Kevin Harvick has had an exceptional relationship with Atlanta Motor Speedway and the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion showed that again Sunday afternoon winning the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, his third victory at the historic track.
Harvick led a race high 151 of 325 laps en route to his 51st career win, prevailing in a valiant contest with Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., who finished second and third.
Truex led 62 laps, won the opening two stages of the race and kept Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford honest. Harvick passed both JGR Toyotas to open the third stage of the race and held them at bay to win by a healthy 3.527-seconds. Busch passed Truex for second with five laps to go.
It was Harvick’s second victory of the season (he also won at Darlington Raceway in NASCAR’s first race back since the sport was sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic) and it is the 44-year old Californian’s ninth top-10 finish in 10 races this year. With it, Harvick extends his NASCAR Cup Series championship lead to 48 points over Penske Racing’s Joey Logano.
Logano’s teammate Ryan Blaney and JGR driver Denny Hamlin rounded out the Top-5 at Atlanta followed by Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Chase Elliott and Penske Racing teammates Brad Keselowski and Logano. For Kurt Busch, the Top-10 was an especially impressive effort considering he started last in the field because of inspection violations.
Clint Bowyer led 58 laps only to have to pit late in the race for a blistered right rear tire and fall out of a Top-10 finish. He ended up 20th.
After the race concluded and the points were tallied we have a new leader on the scoring pylon. Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head sits at the top!
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF THE GO FAST
Finally, ten races into the 2020 race season, one of our players selected the race winner! This week Dan The Numbers Cruncher was riding shotgun all afternoon with “Freaky Fast” Kevin Harvick, and although he is not the highest scorer of the race, nonetheless, he pocketed a cool 51 points!
THE MOVERS AND THE SHAKERS
As was mentioned above the race winner, “Freaky Fast” Harvick, did not deliver the most points to our players, as sometimes happens with the advent of stage racing. No, this week the highest scorer is Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head. The Cheddar Head had been tucked away very neatly into Martin Truex, Jr’s hot rod down in Hampton, GA.
After reading the paragraph in the Go Fast part of this post you will notice that The Numbers Dude added 51 points to his 1st segment tallies and that made him the second highest scorer for the Atlanta race.
Meanwhile the unlikely duo of Carlton The Doorman and Edie The Las Vegas Super Star paired up to deposit 46 big points into their 1st segment safe deposit box! Both players were rooting for The Delivernator, Denny Hamlin, this weekend.
Bernie The Bay Area Bandit had a very respectable weekend. She was putting all her marbles into Chase Elliott’s marble sack this week. When the checkered flag flew in Hampton, GA, La Bandita, took home 40 points!
Lastly, Snoopy Dawn and Jeremy The Coach each received 31 points Sunday afternoon. Now they may have scored the same amount of points, those points were delivered to them by two different drivers. Snoopy’s man this weekend was “Blazingly Bad” Brad Keselowski, while The Coach preferred to put his money on Kurt Busch.
Ten of the eleven players changed zip codes this weekend. The only player to remain in their previous spot was Jim, aka Chiefy. I will expand upon that laster in the post!
The biggest movers this week was a duo that includes Edie The Las Vegas Super Star and Linda The Cookie Mom, both players moved four (4) places. The Vegas Super Star really stepped up her game and vaulted into 3rd place this week. Whereas The Cookie Mom plummeted four spaces to ride in 9th.
Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff could not escape the spotlight and fly below the radar this week. His pick for the race, Clint Bowyer, was having a fantastic race, despite the fact that he had blistered two right rear tires during the course of the race. With just 12 laps to go Bowyer ducked down on pit road to replace another blistered right rear (number three), giving up his shoe in 3rd place finish. So The Sheriff bite the bullet, and only deposited 27 points into his 1 segment bucket, slipping three places to sit in 6th place.
The trio of Carlton The Doorman, Jeremy The Coach, and Bernie The Bay Area Bandit transited two positions. Both The Doorman and La Bandita progressed nicely this week, climbing up two spots to reside in 5th and 8th, respectively. The Coach was not nearly as lucky as the above mentioned tandem. The Coach fell down two spots to sit in 7th this week.
The remaining four players, Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head, Snoopy Dawn, Edie The Vegas Super Star, and Carole, aka Rudy, moved one spot at the end of the race. The Cheddar Head and The Vegas Super Star each stepped up one place to rest in 1st and 3rd, respectively. But Snoopy and Rudy can’t be nearly as happy because they slid down one spot to reside in 2nd and 10th, respectively.
STRAIGHT FROM THE CRAPPER
This week The Crappiest Pick of The Week is awarded to Carole, aka Rudy. Rudy logged 12 points this week and that was enough for her to secure this award.
For the second week in a row, Jim, aka Chiefy, has the keys to The Outhouse all by himself!
On Wednesday NASCAR will be rolling into The Paper Clip, Martinsville.
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR BELTS TIGHT AND LET’S GO RACIN’!