Kyle Busch wins the FR8 Racing 208 at EchoPark Speedway

HAMPTON, Ga. — After a tremendous push from his Spire Motorsports teammate, Kyle Busch wins the race against the clock at EchoPark Speedway.

Busch defends his Atlanta crown with his third straight NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win at the track. This is also his ninth win in the series at Atlanta/EchoPark Speedway.

Carson Hocevar comes home second after his push in the final laps. He joined the winner in his burnout celebration to give Jeff Dickerson and Spire a fun moment to look back on.

The final restart started with eight minutes to go in the adverse condition clock allotted for the event.

Prior to the event, NASCAR enabled the adverse condition rule. They established that if the race did not reach its conclusion before 4:20 p.m. ET, the race would be white-flagged when the leader crossed the finish line then.

In the end the race was cut short by 10 laps, 123 miles in total from the original 129 scheduled miles.

Final Stage Recap

The first incident caution waved with 36 laps remaining. Kris Wright tightened up in Turns 3 and 4, drifted up, and clipped Cole Butcher into the wall. Dawson Sutton dove to the tri-oval apron to avoid it, but the abrupt move snapped him back up the track and hard into the outside wall, taking the worst damage.

This all but sealed the fate of the race to finish under time constraints rather than the scheduled distance.

Slightly before the wreck, Daniel Hemric retired from the race after a hub nut was grinded down and burned on one of his tires as he joined teammate Christian Eckes out of the race.

Layne Riggs also battled a tire issue rendering him to a 27th placed finish six laps down.

The field restarted with 28 laps to go. Through all the urgent dashes and dives to the finish, Ben Rhodes clawed back from his earlier fuel miscue and a lap down to briefly take the lead.

But two Spire teammates lined up behind him, and a massive push from Carson Hocevar sent Ricky Stenhouse Jr. surging forward, shuffling Rhodes back to fifth and out of the fight.

Stage Two Recap

The intensity ramped up in the second stage.

Ty Majeski, running third at the time, drifted too high off Turn 2, brushed the wall, and cut a tire. Kaden Honeycutt followed suit after Jake Garcia squeezed him into the outside wall on the backstretch, while Grant Enfinger also suffered a right-front flat.

With two laps left in the stage, leader Ben Rhodes, who led the most laps in both stages, ran out of fuel and handed the lead to Stewart Friesen.

On the final lap, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. swung to the outside in Turn 3, but Friesen answered with a sharp crossover to the bottom and powered off Turn 4 to capture the stage win.

Stage One Recap

Stage 1 quickly unraveled for early favorite Christian Eckes, who pulled behind the wall with a broken driveshaft.

In his debut Truck Series race, Adam Andretti fought a loose truck in dirty air and spun on his own mid-stage. He would get back on track 19th and on the lead lap while the race remained green.

As the laps wound down, the field spread out before ramping up in the final ten laps.

Andretti’s Tricon teammate, Tanner Gray, attempted a side-draft on Stewart Friesen in the tri-oval, got loose, and spun into Turn 1 without drawing a caution.

In classic Carson Hocevar fashion, he charged at every opening he saw, slicing toward the front before the pack shuffled him back.

Lapped traffic stacked up with three to go, scrambling the order. In the end, Corey Heim dove underneath Ben Rhodes and claimed the stage win in his Truck Series return.

Full Results and Points