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Restarting fourth with 55 laps to go following the race's final caution period, Bowman worked his way by Larson and Denny Hamlin and eventually put his No. 48 Chevrolet around Bubba Wallace's No. 23 Toyota with 33 laps left around the 1.5-mile speedway.

But with Larson charging hard in his No. 5 Chevrolet, Bowman banged the wall hard on the frontstretch, allowing Larson to slip past and move away for a win by 1.205 seconds for his 30th career victory and Chevrolet's third in five Homestead races.

Larson became the third-winningest driver in the Hendrick organization's history, trailing Jeff Gordon (93 wins) and Jimmie Johnson (83).

Wallace, Chase Briscoe and Hamlin rounded out the top five.

In the 27th Cup race in the South Florida track's history, Bowman led 36 other cars to the green flag, but he eventually watched Ryan Blaney, Josh Berry and Larson take the point through a caution-free start to the 267-lap race, the series' sixth of the season.

However, with 10 laps to go in Stage 1 and Blaney's No. 12 Ford out front, three-time 2025 winner Christopher Bell spun by himself while tight against the Turn 4 wall.

Blaney held the lead on the ensuring restart and won his second stage this season. Bowman, Briscoe, Larson and Austin Cindric grabbed the top-five bonus points in the 80-lap segment.

Hamlin pitted his No. 11 Toyota on Lap 126 but regained the lead with four laps to go and was victorious in Stage 2 by nipping Larson, who was on the same strategy with fresher tires. Blaney, William Byron and Wallace followed.

Running third with 60 circuits left, Blaney had his engine expire in a plume of smoke off Turn 4. The 2023 Cup champion led 124 laps.

With only four cars remaining in the session, Bowman's No. 48 Chevrolet set fast lap of 168.845 mph around the 1.5-mile track, knocking Front Frow Motorsports' Noah Gragson from the lead position that he had held for the majority of the qualifying session.

Last week's Las Vegas race winner, Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry took the track immediately after and nearly equaled Bowman's lap -- instead his No. 21 Ford coming a mere .073-second off the pole-winning pace but earning a front row position alongside the Hendrick driver.

This is Bowman's sixth career pole position and first at Homestead, a place the 32-year-old Arizona-native doesn't necessarily consider one of his historically better tracks. He has only a pair of top-10 finishes, but his best outcome -- seventh place -- came in the series most recent Homestead visit last October.

"There were some cars not so great on the short run and really fast on the long run and we were kind of the opposite of that practice, we were really faster in the short run and not great on the long run stuff so I knew qualifying was going to be really important because of that and that we had some work to do for tomorrow," Bowman said, "But for me, I had a pretty clear cut plan for qualifying and I thought I was able to execute that pretty well and my race car gave me what I needed to do that."

Gragson will start third, followed by Daytona 500 polesitter, Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 Toyota and current NASCAR Cup Series championship leader William Byron in the No. 24 Hendrick Chevrolet.

"We're still really fast, but I've never gotten a pole in the Cup Series, but our Beef A Roo Mustang is pretty quick on the short run," said Gragson, driver of the No. 4 FRM Ford. "We just need to get a little better for the long run and we're up in the hunt, so that's good."

Intermittent clouds cooled the 74-degree afternoon and as Bowman alluded to, several of the fastest cars in practice did not necessarily fare as well in actual qualifying.

23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace set top pace in Group B practice, for example, but was only ninth quickest in qualifying. Fellow Toyota driver, Legacy Motor Club's Erik Jones was second -- just behind Wallace -- in that practice session but ended up only 28th quickest on the starting grid.

Conversely, Kaulig Racing's A.J. Allmendinger, who was 25th fastest in that Group 2 practice session will start the race from 10th position. Berry, still basking in his first career win last week at Las Vegas, was 31st in practice but will start from the front row.

Defending race winner Tyler Reddick was 20th in qualifying. Kyle Larson, who is attempting to win in all three national series races this weekend will roll off 14th in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

And the season's winningest driver, Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell was 16th in qualifying. A three-time winner already, he is trying to become only the third driver in NASCAR history -- joining Hall of Famers Bill Elliott (1992) and Dale Earnhardt (1987) as the only competitors in the modern era to win four of the opening six races.

NOTEBOOK ITEMS:

*BERRY INSISTS SUCCESS NOT A FLUKE

*First-time NASCAR Cup Series winner Josh Berry and the Wood Brothers Racing team come into Homestead race week still enjoying the legendary team's 101st victory at Las Vegas last Sunday -- a huge career achievement for Berry, personally, and only the second win for the team in the last nine years.

Only five races into his tenure, Berry has already delivered an early-season Playoff berth for the team and by the looks of the strong showing may well win again in the months before the championship march starts. He was adamant that the Vegas win wasn't a "fluke' and is one of only four drivers with multiple top-five finishes on the year.

"Without a doubt I feel like I had things to prove," said the 34-year-old Berry, who is beginning only his second fulltime season in the Cup ranks. "Obviously, coming off of last year and everything we went through, I think people were still looking at all four of us that were part of that program with a lot of question marks, so, to me, I wanted to go out and prove myself all over again in the Cup Series.

"I felt like this was probably the opportunity for me. I think if I fail at this one, I don't think there's probably another one lined up for me, so most definitely there was pressure to go out and perform. During the offseason we just really buckled down and obviously getting to know and working with my new crew chief, Miles.

"We put in a lot of work over the offseason to be prepared when the season started and I feel like that obviously paid off. Honestly, our results and performance has exceeded our expectations, so I'm super happy with that and winning a race in the Cup Series is a big deal."

Berry's second place qualifying lap marks the fourth time in the past five races he's secured a top-10 start.

*LARSON'S TRIPLE QUEST

No driver is busier than Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson this weekend and the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion is already batting a thousand in his quest to win trophies in all three national series races at Homestead.

He earned his first trophy with a dramatic comeback victory in Friday's NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race making the pass for the lead with only two laps remaining. It adds to an already-impressive resume here for Larson, who is a former winner in both Saturday's Xfinity Series 300-miler (2015) and Sunday's NACAR Cup Series race (2022) at the South Florida 1.5-miler.

He comes into Sunday's race ranked sixth in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, with three top-10s and a pair of third place finishes through the opening five races.

"I felt like the Truck race was probably going to be the toughest to win, I don't have much experience in them and the runs are typically shorter," Larson said. "I feel better about Xfinity and Cup but the competition keeps getting tough and tougher as you get on with the weekend, but we'll see. Off to a good start."

