Christopher Bell lead just one lap the entire race, and it was the most important one.

After the caution come out with three laps to go, NASCAR’s second race of the season went to overtime where Christopher bell would prevail and win the Ambetter Health 400. Bell collects his first win of the season and joins William Byron as a trophy collector in 2025. Let’s take a look at the race recap.

RECAP

After a full green flag run, the first stage ends with Josh Berry taking home the playoff point. Ford teammate Austin Cindric finishes second. It was single file for the first half of the 60 laps, but eventually when position became a factor, the racing picked up.

Twelve laps after the stage 2 restart, Ty Dillon has issues in between turns 3 and 4 and spins from the 38th position. This is the first caution for incident on the track. Never forget: cautions breed cautions. Not too long after the Dillon spin, Erik Jones is clipped by Chris Buescher and hits the inside wall, bringing out the yellow flag yet again.

Later in the stage, Chase Briscoe and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. make contact coming off of turn 4. Elliott gets the worst of it as he is brushed up into the wall, eventually losing control and coming back down into traffic where Corey LaJoie makes contact and collects Brad Keselowski in the process as well.

In a few lap shootout to the end of stage 2, Kyle Larson wins his first ever stage at a super speedway. Joey Logano makes a move to the inside of Alex Bowman and claims second.

As the sun starts to set, racing picks up as it’s a fight to the finish in stage 3. Although, opportunities to have a shot at the win for Daniel Suarez, Ty Gibbs, Cody Ware, Noah Gragson and others in what would be considered the ‘Big One’ at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

With just under 30 laps remaining, Ryan Blaney is tagged by Carson Hocevar. He spins, and drifts, all the way around turns 1 and 2. So, that brings out a late race restart.

As drivers are jostling for position, Austin Cindric, who was in contention for the win at both drafting tracks this year so far, is run up to the wall by Kyle Larson who thought, or was told, he was clear. He was not and therefore Cindric spins off the wall across the field collecting Dayton 500 champion William Byron.

In overtime, there is a massive battle for the lead as Hocevar gets a big run down the back stretch, and makes a move on both Larson and Bell. However, Josh Berry, Ryan Preece, and others crash down the backstretch and the caution is thrown, cutting the final lap short. Christopher Bell was ahead at the time of caution and edges out Hocevar and Larson.

Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. round out the top 5.

FLAGS OF THE WEEK

My green flag of the weekend is simple: Atlanta Motor Speedway. By far the best drafting / super speedway track on the circuit. It races how early 2000s Daytona and Talladega were raced. Because of the super speedway package these cars have today, it’s so hard to race at Daytona and Talladega, so they just bunch up and hope they don’t wreck. At Atlanta, it’s tighter. It’s more compact. It makes drivers have to keep some space in between the cars in front and behind them, giving them clean air. This opens the door for drivers to make more moves, race their car, and actually be able to control their ability to drive. Since the track’s reconfiguration, Atlanta has been so fun to watch and attend. Not only is it the best drafting track, it might be in the top 5 tracks all around after what we’ve seen the last few years.

My yellow flag of the week is the opposing end of my green flag statement. What do you do with these super speedway packages on the cars? Dale Earnhardt Jr. said earlier last week after Daytona: We have choked everything down and put so much drag on the bodies that they can’t get away from each other. A good car can’t drive away from a bad car. An experienced driver can’t distance himself from a [driver] who doesn’t have the experience.” I agree with him. I hate to use the word luck in racing, but that seems to be the only word I can think of now when discussing Daytona and Talladega. I’m no scientist, but ‘how can we make the cars better on super speedways’ would be the first question I ask in the NASCAR office this week.

My red flag of the week stems from NASCAR’s officiating. Not their calls, but their inconsistency when making these calls. During the Daytona 500, there was a big wreck on the back stretch, but there was no caution and they let the leaders race back to the line. This weekend at Atlanta, there was a wreck on the final lap of the Xfinity Series, no caution. So now the precedent they have set is that if there is a last lap crash, the leaders are allowed to race back to the line. However, when there was a big wreck last night on the final lap of overtime, and the leaders were three-wide coming out off turn 4, the caution is thrown. NASCAR is confusing and frustrating fans as to what the actual rule is. Where is the line? Why are we changing it up every weekend? My issue isn’t with the call. I think for the safety of the drivers, it is absolutely the right call to not let someone get T-Boned because the race stayed green. However, I am calling for NASCAR to start being consistent with the calls. Is it a caution or not? Is there a way you can make a judgment rule so that every fan knows what to expect at the track each race? Many questions left fans upset online after the race.

Don’t let my negativity on the officiating take away from how great of a race this was. We saw three-wide racing, we saw passing, we saw a lot in the first 260 laps. Christopher Bell wins at Atlanta and locks himself into the playoffs in just week 2 of the season.

THE NEXT RACE

The NASCAR Xfinity and Cup series turn left and right next week on March 1st and 2nd as they travel out to Austin, Texas to race the iconic Circuit of The America’s track. This race starts at 3:30 PM EST on FOX.

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