NASCAR Atlanta Summer 2023 Recap

While the Truck Series ran for the second time ever at Mid-Ohio, the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series made their second trip to Atlanta in the 2023 season, resulting in more momentum gains for championship-contending drivers.

The weekend started with Corey Heim scoring his second win of the 2023 season at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s just unbelievable,” Heim said after the race. “We came here with high expectations. I felt like I did a good job last year of staying up front, but I put in the work to go from being a third-place truck to a winning truck.

“This thing was good ever since we unloaded. I felt like we were the fastest truck in practice, qualified on the pole, of course, and came here and won the race. It’s just awesome. Hats off to everybody.”

Heim held off Zane Smith in the final 26 laps of a race that began on a wet, rainy race track and ended in bright sunshine. Smith also finished runner-up in last year’s race, losing to Parker Kligerman. Smith also had to start at the tail end of the field after his team had to make transmission repairs to the No. 38 Ford F-150.

“Yeah, brutal to finish second here again,” Smith said. “Such a fun road course. Our truck lacked turn, especially on the right-handers, all day long and struggled in first gear. Some things to improve on, but I just felt like we needed a little bit more.”

Christian Eckes finished third, Stewart Friesen was fourth, and Ben Rhodes finished fifth after tangling late in the race with teammate Ty Majeski. Matt Crafton, Ty Majeski, Matt DiBenedetto, Nick Sanchez, and Tyler Ankrum, who won the ARCA race the day before, rounded out the top ten.

In the Xfinity Series race at Atlanta, it was John Hunter Nemechek taking the lead and running away with it on an overtime restart. Nemechek won thanks to a push from 2021 Xfinity Series Champion Daniel Hemric after Kaulig Racing failed to capture a 1-2-3 finish from a strong night.

With Hemric finished second, Cole Custer finished third, and Justin Haley and Sam Mayer rounded out the top five.

“I got a huge push from the 11 (Hemric) there, so thanks to Daniel for giving me that huge push,” Nemechek said. “Early on, if you had said we would have won the race, I definitely would have told you that wasn’t going to be the case.”

“We didn’t have the fastest car tonight, but I’m really proud of this 20 team. Man, this is special. I don’t know if the track changed a ton. We just had to make our car better all night. It came down to an overtime finish, and luckily, we were able to execute on that restart.”

Justin Haley had the lead on the final restart with Chandler Smith restarting alongside him. This was because of Austin Hill’s spin in turn four on lap 161. Unfortunately for Chandler Smith, he shortly faded after the restart as he ran out of fuel, as fuel was becoming a concern for some of the leaders. Instead of working with Hemric, Haley decided to make a move on his teammate, stating later that he was running out of fuel.

Ty Gibbs, Kyle Sieg, Parker Kligerman, Josh Williams, and Sammy Smith finished out the top ten.

In the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta, it was a race to the rain and it caused a different kind of race on Sunday Night that included intense battles for position.

William Byron continued his career season, earning his fourth win of 2023 after the caution came out on lap 178 for a wreck involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Preece, and Bubba Wallace. After that was when the rain came in which eventually led to the race being called around 9:47 pm EST after 185 of the 260 laps were complete.

Daniel Suarez scored second, AJ Allmendinger third, and Michael McDowell and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five.

“It’s cool, man,” Byron said. “We went through so much throughout the night – spinning through the infield, destroyed the bottom of the car dragging it around the apron trying to stay on the lead lap. At that point, you just don’t have the grip, so I was real edgy back in traffic, but Rudy made a good call to pit there and then stay out.”

“Once we got towards the front, it was OK. We could make the right decisions, block OK, and I got the lead from AJ and was able to manage the run. Just a crazy night.”

Suárez, Allmendinger, and McDowell made their chances to make the playoffs better with top-five finishes as they as chasing after 2020 Champion Chase Elliott to be one of the sixteen drivers to contend for the championship, despite Elliott missing seven of the 19 races this season. For Elliott, he finished 13th and didn’t earn any stage points.

Byron enjoyed that the handling played an important part in the racing on the recently repaved surface of Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“It was awesome – that’s all you can ask for on a superspeedway,” Byron said. “We want handling to matter. We want to be able to drive the things. I felt like the first stage was really fun. I was able to make some moves on the bottom.”

While the Truck Series heads to Pocono as they have two races remaining on the regular season schedule, the Cup Series and Xfinity Series head next to New Hampshire next weekend.