Week two in NASCAR started off with a bang with the Truck and Xfinity series taking on the 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The weekend started with the trucks on Friday with No. 81 Connor Mosack and No. 9 Grant Enfinger qualifying for the front row for Saturday’s race. Other drivers to note from qualifying are No. 71 Rajah Caruth, who is one of three black NASCAR drivers to win a race, placed fourth this weekend; two-time NASCAR Truck Series champion No. 99 Ben Rhodes placed 10th; female racing phenom, No. 5 Toni Breidinger, finished in 18th; NASCAR wonderkid No. 11 Corey Heim; former Malcolm In The Middle star No. 33 Frankie Muniz in 21st; and running the double, two-time Cup Series champion No. 7 Kyle Busch starting in ninth place.
The race started out relatively tame, as No. 91 Jack Wood won stage one, giving him 10 points and a playoff point. Following Wood was No. 34 Layne Riggs, Enfinger, Mosack, Busch, Heim, No. 52 Stewart Friesen, No. 18 Tyler Ankrum, No. 19 Daniel Hemric and Caruth, with no wrecks happening in stage one.
On lap 34, Riggs lost power to his car and was able to continue after being pushed to pit lane. On lap 59, Heim ran out of fuel with two laps to go in stage two, but got back to pit lane. Stage two was won by Busch, followed by No. 98 Ty Majeski, Enfinger, No. 07 Michael McDowell, No. 45 Kaden Honeycutt, Wood, Mosack, Friesen, No. 38 Chandler Smith and Hemric.
After pitting for the final stage, Caruth led the field but spun out on lap 74 due to the track being a little bit too oily. Caruth gathered a couple of other drivers and had No. 1 William Sawalich spinning as well; Caruth did not continue after the wreck.
With 30 laps to go, Muniz and Mosack hit the wall as Muniz did not realize that Mosack pinched in on him, leaving him no room to run up the side.
The final five laps had some amazing racing from Akrum and Busch. Akrum was in the lead for almost the entire last lap but ended up getting passed at the last second by Busch for his 67th truck series win and his 236th win across all NASCAR Series.
Out of the drivers I mentioned to look out for, Caruth and Muniz did not finish, Rhodes finished seventh, Breidinger 24th and Heim finished in 23rd.
Onto the Xfinity Series race where the 2025 Daytona 500 winner, No. 2 Jessie Love and teammate Austin Hill made up the front row for the race. Other drivers to follow are the 2018 Xfinity regular season champion No. 7 Justin Allgaier in fourth, NASCAR phenom No. 88 Connor Zilisch in 10th and former Cup Series driver No. 25 Harrison Burton.
On lap five, the first caution came out with No. 26 Dean Thompson’s tire bursting, leaving him to make his way to pit lane for a tire change. Along with Thompson’s issue, No. 39 Ryan Sieg lost the back end of his car, causing him to swerve off the bottom racing line and lose a lot of positions.
Stage one ended with Hill in first receiving 10 points followed by Love, No. 41 Sam Mayer, No. 54 Taylor Gray, No. 1 Carson Kvapil, Allgaier, Zilisch, No. 16 Christian Eckes, Burton and lastly No. 00 Sheldon Creed getting the final stage point.
In stage two there were no wrecks, with Hill still in first receiving 10 points, followed by Mayer, Creed, Allgaier, Love, No. 19 Aric Almirola, No. 8 Sammy Smith, Zilisch, No. 27 Jeff Burton and Eckes getting the last stage point.
With 46 laps to go, the second caution came out when No. 51 Jeremy Clements lost control of his car taking out Gray, who did not continue after the crash. With 38 laps to go, the third caution came out with No. 20 Brandon Jones spinning off the track after losing control of his car. Thankfully nobody else was collected in the spin.
With 22 laps to go in the race, the fourth racing caution came out with Mayers losing control of his car and taking himself, along with the No. 42 Anthony Alfredo, out of the race after both drivers had too much damage to the hood of their cars.
On the final lap of the race, Hill took the win but a massive pile up happened with Zilisch, Eckes, No. 44 Brennan Poole and Sieg all being taken out on the final lap.
Following Hill in the top 10 was Allgaier, Almirola, Smith, No. 48 Nick Sanchez, J. Burton, No. 10 Daniel Dye, No. 70 Leland Honeyman Jr., No. 18 Sawalich (same as the #1 from the Trucks earlier in the day) and H. Burton taking up number 10.
The drivers to look out for from earlier were Hill who finished first, Love in 16th, Allgaier in second, Burton in 10th and Zilisch, who did not finish the race.
The drivers who gained the most positions during the race were Honeyman Jr. with 21 places gained, No. 99 Matt DiBendetto with 18, No. 35 Joey Gase with 17 and Poole with 14 placed gained. The drivers with the most positions lost during the race were Love and Kvapil with 15 places lost, Thompson with 13 and Williams with 12 places lost.
The next time the Truck Series race is March 15 at the Las Vegas Speedway while the next time the Xfinity Series races is March 1 at the Circuit of the Americas.