STEWART-HAAS RACING
Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400
Date: Sept. 24, 2023
Event: Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (Round 30 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth (1.5-mile oval)
Format: 267 laps, broken into three stages (80 laps/85 laps/102 laps)
Race Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
SHR Race Finish:
● Kevin Harvick (Started 22nd, Finished 6th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
● Chase Briscoe (Started 31st, Finished 10th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
● Aric Almirola (Started 21st, Finished 18th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
● Ryan Preece (Started 25th, Finished 23rd / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
SHR Points:
● Kevin Harvick (13th with 2,102 points)
● Aric Almirola (22nd with 529 points)
● Ryan Preece (25th with 498 points)
● Chase Briscoe (30th with 413 points)
SHR Notes:
● Harvick earned his 13th top-10 of the season and his 25th top-10 in 39 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Texas.
● Harvick’s 39 starts at Texas are the most among all NASCAR Cup Series drivers, past and present, in Texas’ 26-year history.
● Harvick’s 25 top-10s at Texas are the most among all NASCAR Cup Series drivers, past and present. Next best on this list is Kurt Busch with 23 top-10s and Jimmie Johnson with 22 top-10s. The closest active driver to Harvick is Kyle Busch with 18 top-10s.
● Briscoe earned his seventh top-10 of the season.
● This was Briscoe’s second top-10 at Texas and his third straight top-15 in three career NASCAR Cup Series starts at the 1.5-mile oval.
● Briscoe finished eighth in Stage 1 to earn three bonus points.
● This was Almirola’s fifth straight result of 18th or better. He finished third Aug. 26 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, 14th Sept. 3 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, 17th Sept. 10 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City and 18th last week at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
Race Notes:
● William Byron won the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 to score his 10th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his series-leading sixth of the season and his first at Texas. His margin over second-place Ross Chastain was 1.863 seconds.
● There were 11 caution periods for a total of 55 laps.
● Twenty-five of the 36 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● This was the first race in the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Playoffs. Byron secured his spot in the Round of 8 via his win while Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch are currently below the top-eight cutline with two races remaining before the Round of 8 begins Oct. 15 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Sound Bites:
“I just struggled a little on the restarts getting the car pointed quick enough to really make ground, and didn’t do a very good job of putting the car in the right spots. We lost a couple on the restarts and probably should’ve finished third or fourth, but it was still a great day.” – Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang
“From where we started, 31st, to being on the front row with six to go, I thought our team did a really good job of making our car better all weekend. I guess we got damage on the nose there. I pushed Bubba (Wallace) to the lead the restart before and hit him super hard to get him out there and it split the nose. There at the end I was so tight, just hanging on. I would’ve loved to have another shot at it without the damage because I feel like it would’ve been really close. We’ve been struggling all year long on mile-and-a-halves, so to be as fast as we were today and run with the Hendrick cars and Gibbs cars says a lot. I’m proud of our effort at Stewart-Haas. We just still have to get better and go to Talladega and see if we can win there.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the YellaWood 500 on Sunday, Oct. 1 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The fifth race in the 10-race NASCAR Playoffs starts at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