*HOMESTEAD A FINALE FAVORITE

NASCAR just raced at the Homestead-Miami Speedway 1.5-miler during the October 2024 Playoff run and this weekend marks the first time it has been a Spring event since 2021.

Ask the drivers where they'd like to see the former, longtime season finale venue on the schedule and the consensus is, they'd love to see it return as the championship race one day.

"I certainly would like to see it play a bigger factor in our championship, whether it's in the Playoffs or part of the championship race round or whatever it might be," said the Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, whose three wins are most among active drivers. "I'd just like to see it a part of that because we just talked about how the driver makes a bigger difference at the is race track than the car."

Team Penske's Ryan Blaney took it a step further.

"All the above, really," Blaney responded with a grin when asked if he preferred the spring or fall Homestead placement on the calendar.

"I'll be honest, it doesn't matter to me when we come here, spring all, in the playoffs, championship race, as long as we're coming here. I think if you asked, some guys would love to come here twice, once in the spring and once in the fall, where that race in the fall lays, I don't care. Do I think the championship race should rotate between a few tracks? Yeah. And this should be one of them. This place puts on a great show no matter what."

*THE WINNING Bs

The five NASCAR Cup Series races have all been won by drivers whose last names begin with the letter "B." Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron won the Daytona 500. Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell won the next three races -- at Atlanta, Circuit of The Americas and Phoenix -- and Berry picked up his first career win at Las Vegas last weekend.

Saturday's Homestead pole winner? Alex Bowman.

Several drivers conceded that B letter trend could likely continue this weekend at Homestead with 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champ Ryan Blaney considered a favorite. He started the season with a pair of top-10 finishes and won the pole position at Atlanta but has back-to-back showings of 28th and 35th in the two races heading to South Florida -- suffering an engine failure at Phoenix and crashing last weekend at Las Vegas.

"I thought our car was really good last week until I wrecked all of us on the back stretch so just hope to keep that same pace but I feel good with where our program is at right now," said Blaney, who has finished runner-up in the last two Homestead races.

"Just a matter of trying to get some stuff to go our way."

*SEASON OF LEARNING

One of the more heralded rookies this season is former Australian SuperCars champion Shane Van Gisbergen, who turned heads and earned high praise for his historic victory at the Chicago Street Course two years ago in his first ever NASCAR Cup Series start.

With a strong background in road and street courses before coming to America as a fulltime NASCAR Competitor, the 34-year-old New Zealand-native said it has been a legitimate learning curve in the NASCAR Cup Series on the ovals.

His lone top-10 result of the year in the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet came at the Circuit of The Americas road course. He says it has been an education on the assortment of long and short ovals in this first full NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Twice -- in the last two races at Phoenix and Las Vegas -- he's been collected in crashes not of his own doing.

"I feel like we've showed a lot of promise but we have nothing to show for it, really," Van Gisbergen said. "COTA was a good day, but on the ovals we've really struggled and we've had a lot of accidents and they haven't really been our fault.

"It's really tough results-wise but I see a lot of potential and speed. Just got to put it together and get to the end of the races and things will start clicking for us, I think."

"It has been hard because I'm not really known for crashing too much and not finishing, so it's been a bit of a pain really," Van Gisbergen added. "Just have to stay out of trouble and get through it. The first stage we're always going good and improving and thinking the rest of the race is going to be good then something seems to happen, so hopefully we stop that this weekend."

Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing

Aside from a fourth-place finish in the Daytona 500, Briscoe's maiden voyage with Joe Gibbs Racing has not started off on the right foot. Briscoe sits 20th in points five races into the season, and is yet to put forth an eye-catching performance this year. A good run at Homestead would go a long way toward the No. 19 team getting back on track and performing to the expectations that were set for them before the season began.

Erik Jones, No. 43 Toyota, Legacy Motor Club

While Jones' teammate John Hunter Nemechek consistently competes in the top 20 and sits 15th in points, Jones is 25th and hasn't finished better than 18th over the last four races. Jones has long been touted as one of the most underrated drivers in the Cup Series, but his start to the 2025 season hasn't exactly been indicative of that. Jones didn't have the same expectations of several other drivers on this list, but his slow start has been disappointing nonetheless. A top-15 performance on Sunday seems necessary for the No. 43 team to get back on track, especially if Nemechek once again runs well.

Riley Herbst, No. 35 Toyota, 23XI Racing

This isn't a knock on Herbst, who is still learning and adjusting in his first year at the Cup level. However, Herbst sits 27th in points after five races -- a far, far cry from teammates Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, who sit third and 11th, respectively. It's far too early to hit the panic button on a Cup Series rookie, but a good run in South Florida would do wonders for a young driver looking for momentum early in the season.

Brad Keselowski, No. 6 Ford, RFK Racing

Keselowski's 2025 season has been defined by bad luck. Decent finishes of 15th at COTA and 11th at Las Vegas were negated by finishes of 26th at Daytona, 39th at Atlanta and 33rd at Phoenix. The 2012 champion sits 30th in points after five races, and needs to start stringing together good finishes in order to claw his way towards the playoff cut line. Keselowski is still capable of winning races, but showing pace at Miami almost seems like a necessity if the No. 6 team wants to get the ball rolling.

Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing

Five races into 2024, Gibbs was third in points and had scored four top-10 finishes. His widely publicized slump to end his sophomore season has carried over to the start of 2025. Five races into his third Cup Series season, Gibbs sits 34th in points with an average finish of 25.8. He's above only two other full-time drivers -- Cole Custer and Cody Ware -- in the standings. When he hasn't been involved in an incident this year, there's been little speed under the hood of the No. 54. Gibbs' third Cup Series campaign risks outing him as a prospect who is slowly flaming out. One race may not be enough to completely turn the narrative surrounding Gibbs' slow start, but a top-10 effort underneath the Florida sun could turn the tide for a young driver who needs to reaffirm that he's a threat on a weekly basis.

First-year Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry powered the iconic No. 21 Ford around Las Vegas Motor Speedway to break Bell's three-race stranglehold on the sport and give an enormous boost to NASCAR's oldest organization.

Berry now will head south to the Homestead-Miami Speedway for Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400 in the season's sixth race.

Opening as a rectangular-shaped speedway and later transformed to an oval, Homestead's 1.5-mile layout has had a nomadic journey on NASCAR's schedule, occupying the championship weekend as the last race for 18 straight seasons from 2002-19.

Starting the season in Florida with the Daytona 500 and coming back to close it in November in South Florida, where warmer temperatures are more likely, worked for nearly two decades, but Phoenix now hosts the capper.

Tyler Reddick is the defending winner at NASCAR's southernmost regular venue, while Bell, Kyle Larson, William Byron and Denny Hamlin have found the checkered flag in the past five visits. Homestead has produced nine different winners in the past nine races.

