NASCAR’s weekend featured two tracks that couldn’t have been more different. Lime Rock Park welcomed the ARCA Menards Series and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for a weekend of road course racing, while EchoPark Speedway hosted the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in another round of high-speed, pack-racing action. With four races spanning two unique disciplines, there was no shortage of memorable moments, dramatic finishes, and talking points. Now it’s time to hand out the grades and see which events earned top marks and which ones fell short.
*Each race is graded against the standards and expectations of its own series, not compared directly with the others.*
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ARCA Menards Series – Lime Rock Park ARCA 100
The ARCA Menards Series put on a fun show right from the start. Tristan McKee didn’t take long trying to take the lead as he went from 3rd to 1st on the first turn on the first lap jumping both Carson Brown and Thomas Annunziata. For awhile it was a fun battle for first between McKee, Brown, Bollman, and Annunziata until Lap 20. During the restart on Lap 20 Carson Brown and Tristan McKee both had issues which dropped them to the middle of the pack.
From that point on it was Annunziata’s race to lose, but his competition didn’t make it easy. We saw Ryan Gemmell and Andrew Ranger give some challenge to Thomas Annunziata, before he would still end up winning by 9 seconds. Overall though, it was a fun race for the ARCA Menards Series with a lot of great battles and moments.
This race also guarantees a fun race to the Championship between Annunziata and Bollman.
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Rating: 7.5/10
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series – Liuna 150 At Lime Rock Park
If the first two stages were as competitive as the third stage this race would get a much higher rating, but sadly that was not the case. For most of the race it was a battle between Layne Riggs and Kaden Honeycutt as they had a 5 second lead over the rest of the field at the end of the first stage.
The chaos began halfway through the race at Lap 51 when there was a huge pile up that put damage on the trucks of Landen Lewis, Thomas Annunziata, and Connor Mosack who were all in the Top 5. Restarts continued to be a massive problem in this race as Layne Riggs and Kaden Honeycutt both had trouble during a restart on Lap 67 going across the start finish line. During the pace laps on lap 68, Thomas Annunziata’s truck caught on fire and he was taken to a local hospital to be checked out
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. With all the top contenders for this race being out, it was anyone’s race. Kaden Honeycutt attempted to drive through the field and ended up in third after taking his own teammate out in the process. After all the chaos and madness, it was Grant Enfinger who came out on top for his 13th career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win.
Rating: 5.5/10
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series – Focused Health 250
There is not really much to say about this race other than it was an extremely long night. The crowd in Atlanta witnessed history in a negative way as the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series broke the record for most cautions in series history with 13. When there was green flag racing it was really fun, but sadly we didn’t get to see enough of it for this race to be considered good. This race just never gained any momentum, and when it felt like there was a flow and some rhythm there was always a caution. The final stage had 9 cautions and 4 red flags, it was just extremely dreadful.
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I had high praise for this race going into it, and many people (myself included) claim this to be the best racing product in NASCAR, but it was far from it this weekend. In the end it was Justin Allgaier who was left standing at the end as he claimed his 6th checkered flag of the season.
Rating: 3.5/10
NASCAR Cup Series – Quaker State 400
NASCAR deserves all the praise in the world for the product that the Cup Series put on in this race. First of all, there was a weather delay with 151 laps left out of 260 lap race at 8:30pm EST. Normally we see NASCAR call the race or save it for the day after, but instead they resumed the race at 11:45pm EST and ran the rest of the 400 miles instead of shortening the length. When they lights got brighter, the drivers showed out, this race was incredible. After the rain, the track cooled off drastically which made the racing product even better. Ryan Blaney was the man to beat all night long, but it certainly was not easy for him to control the race.
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Carson Hocevar, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick, and Christopher Bell were amongst the drivers always at the front battling the No. 12 Team Penske Ford. Hocevar was seen driving through the field from 32nd all the way to the lead and putting him in a good position to win the race.
Ryan Blaney, Carson Hocevar, and Bubba Wallace were three wide going around the final turn, but with a push from Christopher Bell, it was Ryan Blaney who crossed the line first. Bubba Wallace was penalized for crossing below the yellow line on the back straight away so he finished 29th. Blaney ended up leading 171 out of the 260 laps of the race. There is just something special with NASCAR having instant classic finishes at 2:00am.
Rating: 10/10
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