HAMPTON, Ga. -- With a push from his Team Penske compatriot, Joey Logano held off Daniel Suarez on an overtime restart to win the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway to open the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Logano's win is his second of the season and the 34th of his career, and most importantly advances him to the Round of 12 as he pursues his third Cup championship.
Sunday's race came down to a race between team cars, with Logano getting drafting help from defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney and Suarez getting a push from Trackhouse Racing teammate Ross Chastain. After Suarez lost his help from Chastain, Logano was able to get clear to the front with help from Blaney and get back to the checkered flag to strike first in this year's race for the championship.
Quaker State 400 results
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #99 - Daniel Suarez
- #12 - Ryan Blaney
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #45 - Tyler Reddick
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #24 - William Byron
- #2 - Austin Cindric
The 2024 season has been far from Logano's strongest, as he finished the regular season 15th in points despite winning a race at Nashville in June on fuel mileage in quintuple overtime. But in shades of the way he made his championship runs in both 2018 and 2022, Logano rose to the occasion to start the playoffs, making his way to the lead for the first time the entire race in the closing laps of regulation before executing in overtime.
"Incredible execution from the team. When it's playoff time, it's our time," Logano told NBC Sports. "As I said, we got to always get the level up when it comes playoff time. They gave me a great Autotrader Mustang. She was fast all day.
"Got stuck in the back a little bit. It was hard to get track position back. Had a good restart and got towards the front. Had my teammate Blaney behind me. That really helped out in the last lap to be able to make sure a Penske car won and ultimately move on to the next round."
With his 34th career win, Logano now moves into a tiebreaker for 25th on NASCAR's all-time wins list, a mark he now holds with Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr.
Playoff developments
When the checkered flag fell, over half the drivers in the Round of 16 were able to walk away satisfied with their days, as nine of the top 10 finishers -- with the exception of Kyle Busch in seventh -- were playoff drivers. But that doesn't mean their days were particularly smooth, nor that several prominent playoff drivers didn't experience anything ranging from adversity to outright disaster.
Near the end of Stage 1, the tone of the race swung dramatically for 2021 Cup champion and No. 1 seed Kyle Larson, who was running third when his car suddenly broke sideways and violently slammed the outside wall in Turn 2 before being hit again by Southern 500 winner Chase Briscoe. The wreck dropped Larson from the top of the playoff standings to 10th, 15 points above the cut line, while Briscoe is now 20 below the cut line.
"That was a huge hit," Larson told NBC Sports. "Not really sure what caused it -- I was actually sort of tight loaded in the corner, and I was pretty far around the corner and it just stepped out. I don't know, it just all happened really fast."
A similar accident almost occurred later in the race when Chris Buescher broke sideways and shot towards the wall exiting Turn 2, but he ended up hitting something else -- Ryan Blaney -- before hitting the outside wall. That triggered another crash with major playoff implications, as Blaney slid down to the apron of the backstretch before hitting Martin Truex Jr., causing considerable damage to both cars.
Blaney's crew was able to patch up the left side of his car, allowing him to make his way back through the field via the draft and push Logano out front before finishing third. Truex was not nearly so fortunate -- the damage sustained to his right front suspension was too much to overcome, as Truex was forced to limp around before eventually taking his car to the garage area for good and finishing 35th.
"Honestly, I can't believe we got back up where we did," Blaney told NBC Sports. "The 12 boys did a really good job fixing it. I'm surprised it didn't have more damage than what it did. From my seat, I got drilled in the left rear, the door I guess is where it hit me. The right rear got off the fence. I didn't know how damaged we were.
"I was kind of able to carve up through traffic, could kind of get through the middle pretty good. ... This thing looks ugly, but really good finish. Proud of the effort by everybody."
Others like Suarez, Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott would have their own issues -- namely on pit road, where multiple incidents occurred with drivers running into each other entering and exiting their pit stalls throughout the day -- but the top 10 would end up being filled with playoff drivers: Suarez ran second, followed by Blaney, Christopher Bell (fourth), Alex Bowman (fifth), Reddick (sixth), Elliott (eighth), William Byron (ninth) and Austin Cindric -- who led the most laps at 92 before a lug nut issue on pit road mired him in midpack -- finishing 10th.
Ty Gibbs led 37 laps and looked to be in position to earn his first Cup win in his final laps, but he would end up getting shuffled out and finished 17th, just ahead of Brad Keselowski in 20th. They at least fared better than Denny Hamlin and Harrison Burton, both of whom were involved in a multi-car crash in the final corner.
After an issue in qualifying forced him to start shotgun on the field in 38th, Hamlin struggled enormously throughout the day en route to finishing 24th, while Burton went from a potential top-15 finish to failing to make it to the finish line in 31st.
Gibbs now holds only a one-point advantage over Keselowski for the final spot above the cut line to advance to the Round of 12, with Burton (-16), Truex (-19) and Briscoe (-20) currently on the outside looking in heading into the next race of the Round of 16 at Watkins Glen.
It's a sign
Of all the things that could have altered Sunday's race -- and, long-term, potentially the entire complexion of the playoffs -- the race to the finish was set up by a caution for debris with 10 laps to go. Debris it certainly was -- but not the sort that usually falls out onto a racetrack.
As the race began to enter its closing crescendo, a Walmart banner hanging from a post along the catchfence in the quad oval fell onto the track, bringing out the yellow flag as the field carefully avoided an explicit, and quite unintentional, activation for the race's presenting sponsor.
The banner was quickly removed by track crews, who also took down the remaining signage to ensure that more would not fall down.
Race results rundown
- While a miserable stretch of races at the end of spring and into the early summer doomed Kyle Busch's chances of making the playoffs in 2024, Atlanta was yet again more in line with what is expected from Busch as he led 24 laps on his way to finishing seventh. After a two-week break at the end of July allowed Busch and his team a respite from their slump, Busch has now had three top fives, four top 10s and no finishes worse than 12th in his last five starts with an average finish of 5.4.
- Daniel Hemric continues to perform at his best in 2024 on drafting tracks, as he just missed out on a top-10 finish in 11th to lead the way for Kaulig Racing. In his last three races on tracks where the draft comes into play, Hemric has now finished ninth at Talladega, ninth at Daytona, and 11th at Atlanta today.
- Justin Haley incurred a mid-race penalty after NASCAR ruled that he threw a block near the end of Stage 2 that forced Tyler Reddick below the yellow line, but he was able to battle back to earn a 12th-place finish. For Haley, it marks his first top 15 since he ran 13th at Nashville in June and his best overall finish since running ninth at Gateway.
- Corey LaJoie had a nice followup to his top-10 finish in the Southern 500 with a 15th-place finish, giving him top 15s in both Atlanta races in 2024. He was followed by teammate Carson Hocevar in 16th, who was the highest-finishing rookie to capitalize on a 28th-place finish for Josh Berry in the battle for Rookie of the Year honors.
- A pair of part-time teams and part-time drivers enjoyed top-25 finishes, as J.J. Yeley drove the No. 44 Chevrolet for NY Racing to a 23rd-place finish, while B.J. McLeod finished 25th driving the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet that he has entered in six races this season.
Next race
The Round of 16 continues with a twist for this season, as the NASCAR Cup Series will go road course racing at Watkins Glen International in the Go Bowling at The Glen next Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on USA.
