the preferred line for the control car race leader rick i've always thought as a creature this this was hard for me right like i was in a rhythm we were racing i was working with my driver and what we need to do thinking about strategies kind of everything was going along and then even rain you kind of see it coming you know it's coming you're mentally ready for it this type of red flag you just had no idea it was coming and then you just stopped down so now i i need to get myself re-engaged or make sure my drivers are re-engaged make sure the pit crew's ready to go so now the field getting ready to make their decisions tyler reddick actually making a choice going up high it's just you know in the past we've seen this racetrack nobody wanted to run the top but it's just not been a big disadvantage today quite a few making the decision to go up high for the restart dave it's interesting today rick as more rubber gets put into this racetrack some tire wear diminishes but other does not and in fact kyle bush's team told him that last time the right front that came off there well that was in the process of coming apart so glad that they got that off still have to pay attention to how much you might be abusing your tires marty dave it has been an eventful day for martin truex junior remember started 37th on the field after failing inspection twice this morning drove up into the top ten then they had the issue on pit road where they made contact with kevin harvick came in to fix that restarted 24th drove their way back up to the top 10 then had a bad pit stop but truex has driven his way back into the top ten once again restarting seventh i think they feel like the car is pretty good keep an eye on the 19 for the final few laps rick they've got their work cut out for them the bush brothers have been spectacular already today kurt bush has led 76 laps kyle busch 68 laps field now coming out of four and approaching the geico restart zone remember the eleven danny allen not in the front had that speeding penalty mark trucks junior moving to the outside three wide as they go to one four wide now oh contact on the bottom there between harvick and blaney let's see if anybody gets a tire run from that bar just going to be hard to make this work although it's four wide on the outside that's going to help him awesome racing between these guys back here in the middle of the top 10. here comes that momentum of the 18 once again alex boma trying to fight on the bottom of the racetrack but a big run for kyle busch he's gonna have to work a little bit hard on the outside of that 48 he got stalled out on the back straightaway with a side draft and bowman's going to clear him in the middle of 304 and go after this one car look who's coming into the picture kyle larson in the five currently fourth slowly worked on this five car to get it better all day long seems to have the pace he needs this 48's really fast on new tires watch way up the racetrack right there though here comes kyle busch going to drive underneath him he got in the wake of that one car draggity back right here he's got the preferred lane getting into three want to be on the bottom in three and four now the 18 slides up in front of the 48 takes the air away from me [Music] out to the middle of the racetrack trying to keep some air on the nose of that car so it keeps turning to the corner as he starts to apply the throttle behind him tyler reddick got a big run on truex now keslowski underneath reddick ready tried a little bit there kind of gave up on it knew that the two car had too big a run truex had an issue off of turn two and that slowed him up let reddick make a run because lowsky took advantage of both of them marty what's going on with kyle larson boy to junior's point you can see that kyle larson is the best he's been all day long larson said the car has been tight for much of the day but could tell immediately when it fired off much better already on this run in just a few laps that we've already turned could it be the opposite of what happened to hit them here in march after dominating all the race they got passed with nine to go for the lead arsenal now stalking the lead and hasn't let a lap so far this afternoon mark trucks junior working to the inside of tyler reddick but larson running up there in the top five now he's running fourth and still has his sights set as we see reddick getting back by the 19 of martin trunks jr here comes the 12. so blaney is going to go by as well another car that's getting better as this day is going on is ryan blaney dylan what do you have orion well they've been really really struggling with the balance all day he just came on the radio a couple laps ago said we're plowing tight already now we saw him maybe run over a piece of that track that came up and he had come on the radio right at the end of stage two and said i think i've got a tire coming apart and then they took it off and there was definitely a chunk missing so they weren't sure if that was just from where or if that was from hitting that maybe that piece of the racetrack that came up so uh a close call nonetheless they were able to get down here and change the tire under yellow at the end of stage two but it's been a trying day for these guys and they're still kind of making uh making a good day out of it as they run inside the top ten in the seventh spot right now same adjusting that knack of the bent that runs over there on the right side of the car you see it he can open and close that that changes the balance of the car it affects the arrow on the outside of the car it'll tarp telling you that was pressure going to that telestrator for the last couple weeks from that point circle so it was okay yeah so he when he adjusts that what is he trying to do in the car yeah so as the air comes in that right side knack duck he can open and close it and what that basically does is move the center of pressure for arrows so it actually just moves it a little bit looser or a