If you grabbed a bingo card last February and had Wood Brothers Racing victorious in a race in 2024 with lame duck driver Harrison Burton and also this season with Berry in the seat -- sending the organization to the playoffs in consecutive campaigns -- well by all means blot that unexpected square.

New fans of the sport may not realize the impact of the Wood Brothers, a front-running, 20th-century powerhouse and owner of 101 career NASCAR wins.

Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Team Penske and RFK Racing all have lengthy resumes, but none of them go back 75 years and match the Stuart, Va.-based organization's duration.

In addition to developing the modern pit stop, which it used to service Jim Clark in his 1965 Indianapolis 500 triumph, Wood Brothers Racing suited up two future champions -- Dale Jarrett and Ryan Blaney -- in their first Cup wins in 1991 and 2017, respectively, and is currently in alliance with Team Penske, Ford's signature stable.

Yet Berry's current situation is different than Burton's last year.

The son of former driver Jeff Burton, Harrison was on his way out the door and a complete longshot winner at Daytona last summer. It was no shock when Burton made a quick exit in the postseason.

But Berry, 34, has emerged as a weekly contender: He has led 74 laps, scored consecutive top-five finishes including his maiden victory last Sunday and sits 13th in points.

"It just felt like the right fit for me," Berry said. "But our performance at the start of the season has 100 percent exceeded my expectations. ... If you're in a good situation and surrounded by good people and have fast race cars, (you) can do amazing things."

Beating Bell and the rest of the field in the desert was a serious lesson presented by Berry, who attended high school with music superstar Taylor Swift in Hendersonville, Tenn., a part of Nashville's metropolitan region.

The surnames of Berry and Bell are so close alphabetically that they might have sat next to one another in a mythical homeroom had they been classmates. The reality is that with their wins in four of the first five races, they are taking the rest of NASCAR to school.

The two-race suspensions were issued to members of Busch's No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet team and Briscoe's No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team after wheels became unfastened during the Pennzoil 400.

The suspensions will cover Sunday's race at Miami and the March 30 race at Martinsville for No. 8 crew members Dylan Moser (jack) and Shiloh Windsor (rear-tire changer) and No. 19 crew members Caleb Dirks (jack) and Daniel Smith (rear-tire changer).

Briscoe finished 17th in the race won by Josh Berry in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford. Busch's day ended after 35 laps.

Berry's win is the 101st in the NASCAR Cup Series for Wood Brothers Racing, their first since Harrison Burton ended a seven-year drought at Daytona last August. Berry entered the race coming off a career-best fourth-place finish at Phoenix last week, and his first career win comes in just his fifth race with the Wood Brothers. Berry had 40-to-1 odds to win entering Sunday's race.

Suarez, Ryan Preece, William Byron and Ross Chastain rounded out the top five. Berry's victory also ended Christopher Bell's winning streak at three races. Bell finished the race in 12th.

A six-car wreck took Ryan Blaney out of the race on Lap 194, ending a disappointing weekend for the No. 12 team. The wreck also took Kyle Larson out of first place after a dominant effort to that point, pushing him to 18th place on the restart. Larson was unable to make his way back to the top of the field, finishing ninth on a day where he led 61 laps with the clear best car.

Larson pushed ahead of Byron with three laps remaining in the second stage, becoming the first driver to earn a second stage win this season. The No. 5 car took control early in the stage, passing Bubba Wallace on the 100th lap of the race with a strong push off Turn 4. Larson asserted himself for the remainder of the stage, regaining the lead twice after cautions and ensuing pit strategies briefly knocked him out of the top position.

Wallace led the field to start the second stage, beating Austin Cindric and Chase Elliott off pit road. Cindric narrowly held off Alex Bowman to win the first stage, preventing Bowman from making a move in the 15 laps before the stage caution. Joey Logano led 16 of the first 17 laps until a caution on Lap 34 halted what was poised to be a dominant stage victory.

The caution in question occurred when Chase Briscoe lost his left rear wheel in the middle of a green flag pit cycle, forcing several drivers to go a lap down and use a wave-around. Kyle Busch also lost his wheel later in the race on Lap 113, forcing his car into the wall.

Both Briscoe and Busch were handed mandatory two-lap penalties for their respective incidents and the offending pit crew members are subject to a two-race suspension. Busch finished the race 35 laps down as a result of his incident, while Briscoe eventually made it back to the lead lap from as many as four laps down to finish in 17th.

Joey Logano will start Sunday's race alongside McDowell on the front of the grid, qualifying in the top two at Las Vegas for the third time in five races. Austin Cindric will start third, while Vegas native Kyle Busch starts in fourth.

Christopher Bell qualified in 13th position as he searches for that elusive fourth consecutive win. Lackluster qualifying hasn't been a deterrent for Bell thus far, as he started 19th before winning at Circuit of the Americas and 32nd before winning at Atlanta.

With a win, Bell would become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four straight Cup races. Only eight drivers have achieved the feat in NASCAR's modern era (post-1972) and five of those drivers went on to win the championship, including Johnson in 2007 and Jeff Gordon in 1998.

Bell, 30, has never won a race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, though he's finished second in two of the last three races held at the track.

"Vegas is a true barometer of the intermediates," Bell, the Joe Gibbs Racing standout, told the NASCAR Wire Service. "It's kind of like the last style of track that we haven't been to yet this season. It's an important race because you have a lot of points to be gained or lost on the intermediate-style tracks, but what makes Vegas even more important is that it's in the Round of 8 (of the Playoffs).

"That race, when you come back in the fall, is super important to have a really solid points day and contend for a win. That fall Vegas race is everything, and there's no better tune-up for it than the spring Vegas race."

Perhaps the greatest threat to end Bell's hot streak on Sunday is 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson, who has won at the "Diamond in the Desert" three times since joining Hendrick Motorsports before the 2021 season. Larson's first win with Hendrick came at Las Vegas in March 2021 and Larson has claimed two of the previous three races held at the track, winning the South Point 400 in October 2023 and the Pennzoil 400 in March 2024.

"I think since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021, it's probably been our best race track," Larson said. "Getting a few wins, I think two other second-place finishes in that time has also been really good. The track is great but getting to come to the city and have fun on the strip and all the stuff that it has to offer, it probably makes it one of my three favorite races to get to."

Like Bell, Larson is also is looking forward to getting a true feel for the kind of car he has this season on an intermediate track.

