Daniel Suarez Takes Atlanta Victory

After a jaw-dropping three-wide finish, Team Chevy driver Daniel Suarez emerged victorious in Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The second race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season had no shortage of action, but the best came on the last lap at the 1.54-mile oval in Hampton, Georgia. When the final circuit commenced, Suarez had positioned his No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Camaro ZL1 on the high side of the track. He charged forward while others did the same below him, with Suarez taking the win by .003 seconds, the third-closest finish in Cup Series history. Fellow Chevrolet driver Kyle Busch also was involved in the three-wide result and came home third.

Suarez qualified in the 23rd position and was caught up in an accident on Lap 2, but he and his Trackhouse team persevered throughout the event which featured 10 caution periods and 48 lead changes. He was scored as the leader when the yellow flag waved for the final time on Lap 250, but he relinquished the top spot when the field went back to green with five laps left.

However, he held a spot near the front of the field, ensuring he was in position for the victory at the start-finish line. Suarez’s win was the second of his Cup career and the first on an oval for the driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Suarez, who led a total of nine laps. “This team did an amazing job all race long. We wrecked on lap two. The guys fixed the car and we were able to make it good again, make it fast again. It took some tweaking, but unbelievable. Freeway Insurance, Trackhouse, Chevrolet, and all the people that believed in us from day one – it’s unbelievable to do this in this fashion.”

The victory also was the first for the pairing of Suarez and his new crew chief, Matt Swiderski.

“We have done a lot of work on this race team to make it better and to keep moving forward,” Suarez said. “This is just the beginning of something amazing that we are going to go through together.”

Team Chevy notched four of the top-10 finishing positions in the race. Behind winner Suarez and third-place finisher Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. claimed the sixth spot and Ross Chastain came home seventh.

Suarez’s Atlanta victory was the record-extending 853rd all-time for Chevrolet in NASCAR’s premier series. In addition, the manufactuer has now won 10 of 14 superspeedway-style races since the introduction of the Next Gen car in the Cup Series for the 2022 campaign. The wins have come from seven drivers representing four different Chevrolet teams.

Chevrolet also swept all three national series events for the second weekend in a row at Atlanta. Kyle Busch first drove his Spire Motorsports Silverado RST to victory in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Fr8 208 on Saturday afternoon. In the Saturday nightcap, Austin Hill of Richard Childress Racing scored a win for the second consecutive week as he took the checkered flag in the NASCAR Xfinity Series RAPTOR King of Tough 250 behind the wheel of his Camaro SS.

With the triumphs, Chevrolet extended its series lead in total wins across all three national series at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The Bowtie Brand has claimed 45 victories in the NASCAR Cup Series, 20 in the Xfinity Series and 11 in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Through two weekends this season, Chevrolet has won all six national series events. There quite simply couldn’t be a more dominant start to 2024.

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