little bit tighter depending on the car setup so as he goes either either end of the racetrack or j dale as the tires wear maybe his balance of the race car is going a certain way and he's reaching over there and adjusting it we heard tyler redick mention it what do you tell you guys he was doing it just to try to get some fresh air in the car looking at that car it looked like he has a little bit of damage to the right rear quarter panel yeah you see it sticking out like that wow that's good that's i mean i don't i think that's the kind of damage you want if you get any kind of damage where you get basically a spoiler additional side force to the right side of that car now if you got a tight car that's going to make it worse that's going to make it tighter but if you're hung out need a little bit more grip in that right rear that that's like the damage you get it's going to help that watch you drive around that two car maybe that's why he stopped adjusting the uh deck and duck maybe that arrow changed because of that damage but right by his teammate and so blaney moving forward everyone's still chasing after kurt busch nascar nonstop [Music] just 75 laps remaining nascar cup series racing from atlanta this telecast presented by red street out front it's kurt bush dave three times rick the busch brothers have finished one two in the cup series kyle is two to one on curt so he could even that up today if kyle stays right where he is one thing to keep in mind at the very start of that run kurt's car said i'm on the edge of tightness but that quickly went away and he started to gap his little brother again he currently has a 1.2 second lead over kyle dylan and dave running in the third spot the best of the hendrick cars today has been alex bowman we've of course talked so much about how these intermediate tracks playing right into their strengths as an organization so far this year and greg ives the crew chief viewed this race as an opportunity and viewed it as our race to lose specifically here at atlanta on another mile and a half racetrack also saw it as a great chance for them to make some points today you can never have too many of those they've made the third most out of anybody and they run in that third spot on track marty dylan you gotta dip pretty far back to find kevin harvick who now sits in the 15th position and just struggling with the handling of the racecar in fact a moment ago he said on the radio i don't know how to drive this thing it is literally all over the place he might lose another spot right here to his teammate chase briscoe they have struggled with the handling all day long on this four car could it be that kevin harvick i mean so far this year rick he hasn't let a lap at a mile and a half racetrack and at his best track as he told us in the free race just a struggle at atlanta today for harvey so different from what we saw a year ago 2020 was really harvick's season we were all surprised when he didn't make it into the championship four he had four wins than anybody else and right there sideways as he was coming out of four yeah you can see the back of the bar just hung out it actually passes teammate briscoe and then briscoe crossing back over they had quite a battle for two or three laps see harvick still right oh wow look at how far around that car is [Music] he has got his hands full and he's got to be tearing up those the rear tires on that car right steve yeah that right rear tire is very unhappy when it's this loose 14 at briscoe nice run for briscoe coming off a career best finish six a week ago [Music] [Applause] terrible we're hearing that out of kevin harvick dylan yeah so you look at the stewart hoss number four there harvick talk about what a bad day it's been for him i think alternatively for chase briscoe running 14th right now is a really really good day for these guys as you said coming off their career best run of six that wrote america last weekend where they really were fast all weekend and contenders the entire time but chase said earlier today that the spring race here was their worst race of the entire year the car had no speed drove terribly wasn't very optimistic about today so while i know he probably wants to be a little better than racing for 14th and 15th uh it's kind of a tale of two tapes you've got one guy at the stuart house camp who's not very happy with the day they're having i think for the other guy the 14 at chase briscoe he'll take a 14th or a 15th today after the year they've had perspective a rookie coming in here chase briscoe he's been the best rookie uh pretty much all season long but trying to not have the bad luck that they've had to start 20 21 off well and i think that good run for the road force carries forward not just a momentum but it's starting position so you remember he started 11th today so that is you know eight ten spots higher than we normally see briscoe roll off they've done a good job of just trying to manage that staying in the lead really bad i think that's the two of brad keselowski martin at the new hampshire and said we have to win this race they feel like that is the best test for phoenix later in the year the 750 package much better for the two team i asked him about that last week he said i have the same philosophy this year we have to win the race next week at new hampshire to show that we can still be a championship contender the 550 stuff has not been great for the 2t but they feel like places like new hampshire they should be good next week my concern for the two and i love that approach is with only six playoff points and one win so far this season i know phoenix is important but you have to get there as part of the championship four and drivers i met i'd love to get you guys opinion on this but i have yet to see any sort of just consistent pace out of the two where i can with confidence put him in my championship four i feel the same way they've been you know we've seen races where they've run 22nd 23rd like in the low 