"The way schedule is now, you go to Daytona, then you go to Atlanta and then you go to a road course," Larson said "You almost have to wait a whole month to realize how your season might be and how you'll be on speed. I think all of us teams are really, really excited to get on track for practice, get back into the more bulk of the schedule with this style of race track."

Despite Bell's hot start to the season, it's actually William Byron who enters Sunday's race in the points lead by 13 points over Bell. Byron won the season-opening Daytona 500 in February and earned the pole on his way to a sixth-place finish in Phoenix, in addition to finishing second at the first Daytona Duel and at the Circuit of the Americas on March 2.

Joey Logano is the most recent winner at Las Vegas, as his victory at the South Point 400 in October 2024 propelled him to his third NASCAR title.

With victories at Atlanta, Circuit of the Americas and Phoenix, the Norman, Okla., native is the first driver to win three Cup races in a row since Kyle Larson did so in 2021. He is also the first driver to win three out of the first four since Kevin Harvick in 2018.

Compared to Harvick's early-season thrashing of the field seven years ago, Bell hasn't been quite as dominant. That's not a knock on Bell, but rather an indication of how NASCAR's schedule has changed. The first four races of 2025 featured two superspeedways, a road course and a one-mile oval. The first four races of 2018 featured Daytona being followed by three conventional ovals in a pre-reconfiguration Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

During his three-race win streak at the start of 2018, Harvick led 433 laps, compared to Bell's 114 over his three-race win streak. During his streak, Harvick scored a combined 149 laps, compared to Bell's 139 over his three-race streak.

As Bell prepares to race for a fourth consecutive win at Las Vegas on Sunday, it's worth looking back at Harvick's attempt at a fourth straight win in 2018. Harvick was involved in an early crash at that year's Auto Club 400 and finished 35th. It was a race indicative of the nature of NASCAR: no matter how high you are, you can always be brought down. Bell hopes to avoid a similar fate at Las Vegas.

Harvick's fourth win of 2018 came seven races after his third in the AAA 400 at Dover. While Harvick made the Championship 4 for the fourth time in five seasons, he and the rest of the 'Big Three; that included Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. saw their title hopes crushed by Joey Logano.

When looking for the best start to a season in Cup Series history, Bill Elliott's 1992 season has to come to mind. After leaving Melling Racing at the conclusion of 1991, Elliott landed with Junior Johnson as the driver of the flagship No. 11 car. While his season would ultimately end in a heartbreaking championship defeat at the hands of journeyman Alan Kulwicki, nobody could touch Elliott over the first five races of 1992.

A 27th-place finish at Daytona was disappointing for the two-time Daytona 500 winner, but over the next four weeks, Elliott was far and away the best driver in the field. Wins at Rockingham, Richmond, Atlanta and Darlington solidified him as a championship threat, though he remained behind fellow title contender Davey Allison in the points standings despite his tear.

Different points systems and race lengths prohibit a cross-examination between Elliott and Bell's respective streaks, but it should be noted that Elliott led 747 of a possible 1,587 laps during his win streak.

Unfortunately for Elliott, his dominance ran out in race six at Bristol, where he finished 20th -- 30 laps down. Following his four-race win streak, he would fail to find victory lane again until the infamous season-finale at Atlanta, where Elliott's fifth win of 1992 failed to deliver him a second Winston Cup title.

Bell now shifts his attention to going for a fourth consecutive win, a feat accomplished by the aforementioned Elliott, Harry Gant -- AKA 'Mr. September' for winning four races in a row in September of 1991 -- and Richard Petty, who won 10 in a row in 1967, among others.

The bad news for the field? Bell is due for a trip to Victory Lane in Sin City.

In his past four starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Bell has three top-five finishes and has led 216 laps. Of those 216, 155 of them came in a dominant performance at LVMS in October of 2024, where Bell saw Joey Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe steal a win that catapulted the No. 22 team to the Championship 4. That race wasn't just a heartbreaking loss on an otherwise dominant day for Bell, but also ended up being the difference in Bell missing the Championship 4.

The spring race at Las Vegas hasn't been quite as kind to Bell as its fall counterpart, but with how fast Bell is at the moment, that might not matter. He'll undoubtedly be near the top of the list of race favorites this week and in the weeks following.

A glance further down the Cup Series schedule shows tracks where Bell can continue his white-hot start. Should Bell win his fourth consecutive race at Las Vegas, the chance for a fifth at Homestead-Miami glimmers in the Florida sun.

Bell has top-five finishes in the past two Homestead races, including a win that lifted him and the No. 20 team to the Championship 4 in 2023. The week after Homestead, the Cup Series travels to Martinsville, where Bell won in the fall of 2022 to advance to what was his first Championship 4.

With Darlington and Bristol leading off the month of April, Talladega on April 27 may be Bell's biggest hurdle until the summer. Then again, superspeedway races likely seem less daunting to the No. 20 team following Bell's victory at Atlanta.

Whether Bell's streak ends next week or continues at Las Vegas and beyond, his three-race win streak has been an historic and undeniably impressive run that has the opportunity to grow and place him alongside the sport's greats.

If you still don't have Christopher Bell on your radar as a championship favorite, it's past time to declare him the biggest threat the Cup Series field as seen since Larson in 2021.

A force all day in his No. 20 Toyota, Bell became the first driver to win three consecutive races since Kyle Larson won at Charlotte, Texas and Kansas in October 2021 on the way to his lone Cup title.

After 13th-place Ty Gibbs hit the wall for the 10th caution period, Bell restarted beside Hamlin and barely held off the No. 11 Toyota over two laps, topping it by 0.049 seconds for Bell's 12th career victory.

Larson, Josh Berry and Chris Buescher completed the top five.

Shortly after polesitter William Byron started the 312-lap race, last-place starter Katherine Legge, the first woman to compete in a Cup race in over seven years, spun by herself off Turn 2 on Lap 4 for the first caution but eventually finished 30th.

Leader Joey Logano got caught preparing to cut the corner of Turn 1 on a restart and dipped below the start-finish line, sending the No. 22 Ford nearly 22 seconds back in the field after serving a subsequent penalty.

With Logano out of the picture, Byron raced off and led at Lap 60 when Stage 1 ended. Tyler Reddick and Ryan Preece trailed him, with Preece having taken the softer, grippier "option" tires to move up from 33rd into third.

Austin Cindric made the same tire selection to start Stage 2, and the No. 2 Ford moved forward with the extra grip past leader Byron on Lap 89. Justin Haley's No. 7 Chevrolet also entered the top five just before Michael McDowell's No. 71 Chevy cut a right-rear tire to create the fourth caution.

The first big wreck occurred on Lap 99 on the back straightaway when Haley, Chase Briscoe, Carson Hocevar and Gibbs went four-wide exiting Turn 2 in an incident involving approximately 10 cars.

