NASCAR Atlanta winners and losers: Carson Hocevar makes few friends, earns best career finish anyway
Christopher Bell edged just ahead of Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson for the lead at the time of a last-lap caution to win the Ambetter Health 400 NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
A crash involving Josh Berry, Joey Logano and others down the backstretch forced NASCAR to throw the caution flag on the final lap, with Bell about a front-end's length ahead of Hocevar and Larson at the time of caution.
Bell led one lap all day, the final one, for his 10th career NASCAR Cup Series victory and first at Atlanta.
Sunday's race was another fascinating attempt at a pack-racing event on a 1.5-mile track. The unique style of racing differs even from Daytona and Talladega given the differing momentum of runs and the tightness of the pack.
But there were still a long list of crashed race cars in Atlanta.
Here were the winners and losers coming out of Sunday's NASCAR Atlanta race, with a tip of the cap to Spire Motorsports:
RACE RECAP: NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta: Live updates, highlights, live leaderboard of Ambetter Health 400
ATLANTA RACE RESULTS: Who won NASCAR Atlanta race? Winner is Christopher Bell, plus full results
Carson Hocevar was The Show on Sunday, for better and for worse.
Hocevar's daring moves and aggressiveness didn't make him a lot of friends, including Ryan Blaney, whose chance to win ended with a spin off of Hocevar's bumper with less than 20 laps to go. Hocevar also drew the ire of Kyle Busch at the end of stage 1 for an aggressive move that cost Busch several spots.
But Hocevar, who drives for Spire Motorsports, did have a chance to win, shoving Christopher Bell to the lead into turn 3 on the final lap and wedging himself in between Bell and Kyle Larson before the caution ended the race.
Hocevar had post-race discussions with Blaney and Ross Chastain immediately after hopping out of his car, and he apologized to fellow Chevrolet driver Larson during his post-race FOX interview for pushing Bell ahead inadvertently on the final lap with the idea that the leaders would be able to race to the line.
Enemies made? Probably, yeah. Runner-up finish, the best of his Cup Series career? Also yes. Pack racing rewards the aggressive. (Until they crash, of course.)
Michael McDowell's issues were under the radar near the end of the first stage.
McDowell ended up six laps down after his Spire Motorsports team had to repair a power steering issue during the stage caution after falling to last by Lap 60.
From there, McDowell received the free pass six times, a mark NASCAR says is tied for the most all-time. McDowell received the free pass on the following laps, including getting back on the lead lap on Lap 184:
Lap 85
Lap 105
Lap 137
Lap 155
Lap 162
Lap 184
The best part of McDowell's day? He finished 13th after surging into the top 15 on the OT restart.
Keselowski has started the season with two finishes outside the top 25 after a 26th-place finish at Daytona and Sunday's last-place finish at Atlanta.
The driver-owner of the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford was an innocent bystander caught up in an accident involving Chase Elliott and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Stenhouse shot up the race track off of turn 4 after contact with Chase Briscoe, shoving Chase Elliott into the wall. Elliott's suspension broke, and he spun down the tri-oval before collecting a slowing Keselowski.
The former Cup champion will be in a fine spot if he returns to 2024 form on non-drafting tracks, and he was running fine in the first two races. But the final result pays the points, and Keselowski is 0-for-2 on good points days in 2025.
Last year's three-wide Atlanta race winner had a sterling track record on the Atlanta drafting configuration, but Sunday's race result stands out as a negative outlier.
Suarez was involved in the Lap 184 multi-car crash through the tri-oval on the frontstretch, getting the worst of a three-wide sandwich between Todd Gilliland, Ty Gibbs and himself.
After three straight Atlanta finishes in the top two, Suarez finished 33rd on Sunday.
The No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet never was a factor in the first 300 miles of the race, and Suarez told FOX after the crash that the team was trying something new this weekend.
"We struggled a lot with the balance of the car in the first stage," Suarez said on his FOX post-crash interview. "We worked a lot to try and make it better. We made it better, but never quite the way we normally are here."
Nick Gray is a sports trending writer for The Tennessean. Contact him at NHGray@tennessean.com
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: NASCAR Atlanta winners and losers: Carson Hocevar makes few friends, finishes 2nd
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