20s we've seen other races where they think they're fast enough to win they just haven't had consistent speed really through the whole year on top of that you know with all the rumors about bran cause laos he's gonna leave what's he gonna do you know that's a distraction there's no way it can't be an attraction yeah i think that's where most of the pace is and it's hard to that's not a tangible thing that you know that you can really put your finger on but when he makes the announcement or if the room when the rumors start going around that something's gonna happen he's going to an entirely different organization his focus goes there a little bit plus the team's focus goes to where you know what's their future who's coming to drive this car um it's difficult on a team now brad he's a champion he may be able to find the speed and the pace they need uh in the playoffs to uh to make this work but it's not going in the right direction right now another guy who's going in the right direction at 20 car right here in front of brad christopher bell hey what do you got up into the top 10 now and when i checked with his crew chief adam stevens this morning about the march race here horrible was what he said they made a lot of changes and a lot of decisions to help christopher do better today and he certainly has done that in the march race loose with no grip no trust in the car today mostly just a little bit tight but all the tires that have come off of it have looked good and christopher stayed in the game all day after a nice second place finish last week on the rope course guys at road america yeah i talked to christopher bell this week and he was adamant that he felt like they would run way better this race than they did in the spring you know this is a new pairing this year crew chief driver trying to get used to each other with no practice he said that's been a challenge but over the last couple months has started to see results started to see speed he was very confident they would run much better this week than they did the first race and i love this paint scheme that christopher bell has here part of the racing for a miracle program partnership between craftsman and ace hardware their foundation raising money and awareness for the christian miracle network hospitals which uh handle children's miracle network hospitals raising funds for over 170 children hospitals and support health of 10 million kids each year across the usa and canada so a great paint scheme doing great things for kids around the country so impressive another guy that's having what i call a solid day you know nothing you're going to write about nothing you've got to put on the mantel but the 17 of chris busher the car very clean no damage stay on the lap no drama currently running in the 16th position you know three straight top 10 finishes on mile and a half tracks when you look at this track specifically two top tens here in the last three atlanta races so maybe looking for a little more but days like today where you just hang around inside that top ten you have no idea what the last 61 laps are going to hold late restarts could fall his way just good solid days you can build on those yeah you want to have a good solid finish as well as we have 61 to go we go nascar nonstop [Music] [Music] kyle busch has closed the gap now and so kurt busch trying to stay out in front of his little brother but kyle bush is gonna have the momentum here as he comes out of four curtain did a good job around three and four to create a little space there buy him a little time to find some pace move around on this racetrack we're hearing that the one car fighting a tight condition to allow this 18 to close in the traffic see that traffic way out their head little clear track but right now kurt busch controls it really interesting kurt busch ran like a 33 70 a 33 80 the two laps prior and then just went a 33-30 like i don't know if he had something going on he was dealing with or he just learned how to drive the tight condition but that lap also was three tenths quicker than it was two laps before see him trying to straddle that seam right there not going all the way to the top of the race track you can move around there's all kinds of places to run here and find grip goes to the bottom of three and four again right there against that apron 18 car right up against the wall ripping the fence so now a little gap between one and two here and steve would we try to break this stage up trying to get as close to the middle before you come to pit road it depends on how your car is handling if you're really losing the grip maybe you come a lap or two early but you can't ask too much out of that last set of tires 55 to go in the race currently i would like to see 45 47 to go before i came to pit road the big difference is between these two who blinks first you know whoever's in second as crazy as it sounds has a little advantage so much tire fall off if you could pick just one lap earlier leapfrog the leader and then make him run you back down all right two lap cars right here in front of curt where do they go where does he go does that cost him any speed one took the high road the other one took the little road so curt had to go right through the middle there it's just fascinating to me it looked like kyle was just gonna run kurt down like ran deemed down from three left three laps he was on his bumper and then kurt got faster again he's driven back away from his brother let's see another thing that's interesting is how close these guys are willing to push it up against that outside wall especially in turn three and four you see the 18 car kyle bush right on the wall [Music] the closer you can get to it there's more speed but this slick race track if you misjudge that get the car into the fence you're gonna be in trouble more lap traffic difficult situation for curt he's gonna have to go low here at 99 he's gonna have to lift a little bit because of the wake but kyle wasn't able to