On the softer tires, Logano diced through the field and grabbed the point from Bell on Lap 130 of the second segment as Bell and Bryon slotted behind, but the tires' fall-off allowed the Joe Gibbs Racing driver to regain the top spot on Lap 178 and win Stage 2. Logano and Byron were second and third, respectively.

Legge brought out the seventh caution by spinning and then getting T-boned by Daniel Suarez's No. 99 with 97 to go.

The 27-year-old North Carolinian conceded he wasn't expecting his chart-topping lap of 133.680 mph (26.93 seconds) but is ready to seize the strong start for Sunday's Shriners Children's 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

"I did not hit my marks, I was sideways and carried a ton of entry speed, missed the middle of the corner, and coming off the dogleg I was so loose," Byron said of his fast lap on the 1-mile Phoenix oval, the 14th pole of his career. "I was just going to try to commit to the exits and see how much I could get out, even though I missed the center (of the turn).

"Just a fast car," said Byron, who leads the NASCAR Cup Series championship and has two top-two finishes in the season's first three races. "Thanks to my whole team. They've been bringing fast cars, and we've been doing a really good job of executing. So definitely want to go out there and have a great day tomorrow."

Team Penske's Joey Logano will start alongside Byron, marking his third front-row start in four races this year. The three-time and reigning series champion turned a lap of 133.195 mph (27.028 seconds in his No. 22 Ford Mustang in Saturday's single-round NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session.

"I don't like William Byron anymore," Logano said with a laugh. "Man, that stinks. I just got through telling (crew chief) Paul (Wolfe) that it would really suck if the last car beat us.

"That was going to be Penske's 700th pole across all motorsports, so we'll have to go try and do that next week. But overall, proud of the effort."

Spire Motorsports' Carson Hocevar will start his No. 77 Chevrolet third, leading an impressive weekend for the Spire team. For the first time ever, all three of its cars will start among the top eight on the grid. Michael McDowell (No. 71) and Justin Haley (No. 7) will start seventh and eighth, respectively.

Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry was fourth quickest in the No. 21 Ford, followed by Legacy Motor Club's Erik Jones in the No. 43 Toyota.

Defending Phoenix spring race winner Christopher Bell, who brings a two-race winning streak into Phoenix, was 11th quickest.

Katherine Legge, making her NASCAR Cup Series debut this weekend, qualified last among the 37 cars. However, she improved her practice speed in the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet by more than 2 mph in qualifying -- a strong sign of progress for the sports car and open-wheel driver.

Logano, who won the last NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix in November, is the last driver to win a race from the pole at the desert 1-miler, claiming that win in fall 2022. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Kyle Larson (2021) and Chase Elliott (2020) are the only other active drivers with a Phoenix victory from the pole.

Hocevar was not only quick in qualifying but also fastest in Saturday afternoon's practice using Goodyear's "option" tires. His Spire Motorsports Chevrolet teammate McDowell was second-fastest, with 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick (Toyota), Team Penske's Austin Cindric (Ford), and Roush Fenway Keselowski's Chris Buescher (Ford) rounding out the top five.

Teams tested the option tire in the 45-minute practice session to evaluate its impact in race trim. Race conditions are expected to differ, with temperatures forecasted to be at least 10 degrees warmer. Every team will have two sets of the option tire and six of the Goodyear primary sets.

"I don't know, but it's definitely a much faster tire and pretty strong as well," Larson said of running practice laps on the option tire. "It's going to be interesting."

Phoenix Raceway.

After putting three very different races in the books, NASCAR takes its series to the 1-mile speedway as a preview of what drivers can expect when they return to the desert on Nov. 2 to hand out championship hardware.

Tires will be at the forefront of the first Phoenix foray.

In January, NASCAR announced it would use the same approach to tires in Arizona as it did at North Wilkesboro last May in the All-Star Race and in Richmond last August in its 400-lapper.

Teams will get six sets of primary tires while having access to two sets of option rubber, a grippier tire that can improve speed but has a quick fall-off in wear.

However, the plan for now is to have two different sets only for this race, not the season-ending one in eight months.

"I like how the race went at Richmond (last season) ... you know, green-flag pit stops and guys coming out on different tires," said three-time Phoenix winner Kyle Busch.

Teams arrived in Arizona with interesting circumstances after leaving Austin and the delicious ending at The Circuit of the Americas in the first road race, circling and battling on the shorter National circuit in the state where supposedly everything is bigger.

First, the clean racing over the final 14 laps got high marks as Christopher Bell set up leader Busch, saddled with a soon-to-be 60-race winless streak, lap after lap on the 20-turn, 2.3-mile road course.

The winner two weeks ago in another Atlanta thriller, Bell, a 30-year-old Oklahoman, put his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in victory position with two-lap fresher tires than Busch and managed to hold off William Byron for his 11th career triumph.

Bell, who spun the Richard Childress Racing No. 8 Chevrolet last year at COTA, said it was important to race the two-time Cup champ -- Busch -- clean in the return to Phoenix.

"I'm so proud of the way everybody raced each other at the end of that race. I would love to change the narrative of the Cup Series, of running into people and moving them out of the way," Bell said this week on Sirius XM's NASCAR Radio. "I would love if this is a turning point for us, where we're able to race respectfully and stay off of each other and make it less of a contact sport."

On the topic of contact, Team Penske's Austin Cindric received a 50-point penalty and $50,000 fine for using his No. 2 Ford to right-hook Ty Dillon on the COTA frontstretch.

Cindric's move was deemed intentional by the sanctioning body, which suspended Bubba Wallace in 2022 and Chase Elliott the following season for using the same tactic.

After the right-front tire came off the No. 5 Chevrolet at COTA, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson will be without jackman Brandon Johnson and front-tire changer Blaine Anderson for the next two races.

However, Chase Briscoe's 100-point penalty for his spoiler in the Daytona 500 was overturned. That included a four-race suspension to crew chief James Small and a $100,000 fine of Joe Gibbs Racing.

At some point in every athlete's life, they start to slow down. Their younger counterparts begin to take charge. The once venerable legends become vulnerable to the point that any success is no longer booed and ridiculed, but cheered and celebrated.

That's where two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch finds himself following Sunday's race at Circuit of the Americas.

Busch entered the third race of the 2025 season on a 59-race winless streak, but you wouldn't know it by the way he drove on Sunday.

For the first time in nearly two years, Busch dominated a race. He looked every bit the 63-time Cup Series race winner who is well on his way to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

That was until Christopher Bell, a newer star nine years Busch's junior, had something to say about it.

