2016 Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500

The **2016 Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500** was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held on February 28, 2016, at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia. Contested over 330 laps—extended from 325 laps due to an overtime finish, on the 1.54-mile-long (2 km) asphalt quad-oval intermediate speedway, it was the second race of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Jimmie Johnson won the race, the 76th of his career. This drew him level with Dale Earnhardt for seventh on the all-time wins list and third in NASCAR's post-1972 "modern era." Teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finished second. Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards rounded out the top-five.

Kurt Busch won the pole for the race and led 62 laps on his way to a fourth-place finish. Kevin Harvick led a race high of 131 laps on his way to a sixth-place finish. There were 28 lead changes among eight different drivers, as well as three caution flag periods for 13 laps.

This was the 76th career victory for Johnson, first of the season, fifth at Atlanta Motor Speedway and 14th at the track for Hendrick Motorsports. It moved Johnson up to sixth in the points standings. Despite being the winning manufacturer, Chevrolet left Atlanta trailing by three-points to Toyota in the manufacturer standings.

The Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 was carried by Fox Sports on the broadcast Fox network for the American television audience. The radio broadcast for the race was carried by the Performance Racing Network and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.

## Report

### Background

**Atlanta Motor Speedway** (formerly **Atlanta International Raceway**) is a track in Hampton, Georgia, 20 miles (32 km) south of Atlanta. It is a 1.54-mile (2.48 km) quad-oval track with a seating capacity of 111,000. It opened in 1960 as a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) standard oval. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track. In 1997, to standardize the track with Speedway Motorsports' other two 1.5-mile (2.4 km) ovals, the entire track was almost completely rebuilt. The frontstretch and backstretch were swapped, and the configuration of the track was changed from oval to quad-oval. The project made the track one of the fastest on the NASCAR circuit.

Denny Hamlin entered as the points leader with a five-point lead over Martin Truex Jr. Kyle Busch entered third, six points back. Kevin Harvick entered fourth, eight points back. Carl Edwards entered fifth, nine points back.

## Entry list

The entry list for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 was released on Tuesday, February 23 at 4:34 p.m. Eastern time. Thirty-nine cars were entered for the race, the smallest field for a Sprint Cup Series race since the 1996 Tyson Holly Farms 400, the last Cup Series race held at North Wilkesboro Speedway. It was also the fewest cars entered for a Cup Series race since 1993. The three driver changes for this weekend's race were Ty Dillon taking over the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet, Jeffrey Earnhardt driving the No. 32 Go FAS Racing Ford and Michael McDowell returning to the seat of the No. 95 Circle Sport – Leavine Family Racing Chevrolet.

## First practice

Kyle Larson was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 28.740 and a speed of 192.902 mph (310.446 km/h).

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## Qualifying

 File:TSM350 - Kurt Busch 3 - 2015 - Stierch.jpg
Kurt Busch won the pole for the race with a time of 28.938 and a speed of 191.582 mph (308.321 km/h) after brother Kyle Busch had his time disallowed for a post-tech violation. The rear toe of the car – the degree to which the vertical angle of the rear wheels are skewed – was over the .15 degree maximum allowed after pre-inspection. NASCAR Senior Vice-President of Competition and Racing Development Scott Miller said that teams had "asked for it," NASCAR "instituted it" and the No. 18 car "didn't pass. The others [that went through tech] passed."

After scoring his 20th career pole, Kurt said that it was "an awesome run that the car had in it. The team did a good job to dial it in for the three rounds. I was just trying to make sure I didn’t slip a tire any extra. It’s really easy to overdrive Atlanta Motor Speedway. The track challenges the driver, the car and the tires. It’s a fun place to come and try to lay down a lap. Overall, with the way the developments came up from tech inspection this shows the amount of enforcement that NASCAR is ready to apply their technical procedures on what a car has to do to comply to all specs.”