keep his car on the bottom at all he just watched way up the racetrack look at that gap it created behind the 37 ryan priest this is this will get frustrating for kurt because as he runs his 99 car down even though he's off pace a little bit it's taking air off his car his car is not going to drive as well yeah the 99 just came to pit road a few laps ago to get tires so he has a little extra pace with that damaged car out in front of the leader so as this gap starts to spread a little bit dale and jeff the question i'm now thinking as i go back to third and fourth you know three and five seconds out for bowman and larson at most tracks that's so far out you can't really push the issue on green flag cycle but here i mean if one of those guys come to pit road i think you have to just count it right away don't you think if you're the leader kurt busch jr and you know the guy in third comes to pit road you want to come the next lap in third place being a three seconds back [Music] that would uh give bowman a chance to eat away at that three seconds dave last time talking to his crew about the car he needs a little bit of everything they even talked about changing the tire stagger just a little bit to try to help joey today just trying to stay in remember a different setup for him today to try to get better on these types of tracks hasn't exactly panned out the way they do but they have a lot more data at the end of the day for legano [Music] dylan here's ryan blaney team penske teammate to the car we just saw joey logano balance issues for these guys throughout the day but still making a good day out of it inside the top ten ryan said car better than it was that run then at the start of the run but it is still tight so they are still trying to get that thing to turn for him the floodgates have opened dylan you're seeing everybody come down pit road including matt de benedetto just outside the top 10 his car a little bit tight brad kozlowski you see him at the front there he said the loose condition got much better as a run went on dave kyle busch got frustrated behind his brother there not being able to pass him once that lap he almost caught him but they're going to leave the balance pretty much the same no now and chance the adjustment to try to get powell a little bit more toward the end of this race here comes the leader down pit road the pit crew has been spot on all day long they don't know if this is gonna be his last stop or not today marty you see danny hamlin coming on pit road he restarted 22nd after that speeding penalty last time dave only made his way up to 18th and then had to dodge his teammate martin truex jr as he was coming into a stall dave that entire run kurt busch's car was a little bit too tight difficult to turn so they're going to make a chassis and perhaps an air pressure adjustment as well as he gets more goodyear tires and sunoco fueled to the end we know the fuel will last will the tires hold on long enough by the crew all right it's all who got on pit road who performed what kind of speed we see the one leaving pit road the 18s on the front stretch i think the 18's gonna easily go by the one down here in the middle of one and two let's see comes into sight one lap earlier on pit road is the difference maker for kyle most of the 18. he will be the leader of the race with 48 to go one other thing note the five of kylerson speeding awful time for a penalty it's going to really remove larson i think from contention we talk about it time and time again who the best on pit road is who's the best getting on the pit road kyle busch cobwish pushes the issue right up against the envelope rarely does he speed really does he make mistakes rarely does he get beat and now he's out front trying to sweep the weekend he won the xfinity series race yesterday he came to pit row to lap early but that gap that he's got right now that was because he was better coming to pit road you could see kurt was a lot more conservative on that pit entry you know me i was giving it all to the crew chief of the pick call but the gap is definitely big i completely agree kyle bush just proves so many different ways to take advantage and try to win these races remember he came on the radio and told his crew that the only reason he didn't pass the one was because of an aerodynamic disadvantage when he got right behind kurt and so what do you do as a crew chief then bayshore made the call i can come a lap earlier than kurt have a good pit stop and perhaps get out front like they did now i think this is the most difficult time because 46 laps to go in atlanta is a long time so drivers how hard are we running 46 to go one second lead i mean you just can't go out there and run as hard as possible you still have to take care of your tires are you gonna worry about that on the other half of the run i think you send it i think you go for it and hope that you got the car that can run on the short run the middle of the run and the end you may get a yellow late in the race as well for an opportunity to come back to pit road and put tires on but i'd be telling my crew chief everything my car's doing right now because if you do get that late run you need that early run speed you got to be able to adjust the car if you don't have that speed you need to fire off and run a quick 10 laps like this race back to this pit stop that second and a half he pitted a lap before second he's 1.2 seconds ahead he pitted a lap before the difference between new tires and old tires for kyle on those runs was 1.4 seconds so that getting on fit that getting on pit road a lap before that is the difference right here that is 1.4 seconds he has a 1.2 second lead advantage new tires great job by the 18 team it all together when it counted and so kyle busch now with that 1.2 second lead over older brother kurt busch alex bowman back there in third barn trunks junior has rebounded well today he's running in the fourth position we mentioned kyle arson and that speeding