With five laps to go in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, Bell passed Busch for the race lead. With older tires and an ailing race car, Busch could only watch as Bell drove away.

Busch crossed the line fifth on a day where he led 42 laps and was by far the fastest man in Texas.

On the surface, Busch's heartbreaking defeat is just that: another race included on a career-worst drought for one of NASCAR's greatest drivers of all time. If you dig a little, however, it's an impending warning that Busch may soon find himself in the same position as other former greats.

Richard Petty had won 200 NASCAR Cup Series races and seven championships by the end of the 1984 season. Over the next eight years, he would go winless and finish in the top-10 in points only once. In 1989 and 1992, Petty failed to finish a single race inside the top-10.

The King's tumble from the top of the heap was anything but graceful, as the likes of Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace fought their own Revolutionary War to get NASCAR's once-sovereign ruler off his throne.

Like Petty, Jimmie Johnson also found his way to the championship stage. Over 19 full-time seasons, Johnson won 83 races and put together one of the greatest dynasties in NASCAR history from 2006 to 2010, winning five consecutive titles.

But Father Time doesn't care about rings or trophies. After winning at Dover in June 2017, Johnson went winless for the final three and a half years of his career. In 2019 and 2020, Johnson missed the playoffs entirely. It was a shocking regression for a driver that at one point seemed unbeatable.

Nearly a decade after he won the first of his two Cup Series championships, Busch seems to be moving down the same path as Petty and Johnson. In 2024, he missed the playoffs and suffered the first winless season of his career.

His performance at COTA on Sunday was a glimpse of the driver that used to be, but as little as five years ago, everyone would've expected Busch to hold off Bell for the win, even in adverse conditions. Such are the expectations placed on a generational talent such as Busch.

COTA wasn't the first close call for Busch over the course of his winless streak. At Daytona in August 2024, Parker Retzlaff pushed Harrison Burton past Busch on the final lap, leaving Busch to settle for second. A week later, the Southern 500 at Darlington marked the end of the regular season. Busch was forced to settle for another runner-up finish as Chase Briscoe took the win.

At Kansas in September, Busch was leading in Stage 3 when he spun with 33 laps to go. Once again, the stars didn't align.

Sunday's race at COTA can easily be classified as Busch's best performance of the Next-Gen era. His average running position was a stellar 2.14. His pit crew was flawless, as were crew chief Randall Burnett's calls atop the pit box.

Unfortunately for Busch, Bell was slightly better when it counted most. Bell's race-winning pass was one Joe Gibbs saw Busch make time after time when Busch drove Gibbs' No. 18. On Sunday, Gibbs was on the other side of the coin, rooting Bell on to victory.

At 39 years old, Busch likely won't retire anytime in the next two to three years. He'll have plenty of chances to snag another win and break the longest drought of his career, but he must take advantage when the opportunities arise.

Busch isn't the same driver he was five years ago, and NASCAR's young crop of talent is getting better by the day. On the surface, Sunday's race was a battle between a flashy young gun and a crafty veteran, but below the surface, it was a changing of the guard that proved Busch likely won't ever return to the heights he once reached.

The teams sued NASCAR in October, accusing the governing body of restraining fair competition and violating the Sherman Antitrust Act in relation to charter agreements.

Now, multiple outlets reported Wednesday that NASCAR is striking back.

NASCAR's countersuit is against Front Row Motorsports, 23XI Racing and Curtis Polk, a Jordan adviser who co-owns the team. NASCAR claims in its lawsuit, as reported by The Athletic, that Polk orchestrated "a scheme to pressure NASCAR to accept their collusive terms, including by engaging in media campaigns, interfering with NASCAR's broadcast agreement negotiations, threatening boycotts of NASCAR events and engaging in a group boycott of a NASCAR Team Owner Council Meeting."

NASCAR said the teams represent "an illegal cartel."

Representatives for Polk and the race teams did not return requests for comment from The Athletic.

The dispute stems from negotiations between NASCAR and 15 teams over extending the contract for the charter system, which gives teams specific financial guarantees and starting positions in every NASCAR Cup Series race.

In the lawsuit, NASCAR said it made its final offer that would have given teams record money, but 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports did not sign. Still, the teams are competing in the Cup Series under a court order while the lawsuit is pending.

In the countersuit, NASCAR is seeking damages and also asking for 23XI and Front Row Motorsports to lose their guaranteed starting positions while litigation proceeds.

23XI Racing, also co-owned by Denny Hamlin, races Toyotas driven by Riley Herbst, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace.

Front Row Motorsports, under owner Bob Jenkins, owns Fords piloted by Todd Gilliland, Noah Gragson and Zane Smith.

After three races in the season, Reddick is third and Wallace sixth in the driver points standings.

Chased by teammate Bubba Wallace during the Group 2 session of time trials, Reddick turned a lap in 98.076 seconds (88.094 mph) in his No. 45 Toyota to top Wallace by 0.224 seconds for the top starting spot in the third NASCAR Cup Series race of the season.

The Busch Light Pole Award was Reddick's second at COTA, his first of the season and the 10th of his career, four of which have come on road courses.

"Going into (Turn) 1, I'm like, ‘Dang, I wish that (Wallace) would have gapped himself a little bit more,' because I felt like I was messing his lap up, for sure," said Reddick, who won the 2023 Cup Series race at COTA and has an average finish of 5.0 at the track.

"Talking to him after the fact, his focus was to go out and follow me and kind of see what I was going to do and try to mimic it. Certainly, he's on the path to getting better at the road courses.

"He's learning and if he keeps it up here soon, I'll be having to try to battle him head-to-head for these poles. It's been really nice to see his growth and him improve and embrace the way we have to do things..."

Chase Elliott qualified third on his second lap at the 2.4-mile road course, which has been shortened this year, resulting in a race that will feature 95 laps instead of the 68 run last year.

Carson Hocevar posted the fourth fastest lap, followed by fellow Chevrolet drivers Daniel Suarez, Shane van Gisbergen, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain. Todd Gilliland was 10th in the fastest Ford.

Connor Zilisch, driving the No. 87 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, qualified 14th in anticipation of the 18-year-old's first NASCAR Cup Series start.

Sunday's Cup Series race at the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) will be the first of a half-dozen twisting layouts, a demanding, complex track in the wonderfully weird Texas capital of Austin.

A new racing surface, Goodyear tires and course design -- shorter without a long straightaway -- await the drivers. Using the "National" course for the first time, NASCAR will run the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.

At 2.3 miles in length, the newer layout for the Cup drivers will have its race extended to 95 laps. Previously on the 3.41-mile design, the race went 68 circuits.

