STEWART-HAAS RACING
RAPTOR King of Tough 250
Date: Feb. 24, 2024
Event: RAPTOR King of Tough 250 (Round 2 of 33)
Series: NASCAR Xfinity Series
Location: Atlanta Motor Speedway (1.54-mile oval)
Format: 163 laps, broken into three stages (40 laps/40 laps/83 laps)
Note: Race extended six laps past its scheduled 163-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.
Race Winner: Austin Hill of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: Jesse Love of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Jesse Love of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet)
SHR Race Finish:
● Riley Herbst (Started 4th, Finished 15th / Running, completed 168 of 169 laps)
● Cole Custer (Started 11th, Finished 16th / Running, completed 168 of 169 laps)
SHR Points:
● Riley Herbst (3rd with 74 points, 28 out of first)
● Cole Custer (12th with 56 points, 46 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Herbst earned his second straight top-15 of the season and his fifth top-15 in eight career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Atlanta.
● Herbst finished second in Stage 1 to earn nine bonus points and third in Stage 2 to earn eight more bonus points.
● Custer finished seventh in Stage 2 to earn four bonus points.
Race Notes:
● Austin Hill won the RAPTOR King of Tough 250 to score his eighth career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory, his second of the season, and his third at Atlanta. His margin over second-place Chandler Smith was .106 of a second.
● There were four caution periods for a total of 23 laps.
● Only 14 of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Hill remains the championship leader after Atlanta with a 17-point advantage over second-place Sheldon Creed.
Sound Bites:
“Not a good ending. We thought we were good on fuel, but obviously that wasn’t the case. That’s how the fuel mileage game goes though, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. Our No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang was fast all day, so it’s a bummer. At the end, it looked like we had a shot at the win. We’ll take it and head to Vegas next week.” –Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang
“I felt like it was a solid day. We had put ourselves in a good position, but we just missed it by a little bit on the fuel mileage. That final stage turned out to be a big fuel mileage race. Just needed that little bit more and a few more laps of fuel. So we had ourselves set up to get a solid finish, but it just didn’t work out the way we wanted. We’ll move on to Vegas.” –Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is the The LiUNA! on Saturday, March 2 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The race begins at 5 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