penalty he has served his pass through now sits 21st on the racetrack only a few seconds in front of leader there's chase elliot the dawsonville georgia driver i thought today was his day rick i won't i won't lie coming off that road america win i just i don't know it was all building up junior i and i just felt and we were gonna see chase finally winning his home track but he still can 42 laps to go but it's going to be a grind he just hadn't seemed to have a winning car yet today [Laughter] running that high line almost wide open through those turns so the longest run we've had today on a set of tires is about 55 laps this will be about 50 they got to make so who was good on a long run if it goes green this whole way whoever whoever had that good long run speed that was an advantage to curt early in this race to see if that continues in this run kyle bush is out front mentioning the weekend sweep is still a possibility he's done it 12 times before let's go nascar nonstop [Music] [Music] eight tenths of a second lead for kyle bush over brother kurt bush and what a difference a year makes we talk about you know kevin harvick and the struggles on the opposite side of that kyle bush a year ago was struggling to get a win and he had a win streak that he was really worried about he said you know i've invested 16 years in this racing and i've won one race at least one race every single year well he got that win last year and this year already two wins for kyle bush maybe could make it three but quite a difference of his mentality going into uh this race obviously and the playoffs that are coming up and we asked him about that win streak this year as soon as he won on nascar america motor mouse you're doing what you're doing he's driving the heck out of it sliding and trying to catch up ground that's great radio from the spotter to the 18 coaching them up i think that was a spotter you know he was admitted he goes yes that win streak was very important to me it was stressful last year he was you could almost feel the relief just talking to him that he knew that was behind him he could then focus ahead at the playoffs and trying to make a run for a championship the racing the weird way it is right now the field's so spread out across this racetrack it's going to be more than just kyle bush behind the wheel of this car that gets them to victory lane they're going to have to get great help from the spotter up on the spotter stand he's going to have to work with all these other guys on the racetrack and try to get them to go where they need them to go to not be able to impede the process of this 18 car we know earlier in the in the season kyle larson looked to be on his way to victory when late in the race some traffic made things difficult for kyle it allowed blaney to pass him and win the race so now we're in the same situation with the bush brothers and it's total team effort for that 18 car working right now to get through all this slap traffic and this is going to be a long run so you know when it's a head-to-head battle you tend to push really hard has somebody pushed harder than the other and hurt their tires a little bit we won't know that for another 20 laps maybe 15. curt was a little bit quicker over the last several laps kyle's changes lane a couple times looking at looking to try to find a little bit of speed both of them right on the bottom and three and four [Applause] yes sir right in that range kurt busch asking about when the 18 car is the strongest right out in front of these guys [Music] they're lapping uh the next car the b lap is going to be ross chastain the next car on the left would be lap is rostas day those are the cars you worry about the ones with pace ross chastain possibly kyle larson those are the cars that are gonna fight to try to stay on the lead left and kirk found something that lap he went to the top of one and two and cut about two tenths of a second off of the lead that time he went to the middle but he got a ton of momentum down the back straightaway the lap before doing it again this time see if kirk continues to run that top lane jeff remember earlier we heard dave vision the one two finishes out of the bush brothers and if you remember back to bristol it was kurt busch that was trying to catch kyle bush and he said if i would have got to him i would have put the bumper to him and moved him out of the way i want to win that bad well now can he get to him and potentially move his brother out of the way here once again kurt went to the top [Music] helps him down the back straight [Music] i think the cars are just too evenly matched it's going to take something else to to slow down that 18 car like lap traffic in front of him that made this race earlier this season such a difference maker there you see ross chastain running the bottom of the racetrack right that's where the 18 wants to run now we've seen god bush move to the top do a lot of great work up there i think kyle's just out front trying to keep his car straight not trying to slide the right front or the right rear trying to use all those tires evenly throughout this run not to upset the car and ruin the car for late in this race 27 laps to go let's get some updates we'll start with dave and those of you at home who are brothers you kind of wonder do these brothers compete against each other in a heavy hitter kind of way absolutely since they were kids they know each other's moves they watch each other constantly they review what they've done and every once in a while around the dinner table they might share just enough to give the other a thought that he might have a leg up on his brother right now kurt bush chasing down kyle busch they run 1-2 we'll see if it'll be another one-two finish for the bush brothers dylan and a behind them in the third spot is alex bowman came into this race feeling pretty confident ran really well here in the spring had a career-best atlanta finish of third for alex today the car has struggled a little