NASCAR Atlanta Preview

Source: Jerry Markland/Getty Images

Source: Jerry Markland/Getty Images

Ah,that sure was a Speedweeks to remember, from a great Daytona Unlimited to Danica and Denny having a rather heated argument while much of America was snowbound to Tyler Reddick being helped by BKR teammate Austin Theriault to his first Daytona Camping World Truck Series win. Then came the Xfinity Series race, exciting throughout and mostly clean until the last 20 laps with 18 year old old Ryan Reed driving for Jack Roush getting his first ever Xfinity (fka Nationwide series) win.

 

The main attraction of this week was a Daytona 500 full of story lines,from the announcement pre speed weeks, that this would be the last full time season for Jeff Gordon, and further that this would be the legend’s last speed weeks. His subsequent winning of the pole for The Great American Race was huge. The suspension of Kurt Busch for his alleged assault of his then girlfriend Patricia Driscoll last fall at Dover lead to Regan Smith taking over the ride which he will also pilot this weekend at Atlanta. Two time defending Camping World Truck Series Champ Matt Crafton ended up taking over for an injured Kyle Busch as he suffered a compound fracture to his right leg and a mid-foot fracture in his left foot during a crash in the Xfinity series race which will cause him to miss 5-6 months ,likely turning into the full season being lost for Busch.

 

With this much build up it would be hard for most races to live up to the hype but this was no challenge for the crown jewel of NASCAR and when the green flag dropped in Daytona all bets were off. There were twelve different lead changes with Jeff Gordon in his final Daytona 500 leading on six occasions for 87 laps and eventual race winner Joey Logano leading six times for a total of 31 laps. All looked great for Gordon until the Green-White-Checkered restart on lap 201 when he dropped back to mid pack and then was turned into the wall by Austin Dillon and ended up finishing in 28th place (Some would say Gordon simply lost control and wasn’t turned by Dillon). The win for Logano was his sixth and his first at Daytona. We now move onto Atlanta where Gordon has a total driver rating of 106.0 however, it is his Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson who holds the highest average finish among active drivers with an average of 11.5 which includes three wins, twelve top five finishes and 14 top ten finishes with no poles won.

 

PREDICTIONS:

Atlanta Cup Winner: Kyle Larson
2015 Sprint Cup Champion: Joey Logano

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