“What a day,” said Wallace. “I’m so glad we’re done with superspeedway racing for a while. The mental toll it takes on you, to just making sure you make the right move for 260 laps, including the race last week too, is a lot. Team did a great job. I put us behind with that speeding penalty on pit road. Never gave up, though. Came from the back. Enjoying where we’re at right now. Just can’t get complacent. We get to go race the next couple weeks and really got to dig deep and figure out where we need to be better. I thought we had a fifth-place car and came home fifth. We checked all the things off, I just got to stop making mistakes and give ourselves a shot.”
- Bubba Wallace
Team Toyota delivered top-five finishes in every race this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
NASCAR
Bubba Wallace battled back for a strong fifth-place result in Sunday’s wild Atlanta Motor Speedway event. All eight Toyota Camry XSE’s were involved in at least one on-track incident, but Wallace persevered from one lap down to deliver back-to-back top-five finishes to start the race season. Daniel Suarez was the race winner.
“My crew chief, Jeff Meendering, did an amazing job making the last-minute pit call there,” said Smith. “Looks like we dragged everyone else down pit road with us when we went. I’m really happy with how our results were coming out of here with the No. 81 QuickTie Products Toyota GR Supra. So, looking forward to going to Las Vegas with two top-fives on superspeedways.”
- Chandler Smith
Wallace was joined inside the top-10 by Ty Gibbs, who earned his first top-10 finish of the season, bringing home his Camry XSE in 10th.
Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) continued their strong start in NASCAR Xfinity Series action on Saturday as Chandler Smith and Sheldon Creed scored consecutive top-five finishes to start the year. Smith finished second to race winner Austin Hill, while Creed added a fourth-place finish. After two events, both Creed and Smith are inside the top-five in the point standings. JGR added a third Toyota GR Supra in the top-10 on Saturday with Ryan Truex finishing in ninth.
“It was a quiet day for us,” said Heim. “I feel like we played the strategy game really well today. TRICON Garage, and huge thank you to Toyota Racing and Safelite for putting us in position here. Really uneventful day for us, a good day. I feel like these first two races were going to be really tough, Daytona and Atlanta, and got through them with two top-fives. Can’t complain, and that’s what championships are made of, and that’s what we’re going for.”
- Corey Heim
Sam Hunt Racing (SHR) also had a strong run with the return of Jeffrey Earnhardt. Earnhardt delivered an eighth-place finish, which was the best in team history at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It marked the best finish for Earnhardt since his previous tenure with SHR in 2022.
In NASCAR Truck Series competition, TRICON Garage had another solid superspeedway race with Corey Heim (third) and Taylor Gray (fourth) scoring top-fives, and Dean Thompson leading his first laps in Truck Series action before finishing 10th.
Heim has started the season with consecutive top-five finishes and has now scored top-fives in eight of the last nine races and top-10s in 23 of the last 26 Truck Series events.
What’s Next
After two superspeedway style events, NASCAR heads to the west coast to compete at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Truck Series is up first on Friday, March 1 at 9:00 p.m. ET on FS1. On Saturday, March 2, NASCAR Xfinity Series competes at 5:00 p.m. ET, also on FS1. The NASCAR Cup Series closes the weekend on Sunday, March 3 at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.