bit on long runs with a tight condition but they've soldiered on throughout the day adjusted on adjusted on it on nearly every pit stop they've run inside the top five almost the entire race and sit third right now marty dylan as we go through the field we find martin truax jr in the fourth position and it could be back to back top tens for that race team and uh the third today so he's only had two top tens since he finished the win at darlington so truex could get a much needed run and remember they've come through the field three times today so 2x up in fourth meanwhile tyler redick said it took off great on this run and doing as we mentioned earlier everything you need to do to be in the playoffs last week they gained the most points today here atlanta it looks like they'll gain the fifth most points the battle for the lead heating up though rick so the 42 cars now taking that high side trying to take the line away from the 18 and look at what it does the one car kurt busch drives right up to the inside of the 18 kyle bush off turn for a battle for the lead door to door as they race into turn one and we knew lap traffic was going to come into play a little contact oh side by side kyle trying to take the air off of curt he didn't want to take too much off he doesn't want him sliding up the racetrack into him this right here is where kurt death he can keep to that left for a quarter panel he'll have an advantage but there's a lap car in front of him on the bottom where does the lap car go that's what kurt wants the bottom of three and four he will clear his brother here kurt bush back out in front in atlanta drive away by two so the 18 stalled out behind the 42 the 42 changed from the bottom of the racetrack to the top took the 18's air away kurt busch was able to stay there on the inside side draft down the back straight away he got a little help from his teammate at the same time here comes kyle busch though fighting back they'll both go to the bottom here and one and three and four colonel go the bottom he wants the bottom that's the way to be over here kyle's gonna take the top just trying to get clean air what is kirk doing one and two looks like to me kirk's car is better on the bottom but he does not want to give his brother a run on the top he wants to take the air away from him to the top just trying to mess with the air this battle's not over no not at all and jeff you were in this same scenario with your brother your older brother ward and you raced you guys finished one two three times how much more satisfying was it to be able to beat your older brother well you know listen you want to beat everybody but it's it's kind of bittersweet right you your brother wants as bad as you do and when you win you take it away from him so it's a difficult thing racing against your brother that's what you're doing you're not racing with him you're racing against him that time kurt went to the top kyle went to the bottom advantage kyle that helped him run in the bottom now kurt needs to respond to that what is he going to do the next time in one and two junior you keep pointing out the lap traffic every time we show the straight away in front of him it's full of race cars so we're going to have more of it look at all of them if i'm current i'm going to the bottom this time there he goes didn't really get where he's going to be i don't think though still a half a second separating these two plenty of laps plenty of lap traffic up ahead [Applause] plenty of laps but at the same time we have to use the number 20 because that's it 20 laps remaining on this surface at atlanta motor speedway so much history here kyle bush has been very vocal he doesn't want him to change it he doesn't want him to do anything different here he's had great success on this surface so i think the next car that kurt bush should be concerned about it's possibly not this slower lap traffic okay it's the cars in the lead lap that half pace the next car is in front of him that's kyle larson when he gets within dirty air of that five car kyle larson or whoever that lead left car is that's when he's gonna have the same issue that the 18 car had he's gonna stall out and that car could make things difficult for him just like ross chastain made things difficult for kyle busch there's kyle arson right there there's the distance now this gap's been closing very slowly and it should be affecting that one car any time now and speeding has put kyle larson in this position but i think we're all surprised that kyle larson potentially could get lapped here at atlanta where he's dominated in the spring yeah it's just heaven i mean he made his car better but just didn't have the car we expected him to have and to junior's point if it isn't larsen it could be byron or custer because both those cars are just in front of larson and they're both still in the lead lap as well we heard kyle bush's spotter tell him look a lot of laps a lot of lack traffic that's what he was telling him you know it's going to cause a problem man there's a lot of lap cars to contend with here and kurt has closed in on the five car quite a bit the five and the 24 side by side right here look at all this congestion in front of him [Music] one thing that kurt's able to do though it seems like he's able to make pace in multiple routes he doesn't just have to run the top have to run the bottom he can run the middle that helps him get around slower cars kyle with a good exit that time though close the gap a little bit yeah that wasn't too good of a corner for for curt and now kurt's on the bottom with both cars in front of him kyle on the high side in cleaner air [Music] all right this is where the spotters are going to work aren't they guys that's right total team effort you're gonna spotters are gonna be running all over the place upstairs trying to talk to these other cars saying man please give us this lane give us this is where we want to be kurt not able to get on the inside at 24. cost him a