In the first four stops at the serpentine track, NASCAR has seen Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick and William Byron be first to the checkers.

Another new driver, short on experience but not talent or confidence, may be at the front Sunday as Trackhouse Racing's 18-year-old Connor Zilisch will make his Cup debut in the No. 87 Chevrolet.

A winner in Xfinity and ARCA plus the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring in the LMP2 class, the Charlotte, N.C., native has lofty expectations in the Lone Star State in his first time in the sport's top series.

While Shane van Gisbergen (+550) and Tyler Reddick (+750) are 1-2 with oddsmakers, Zilisch checks in with the third-best odds (+800).

"I want to try and become the youngest Cup Series winner," Zilisch said Tuesday. "I don't feel like there's anything that tells me that I'm not ready to race on a road course on Sunday."

Before leaving the first two races completely in the dust, the consensus is that the racing last week at Atlanta Motor Speedway far exceeded that of the kind witnessed in the Daytona 500, a fuel-conservation-oriented Great American Race that got messy as the laps wound down.

On his podcast this week Dale Earnhardt Jr. said the glaring difference in the racing shows that improvements need to be made at sister superspeedways Daytona and Talladega before the series returns to either.

"Watching (the 500) from the drivers' standpoint, I was thinking, 'We can do better,'" he said. "We went to Atlanta, and I thought what it could be -- what Daytona, what Talladega could be. I don't love the term 'drafting tracks,' ... but we don't run restrictor-plates anymore."

A four-time Daytona winner including the 2004 and 2014 Daytona 500s, Earnhardt said Adam Stevens, crew chief for Atlanta winner Christopher Bell, had a great idea for preventing a fuel-strategy race.

"He had a great idea on how to get us (to better Daytona racing), which was to get it where they don't need fuel during the stages -- shorten the stage to the length of how far you can go on a tank of gas," Earnhardt said. "I was wondering if another route for specifically Daytona and Talladega might be to get rid of the cautions at the stage breaks.

"What we saw at Atlanta was as good as it gets. ... From the moment they dropped the green flag on the truck race to the (final) caution, it was edge of your seat."

With Talladega not appearing until late April, NASCAR has some time to get off its seat and figure it out.

That's because NASCAR has chosen to utilize COTA's shorter, "National" layout for this year's Xfinity Series and Cup Series races at the Texas road course. The National course's 20-turn layout is 2.3 miles in length, compared to the Full Course layout's length of 3.41 miles.

The change will bring the length of Sunday's EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX) from 68 laps to 95, and bring the length of Saturday's Focused Health 250 (2:30 p.m. ET, CW) from 50 laps to 65.

The change in course layout, of course, will affect the drivers. Ahead of Sunday's race, here are the drivers that the new COTA layout -- and the trip to COTA in general -- will benefit the most.

Kyle Larson, No. 5 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports

COTA's National course doesn't explicitly mirror any other road course on the schedule, which could make Larson a favorite to win on Sunday. Since joining Hendrick, Larson has become an elite road racer, boasting two wins apiece at Sonoma, Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Roval. The high-speed frontstretch and faster portions of the track lean more towards Watkins Glen, while the slower, tighter and more technical portions of the circuit more closely mirror Sonoma and the Charlotte Roval, where Larson won last October. Larson's ability to win at various styles of road courses should play right into his hands on Sunday.

Connor Zilisch, No. 87 Chevrolet, Trackhouse Racing

Zilisch is making his Cup Series debut on Sunday, but he'll have the benefit of running Saturday's Xfinity Series race beforehand. As a road course ace, Zilisch will be one of the favorites in the Xfinity race, and he has a chance to turn heads the following day as well. His resume includes wins in the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Rolex 24 at Daytona, as well as an Xfinity Series win at Watkins Glen in his debut. A year ago at COTA, Zilisch won the pole for the Truck race and earned a fourth-place finish. Regardless of layout, Zilisch will almost always be a force on road courses.

Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88 Chevrolet, Trackhouse Racing

The same can be said for Zilisch's teammate in van Gisbergen, who is well-suited to compete at any road course NASCAR travels to. The New Zealand native showed he can win at any road course on the schedule when he captured the checkered flag in his Cup Series debut at the Chicago Street Course in 2023. His ability to learn on the fly will come in handy as he experiences the new COTA layout for the first time along with the rest of the field.

Christopher Bell, No. 20 Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Bell is one of the more underrated road course racers in the field -- he was runner-up to William Byron at COTA in 2024 -- but he has one big advantage favoring him this weekend: momentum. Besides, he has nothing to lose. Bell's victory at Atlanta on Feb. 23 locked him into the playoffs, meaning he's free to use whatever strategy necessary to go for the win on Sunday. The layout will throw a new wrinkle into strategy, especially for teams racing for stage points, but Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens should be able to have more strategy options and race more freely with a postseason berth locked up.

With three laps to go and Kyle Larson leading, second-place Austin Cindric and Daytona 500 winner William Byron wrecked off Turn 4, setting up a green-white-checker finish.

After taking the white flag, Bell, who led just one lap, moved his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota past Larson and the hard-charging Hocevar before a wreck involving Josh Berry flew the final caution.

Bell won his 10th Cup race in 182 starts and first since last June in New Hampshire.

Larson, Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished the top five.

Toyota's last win at AMS was by Kyle Busch on Sept. 1, 2013.

Starting up front for the 11th time, Blaney was the lead Ford as 10 of the manufacturer's make occupied the first 11 spots.

Without Blaney leading one circuit, Fords still showed the way through the first 50 laps with Cindric, Berry and Todd Gilliland all taking turns at the point, but the rest of the field filled with Toyotas, and Chevrolets started peppering the top 10 grid.

With his second career stage win, Berry's No. 21 Ford won the 60-lap first segment with Cindric and Byron just behind.

Ty Dillon's single-car spin then brought out the second caution 20 laps later. The third yellow flew in another 20 circuits as Erik Jones' No. 43 ride was clipped by Chris Buescher.

Joey Logano (83 laps led) and Team Penske teammate Cindric ran 1-2 through much of Stage 2, a 100-lapper that had some drivers opting to conserve fuel and run mid-pack while the leaders aired it out.

After Gilliland cut a tire, Alex Bowman's No. 48 Chevrolet became the first non-Ford to lead a lap, but door-to-door contact between Chase Briscoe and Stenhouse led to Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Corey LaJoie having their cars damaged early on Lap 150.

In Stage 2's four-lap shootout conclusion, Larson recorded the 10 bonus points by getting to the checkers first. Bubba Wallace and Logano followed.

