Daniel Suarez Wins Atlanta Race In Three-Wide Photo Finish

HAMPTON — In a three-wide photo finish, Daniel Suarez edged out Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch to win Sunday’s Ambetter 400 NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The margin of victory was just .0003 seconds — the third closest margin of victory in NASCAR Cup history.

“I’m just very happy — really happy,” he said. “Everyone at Trackhouse (Racing) worked extremely hard in the off-season and to be able to start the 2024 season this strong because last week in the Daytona 500 we finished 32nd or something like that but we were running up front and we wrecked running up front.”

Suarez didn’t lead any laps until late in the race when he jumped to first as the field was coming out of a red flag.

The race had been stopped when Austin Cindric got loose and checked up, causing Josh Berry to go sideways and hit Carson Hocevar. Dawsonville’s Chase Elliott was also taken out in the incident.

Suarez took the lead at lap 248 before being overtaken at 256 by Blaney.

“Going back to that restart, I actually have to thank Kyle Busch because he did a great job giving me some good pushes,” Suarez said.

On the last lap, Suarez, Blaney and Busch battled for the lead and went three-wide with Suarez barely crossing the finishing line ahead of Blaney and Busch. Blaney finished second and Busch third.

The day didn’t begin very well for Suarea as he was involved in a massive pileup at the beginning of the race that involved 16 cars.

Nearly every car was involved in a wreck at some point in the race with only a few coming away unscathed. There were 10 cautions for 65 laps.

The race was the most competitive in Atlanta Motor Speedway history as there were 48 lead changes among 14 drivers.

Todd Gilliland led the most laps with 58 and Cindric with 32, Blaney with 31, and Busch with 28.

Cindric had one of the most spectacular passes of the night when he went low on the track and made a four-wide overtake with 50 laps to go. Cindric finished fourth and won Stage 2.

“I thought it would make a good picture — that’s for sure,” Cindric said. ”If there’s room for it and the front straightaway is the widest part of the race track and if it’s going to work, it’s going to work there. I had a big enough run and was confident I could clear so I wasn’t too worried about forcing the issue in the corner. I wanted to be sure I was above the double white line. It felt cool and it felt good to have a big run like that.”

Bubba Wallace took fifth and finishing in the top 10 were Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ross Chastain, pole winner and Stage 1 winner Michael McDowell, Chris Buescher, and Ty Gibbs.

Cindric, Wallace and Buescher are all Atlanta Motor Speedway Thursday Thunder alumni.

Elliott, of Dawsonville, also a former Thursday Thunder driver, finished 15th.

Elliott qualified 28th but had to start at the rear as unapproved adjustments were made to his car.

Other former Thursday Thunder drivers included William Byron in 17th, Daniel Hemric 18th, Austin Dillon 22nd and Joey Logano 28th.

Logano qualified second but had to do a pass through at the beginning of the race because of gloves not meeting safety specifications.

It was Suarez’s second Cup victory and first since June 2022 at Sonoma. Suarez finished second in the July 2023 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“I feel like we have a strong team and so far in the season, we’ve got to continue to build on that,” Suarez said.

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