STEWART-HAAS RACING
Folds of Honor 500
Date: March 20, 2022
Event: Folds of Honor 500 (Round 5 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Atlanta Motor Speedway (1.54-mile oval)
Format: 325 laps, broken into three stages (105 laps/105 laps/115 laps)
Race Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Ryan Blaney of Team Penske (Ford)
SHR Race Finish:
● Chase Briscoe (Started 1st, Finished 15th / Running, completed 325 of 325 laps)
● Kevin Harvick (Started 8th, Finished 21st / Running, completed 325 of 325 laps)
● Aric Almirola (Started 10th, Finished 22nd / Running, completed 325 of 325 laps)
● Cole Custer (Started 20th, Finished 34th / Accident, completed 150 of 325 laps)
SHR Points:
● Chase Briscoe (3rd with 155 points, 15 out of first)
● Aric Almirola (7th with 143 points, 27 out of first)
● Kevin Harvick (15th with 126 points, 44 out of first)
● Cole Custer (29th with 76 points, 94 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Briscoe earned his third top-15 of the season and his second top-15 in three career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Atlanta.
● This was Briscoe’s second straight top-15. He won last Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.
● Briscoe’s 15th-place finish equaled previous best result at Atlanta, as he finished 15th last July.
● Briscoe finished third in Stage 2 to earn eight bonus points.
● Briscoe led once for five laps – his first laps led at Atlanta.
● Harvick led twice for 11 laps to increase his laps-led total at Atlanta to a series-best 1,359.
● Harvick has now led 11,368 laps since joining SHR in 2014. He has led 15,794 laps in his entire NASCAR Cup Series career.
● Almirola finished fourth in Stage 2 to earn seven bonus points.
● Almirola led once for six laps to increase his laps-led total at Atlanta to 50.
Race Notes:
● William Byron won the Folds of Honor 500 to score his third career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his first at Atlanta. His margin over second-place Ross Chastain was .145 of a second.
● There were 11 caution periods for a total of 65 laps.
● Only 23 of the 37 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Chase Elliott leaves Atlanta as the championship leader with a seven-point advantage over second-place Joey Logano.
Sound Bites:
“There at the beginning, I got a little bit of damage but our car was honestly really good. We could never lead, but I could shove people really, really good and, if I had somebody that was good in front of me, I could just keep going and keep picking them off. There at the end, I felt like with how my car was, and I kept going to the bottom, the top was just so fast down the straightaway, so I knew I probably wasn’t going to win with the damage I had on the nose. So I was just trying to stay committed to running the top to keep our momentum up. I thought we were going to come out third or fourth and was trying to help the 12 (Ryan Blaney) and, honestly, to shove him to potentially the win, and I went in there and I just got him loose into (turn) one and obviously we both hit the fence because of it. It’s unfortunate. We were both going to have a really good day and I kind of shot ourselves in the foot there.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang
“Man, we had such a fast Smithfield Ford all day. It handled great, too. It was nice to run up front and get some stage points. We got spun by the No. 1 car (Ross Chastain) there running up in fourth and I thought our car was fine, but we heard a rattle so we came to pit road and took tires to check on it and it looked fine. When we restarted, we just didn’t have full power and (we had) some mechanical issues and just had to ride until the checkered flag waved. I think we would’ve had a good shot at it. This 10 team will continue to fight.” – Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang
“The track is so narrow here that they got together up front and everybody stacked up with nowhere to go, so we hit the wall. We didn’t really hit that hard, but it broke some of the right-rear suspension and put us out.” – Cole Custer, driver of the No. 41 Dixie Vodka Ford Mustang
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix on Sunday, March 27 at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
