William Byron declared winner in rain-shortened Atlanta race

HAMPTON, Ga. — William Byron took the win in the Quaker State 400 Sunday night after NASCAR called the Cup Series race 75 laps short due to inclement weather.

Byron led the final 20 laps in the 185-lap event at Atlanta Motor Speedway to capture his fourth win of the 2023 season and the eighth of his Cup Series career.

“We kept working on the car,” Byron said to The Racing Experts. “We got aggressive with the changes to try to make the car have a better balance… I can tell in (crew chief) Rudy (Fugle’s) tone, he never gave up.”

Byron leads all drivers this season in wins.

Daniel Suarez came one position short of taking Trackhouse Racing to Victory Lane for a third straight week. Suarez’s second-place finish is his highest of the 2023 season.

“It’s been a little bit rough lately because we’ve had the speed, but we haven’t had the results, so this feels good,” said Suarez, who picked up his first Top-5 finish since Fontana in February, 17 races ago.

In third-place, A.J. Allmendinger picked up his first Top-5 finish of the season, leading six laps before being passed by William Byron for what ultimately was the win.

The Kaulig Racing driver has now scored three Top-10 finishes in the last four races. 

“We ran up front, led some laps, got some great stage points, it was a solid day,” Allmendinger said.

For Michael McDowell in fourth, he also picked up his first Top-5 finish of the season. The Front Row Racing driver was close on fuel and needing to pit if the race resumed.

“I think that it was a good points night, we had a fast car,” McDowell said.

Rounding out the Top-5 was Kyle Busch, who has now posted seven straight Top-10 finishes.

“Our racecar was getting better as the night went, also our track position was getting better as the night went, I felt like we had a really decent shot to continue to move up the pylon there, obviously ran out of laps, but had a great day.”

Brad Keselowski, J.J. Yeley, Justin Haley, Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished positions sixth through tenth respectively

Pole sitter Aric Almirola, who led the most laps (46), finished 18th.

Outlook
The next scheduled race for the Cup Series is the Crayon 301 scheduled for Sunday, July 16, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

William Byron with 628 points leads the regular season standings over Martin Truex Jr. (-21), Kyle Busch (-36), Christopher Bell (-37) and Ross Chastain (-53).


SOURCES
Racing-Reference.info