William Byron victorious in caution-filled Atlanta race
HAMPTON, Ga. — Leading the most laps among the competition, William Byron scored his first win of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season with his win Sunday in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.
Byron led on eight occasions for 111 of the 325 laps, becoming the fifth different winner in the opening five points-awarding races in 2022.
“Today was awesome, obviously, we led a lot of laps,” Byron said post-race.
Ross Chastain earned his third consecutive Top-5 finish with his runner-up result. Chastain led 42 laps before having to overcome a Stage 1 incident and being two laps down.
“(The car) was so fast,” Chastain said. “I mean, we were fighting with William (Byron) there at the beginning. So cool to race with buddies again. I only have a few, but the last two weeks I’ve been able to race with buddies.”
Leading on two occasions for four laps, Kurt Busch, the July Atlanta winner, finished third.
“We know we need to get better with the handling and some of our race craft, but another top-five – we will take it,” Busch said.
Daniel Suarez netted his second Top-5 finish of 2022, leading twice for 13 laps and earning his first stage points of the season.
“We did a good job on pit road,” Suarez said. “We had fast pit stops. When we have a fast Chevrolet Camaro, it makes things easier.”
Rounding out the Top-5 finishers was Corey LaJoie with a new career-high finish. His previous high was sixth place at Daytona in July of 2019.
“It’s great to start our season with three top-15’s and now one top-five,” LaJoie said. “Hopefully, we can maintain the momentum over the next couple of weeks and put ourselves in a good points position through the summer.”
THROUGH THE FIELD
The race saw a total of 11 cautions, eight of which were for crashes. Of the 37 starters, 25 finished the race.
Chase Elliott, Chris Buescher, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano and Alex Bowman placed sixth through tenth.
Running part-time schedules, David Ragan and Greg Biffle finished 18th and 20th respectively.
Harrison Burton was the highest-finishing rookie in 25th, four laps down.
A lap 207 crash took out defending series champion Kyle Larson, who finished 30th.
OUTLOOK
The next race for the Cup Series is scheduled for Saturday, March 27 at Circuit of the Americas road course in Austin, Texas.
SOURCES
Racing-Reference.info
Team Chevrolet
Toyota Racing
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Dominic Aragon View All
Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.
From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book "All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story" with racer Geoff Bodine.
Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.
You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.