After being bumped up to the front row, Jamie McMurray said that he was "really proud of everyone at the entire shop. When you come to a 1.5-mile track you're really depending on your car. And our 1.5-mile program last year wasn't where it needed to be. They put a lot of effort into it. Like I said during Speedweeks and all the offseason, this is where you really need to be good. The No. 42 car (teammate Kyle Larson) was fast in practice. He got really loose, it looked like, in his qualifying laps. But then, we were really good as well. So I'm proud of the effort by everybody on the McDonald's Chevrolet. We're off to a good start at the 1.5-mile tracks, which is critical."

After his best qualifying performance on a non-restrictor plate track, Trevor Bayne said that his team is "really looking forward to this low-downforce package, as we've talked about over the offseason. We felt like our best races were at the low downforce tracks, Kentucky and Darlington, so everybody that's wondering what's going on at Roush Fenway Racing -- a lot of hard work and a lot of attention to detail. We had a meeting last week talking about execution. Everybody's intentions are right. Everybody wants to go fast. Everybody wants to win races, but now we've got to execute and make sure we make these fast Fords last."

Adam Stevens, crew chief of the No. 18 car, explained that "parts move — everything moves — so you expect it to be a little bit different, but the first opportunity we’ve had to gather post information was right now, and it’s game time and it was too much. We were perfectly legal beforehand, which obviously or we wouldn’t have qualified. Just the amount of load on the track moves everything a little bit and that little bit was a little bit too much.”

## Final practice

Denny Hamlin was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 29.419 and a speed of 188.450 mph (303.281 km/h).

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## Race

Even a late caution flag that sent the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 into overtime could not help the Ford teams improve on their finishing positions at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Jimmie Johnson took the checkered flag for the 76th time in his career to tie Dale Earnhardt on the all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup win’s list. Brad Keselowski finished 9th and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 10th to lead the contingent of Ford drivers; Logano 12th, Biffle 13th, and Almirola in 15th were the only other Fusion drivers to finish in the top 20.

The race was run with only 2 caution flags, none during the first half of the race and the second coming with just 3 laps remaining that created a green-white-checker finish. NASCAR’s new overtime rule came into play when the leaders crossed the “valid restart” line on the backstretch only to have a wreck end the race as the rear of the field came out of turn two.
Joey Logano had run consistently in the top 10 during the first half of the race and appeared to have a Fusion that could contend for a win. Unfortunately, Logano made a mistake entering pit road just past the halfway point of the race and took out the commitment cone at the entrance to pit road resulting in a drive-through penalty that placed the number 22 Ford a lap down. After two races Logano is 8th in the Sprint Cup Points standings while Almirola is in 10th.

### Race summary

* Lead changes: 28
* Cautions/Laps: 3 for 13
* Red flags: 0
* Time of race: 3 hours, 15 minutes and 38 seconds
* Average speed: 155.863 miles per hour (250.837 km/h)

## Media

### Television

The Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 was carried by Fox in the United States. Mike Joy, five-time Atlanta winner Jeff Gordon and three-time Atlanta winner Darrell Waltrip worked the race from the booth. Pit road was manned by Jamie Little, Vince Welch and Matt Yocum.

### Radio

The race was broadcast on radio by the Performance Racing Network and simulcast on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. Doug Rice, Mark Garrow and Wendy Venturini called the race from the booth when the field raced down the front stretch. Rob Albright called the race from atop a billboard outside of turn 2 when the field raced through turns 1 and 2. Pat Patterson called the race from a billboard outside of turn 3 when the field raced through turns 3 and 4. On pit road, PRN was manned by Brad Gillie, Brett McMillan, Jim Noble and Steve Richards.

 **Lead announcer:** Doug Rice**Announcer:** Mark Garrow**Announcer:** Wendy Venturini | **Turns 1 & 2:** Rob Albright**Turns 3 & 4:** Pat Patterson | Brad GillieBrett McMillanJim NobleSteve Richards

## References

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