little bit of pace down the back straight away so kyle's able to close in a little bit more oh that works out for that worked out for kyle kurt perfectly though i don't think kurt could ask for much more than that caught that slower car and was able to get around him to get to the bottom 14 more to go remember this race 100 laps shorter than normal here at atlanta 400 mile race big wiggle right there from cart bush you know how tense it is in that car right now rick it is you know it's 14 to go there you're going to the playoffs if you're kurt busch you're going to the playoffs if you win this race and a guy who came in in 16th in points just 25 points above the cut line before this race a win locks him into the playoffs let's not forget rick this is going to be a long run on the last set of tires while pushing the hardest they're going to ask these tires why the racetrack has changed colors there's been a lot of rubber put down this place is still tough on tires and there's no cruising there's no pushing you heard dale jr earlier send it run as hard as you can that's what they've been doing they've got to do it again for 13 more laps kurt cobwish had a an excellent one and two that time he cut about two tenths out of the lead running right against the boards worked for him in three and four as well yeah that is a that was a big lap right there for kurt for kyle yeah he's the fastest lap kurt's going to try to get up the racetrack a little bit still enough room on that outside line for the 18 to get a little air on the nose and make even more gains here comes the 18 a kyle bush you heard the spotter say a half a lane higher to hurt him worse now kurtz yeah kurt spotter is telling him to get higher up the racetrack to get in his way getting his get awake the air coming off that one car can disturb that 18 and take away his advantage under three tenths of a second now the gap he's right on his back bumper starting to see the back of the one car move around a lot on the bottom of the corner oh kurt's struggling oh kyle is all over him now kyle's probably gonna dive to the bottom i don't know where kurt goes here he hasn't ran the top at all lap cars going to depend uh decide where they go to the bottom of racetrack both cars that's good for kurt see kyle struggle there loses all of that that he gained a little bit of a gap clear by four now it's back to four tenths of a second now a half a second both of them back to the top i still think kirk could get up a little bit higher and make things even more difficult for his brother in turns one and two kyle has been there today already kurt has not kurt has not put it right on the right on the wall kyle has has experience doing it with only 10 to go if you're going to go all the way up to where kyle is you better figure it out quickly and he continues to close in on larson and that's making his day even that much more difficult although larson is running the bottom of the racetrack and one and two that helps kurt as long as curt wants to run that top lane giving him clean air we talked about racing for a spot in the playoffs but kirk bush really as as much of a veteran race car driver as he is he's got to make his resume look the best right now because you don't know what's going to happen in 2022 because of chip ganassi racing being sold to track house racing now kurt busch could be without a ride in 2022 but a lot more valuable of a race car driver if you're winning races and in the playoffs oh i think he's already got his deal done we just don't know about it that one car he wants to try to win this race like himself in the playoffs that 18 cars clawing watch this 18 run the fence down here running right on the wall and it worked the last lap and it's working this lap too look at the run he's gonna have off of four he's doing that to perfection under seven laps to go to the bottom he's alongside almost clearing curt slides up the racetrack just can't get in front of him but now he's got kurt in a position he doesn't want to be in what does kurt do he goes to the bottom kyle to the top tons of momentum loss oh god i'll loosen the wall now the guesswork for kurt bush is much more difficult he's seen kyler on both lanes and that turn three and four didn't go very well for kyle when you change what you're doing like you did in one and two it kind of messes up your repetition and strategy in three and four running that top the kyle now knows he can run that bottom in one and two if curt gives it to him curt flies down the back straightaway off the top there drives back away four tenths of a second separating the top two this is so fun watching these two guys go at it two of the best and not making a mistake yet and you're pushing so hard in this situation your own edge rick they seem to be closing in even more on some traffic that's going to make things more obstacles for kurt bush six tenths of a second and kyle bush is looking out the window going yes traffic more traffic kyle almost got the wall right there off of two i think he had to lift a little bit created more of a gap just kyle pushing a little too hard all right they're going to be three wide off a turn four here with curt he does a great job running that low line you can see the gap created kyle just had an issue off of two i think he had to come way out of the throttle he goes back to the middle and the bottom of the race track bush running that second line through one and two under four laps to go i feel sorry for their appearance who do you pull for one out front they you can't win one of them's gonna lose whichever one's leading i guess the gap widening now 1.2 seconds separating kurt bush for kyle busch i think kyle used everything he had nothing left in that 18 car that almost slide shot that he tried through one and two where he got just up to the side of the one but couldn't complete the pass may have been the last effort that the 18 had in him yes but that one car he has gotten really close to the five of lars