Due to pitting before the segment's end, the Chevrolets of Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen traded the lead before the sixth caution waved for a big wreck that collected defending winner Daniel Suarez, Ty Gibbs and five others.

The Penske team -- whose three cars combined to lead the most laps in the season-opening DAYTONA 500 a week ago -- will take the field to green on the 1.5-mile Atlanta high banks.

Blaney's lap of 179.371 mph in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford was a slight .002-second faster than Cindric and only .040-second quicker than Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry, in a Penske-affiliated Ford Mustang himself.

"It's a big testament to our whole group, Team Penske and Wood Brothers to be the top four," the 31-year old 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney said.

"It just shows you how similar all our cars are being right there together so hope it translates to the race tomorrow in handling and we'll find out," he added. "Pretty cool day."

Fords dominated the qualifying session, earning 10 of the first 11 positions on the grid. Logano was fourth fastest, followed by Front Row Motorsport's Todd Gilliland -- one of three FRM cars to advance to the 10-car final qualifying round. His teammates Zane Smith and Noah Gragson were seventh and 10th fastest, respectively.

The lone Chevrolet among the top positions was Kyle Busch, whose No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Camaro will roll off sixth. He was runner-up to Trackhouse Racing's Daniel Suarez in the closest three-wide finish in series history last year at Atlanta. Suarez will roll off 29th in the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. Blaney was the third driver in that historic trio.

There were only two Toyotas to crack the top 20 in Saturday's time trials - 23XI Racing teammates Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick, who will start 14th and 19th, respectively.

The perennial championship-favorite Joe Gibbs Racing team did not fare too well with Chase Briscoe 25th, Christopher Bell 32nd, Ty Gibbs 36th and Denny Hamlin 37th on the 39-car grid.

Despite his promising showing Saturday, Blaney conceded this style of small superspeedway-type racing at Atlanta creates a lot of drama similar to the bigger drafting tracks like Daytona and Talladega, Ala., meaning anything is possible no matter the grid outlook.

"That's the start and hopefully it stays that way, but things are going to change during the race," Blaney acknowledged, "But it's kind of nice that at least the start of the race through the first stage you can control. It's not going to be that way the whole race. You're going to get shuffled at some point and strategy is going to come into play so it's how do you react to that. But it's nice to all start together."

Blaney said there is always a lot of discussion among his team about how to keep the cars together, up front and out of danger.

"Fast cars and teamwork like that is the reason you see all of us leading a bunch of laps and contending for these wins, so it's nice to be around each other at first but I'd like it to be like that at the end," he said smiling.

NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying -- Ambetter Health 400

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025

1. (12) Ryan Blaney, Ford

2. (2) Austin Cindric, Ford

3. (21) Josh Berry, Ford

4. (22) Joey Logano, Ford

5. (34) Todd Gilliland, Ford

6. (8) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet

7. (38) Zane Smith, Ford

8. (17) Chris Buescher, Ford

9. (6) Brad Keselowski, Ford

10. (4) Noah Gragson, Ford

11. (60) Ryan Preece, Ford

12. (16) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet

13. (48) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet

14. (23) Bubba Wallace, Toyota

15. (3) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet

16. (5) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet

17. (24) William Byron, Chevrolet

18. (9) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet

19. (45) Tyler Reddick, Toyota

20. (10) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet

21. (7) Justin Haley, Chevrolet

22. (42) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota

23. (41) Cole Custer, Ford

24. (71) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet

25. (19) Chase Briscoe, Toyota

26. (77) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet

27. (35) Riley Herbst, Toyota

28. (43) Erik Jones, Toyota

29. (99) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet

30. (88) Shane Van Gisbergen, Chevrolet

31. (51) Cody Ware, Ford

32. (20) Christopher Bell, Toyota

33. (1) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet

34. (47) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet

35. (01) Corey LaJoie, Ford

36. (54) Ty Gibbs, Toyota

37. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota

38. (78) BJ McLeod, Chevrolet

39. (44) JJ Yeley, Chevrolet

After last Sunday's Daytona 500 concluded with yet another crash-filled finish, race No. 2 on the 36-race schedule, Sunday's Ambetter Health 400, will begin the series' normal grind each week.

Last year's race at AMS was a thriller.

After taking the white flag, Daniel Suarez cruised the high side, while Kyle Busch shot into the middle lane above Ryan Blaney -- three drivers racing it out side-by-side off Turn 4, each seeking his first 2024 victory.

It ended with Trackhouse Racing's Suarez edging Blaney by .003 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Cup history.

Now, NASCAR arrives at the 1.54-mile venue in Hampton, Ga., after what it claims was maybe one of the best 500s ever -- at least from a numbers' standpoint.

The sanctioning body announced Thursday that the Great American Race had produced the most-ever Daytona green-flag passes (16,389), most passes under green for the lead (331) and fourth-most lead changes in Daytona 500 history (56).

Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin is not buying the data about the race run at fuel-saving speeds.

On his podcast Actions Detrimental Monday, the No. 11 Toyota driver expressed his concern about the direction NASCAR is taking at the high-banked, 2.5-mile iconic track.

According to Hamlin, who prefaced the episode by saying that he knew it would come off as sour grapes, something needs to be done to make it more about the racing than the wrecking.

He cited his own data: The past six 500s have ended with major crashes, with three of the past four unfolding in a green-white-checker overtime.

"I hate the fact of how much luck is involved in NASCAR now," said Hamlin, who was ahead while bidding to become the third driver to win at least four 500s. "It (should be about) making the moves at the end of the race to win. ... I feel like we've lost that. It's just a matter of wrecks at the superspeedway. I feel like the sport of it is going by the wayside for the sake of entertainment.

"The cars are way too easy to drive. They have way too much grip, way too much drag, and it creates a great optic on TV that these cars are two-by-two, three-by-three, but nobody is (really) passing nobody. We're just riding."

Hamlin, whose lone AMS victory was in 2012's Fall race, contrasted last year's thriller with what could have transpired last Sunday.

"We could've been three-wide, see who gets the biggest push here," said the Toyota driver of the incident with Cole Custer's No. 41 Ford. "That's why we had a fantastic finish at Atlanta. Everyone makes such a big deal about Atlanta -- three-wide, racing for the lead (off Turn 4). ... They raced it out to the finish."

If any speedway can get this sport pointed in the right direction with high-speed racing that perhaps will feature good action and a tight race to the checkers instead of a winner who was lucky to avoid a giant mess, AMS is surely that track.

The ultimate entertainment this Sunday should be at the AMS flagstand, not on the track's back side in a hail of carnage and possible airborne cars.