and that's really going to hurt him a big gap has been created but you can lose a ton of speed right here two to go [Music] [Music] kurt needs another lap and a half perfect lap and a half as he comes up on the back bumper of the five of kyle larson one lap to go presented by credit one bank the final time on this surface at atlanta motor speedway kurt bush looking for his 33rd career win which would tie him with fireball roberts for 25th all time in wins in the cup series fireball roberts has won at atlanta motor speedway and now out of four for the final time kurt busch is going to win the brother duel he wins in atlanta yes that's how you do it [Music] [Applause] his teammate chastain and kurt bush is locked into the playoffs [Laughter] kurt bush at 42 years old is still on top of his game he is we've said it before everywhere he goes he makes it better [Music] i can't believe the career this guy's had ups and downs the growth the personal change 12 different drivers have won in the cup series bush becoming the 12th now just four spots remain in that playoff picture i mean these guys came on in the last month they were nowhere all season long no speed no results and been one of the arguably one of the best organizations in the last four or five weeks spent some time this morning tony lunders general manager over there chip ganassi is very proud of what they've done over the last couple months both cars this will put a big smile on his face and a big smile on that driver's face right there crowd here in atlanta saw a great battle between kurt and kyle and you see the celebration and what it means to kurt the whole team out there celebrating with him boy rick you think about the clutch wins for kurt busch over the last few years couple years ago at kentucky got him into the playoffs in the playoffs last year in las vegas and he delivers here at his favorite racetrack atlanta motor speedway final race in this configuration the fans love it how about that kurt more significant i mean obviously it's the big playoff win it puts you guys in the playoffs but that you were able to beat your brother heads up on a green flag run for that long i just hell yeah we beat kyle i taught right kid everything he knows he should be grateful but what a battle what a genuine awesome old-school racetrack and i just asked the track today last time here on your old asphalt can i have an old guy win and she she answered so thank you atlanta motorspeedway this is uh this has been one of those years where i knew we're going to have our back up against the wall with trying to get in the cut off above the cut-off line and race hard and race smart and to have gearwrench in victory lane this is their last race of the year they're with us all year and with monster energy i couldn't have two great primary sponsors what a chevrolet today hell yeah you said one for the old guys kurt but it was your young teammate that you gave so much credit to what was the key moment where he was able to push you by the 18. shake and bake shaking bait yeah about a 42. he did his job as a teammate uh he ross is going to get a little flack for it but that's what it takes to be a good teammate at the right moment so i couldn't be more proud of ross chastain i'll pay him back eventually but right now this is our number one car in victor lane you pull off these clutch wins all the time kurt to put you in the playoffs but with the unknown of next year how big is this moment for you personally it's wonderful uh you know for all of ganassi track house brought our team i don't know where i'm going but i just love racing cars and i want to race that next gen car that's why i'm trying to stick around will you guys have me next year if i stick around hey kurt welcome to the playoffs congratulations thank you appreciate it guys bert bush wins here at atlanta dave big win for kurt second place for kyle today to your brother what was the difference uh just same as always we just don't have enough front end with uh laps on tires you know i had everything i had there early and then uh just smoked it behind the 42 obviously shows you what kind of driver he is um and just tried to fight hard after that when i got passed and had one valiant effort off a two but just didn't have enough momentum to drag him down and make him go high in three and four and after that the tires were smoked so um you know great effort guys give me a great piece we're fast one was definitely better than us today i just thought i had him and we did you know but racing did just didn't play out that way for us so the skittles gummies camry was fast and thanks to toyota trd rowdy energy drink interstate batteries all the guys um you know good piece just uh not quite good enough just need that tick more kyle describe for us how you got that lead under the green flag pit stops because it looked like at that point that you did have the race in hand yeah i have no idea how i got it i'd have to go back and look at all the metrics you know i don't i don't know where we beat them so um you know just glad that we did and when i seen that we cycled out in front of him i thought that was our shot and certainly it was um yeah all right kyle's second today here at atlanta rick thanks dave obviously you can tell one brother to the next uh who's enjoying this win obviously and how about this checkered flag moment brought to you by advanced auto parts gives that checkered flag to a fan that's a great memento that she'll be able to cherish for a lifetime even though she is a chase elliot fan she got the checkered flag from kurt bush

Channel: NASCAR

Views: 93,058

Keywords: NASCAR, motorsports, racing, stock car, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, chase elliott, fantasy sports, fantasy fastlane, glass case of emotion, ryan blaney, crash, wreck, pileup, pit road, penalty, race track, super speedway, highlight

Id: PpS4rDsznJ0

Length: 197min 30sec (11850 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2021