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Joey Logano won the latest NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, his first victory of the season and his maiden career victory at Atlanta.
Logano dominated Sunday's (March 19) race, leading 139 out of 260 laps en route to victory. He had to overcome being shuffled back in the pack and make a last-lap pass on former teammate Brad Keselowski to take home the victory.
Here are three takeaways from today's NASCAR Cup Series Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
#3 Ford is the manufacturer to beat at superspeedways
The one thing that is abundantly clear so far this season is that Chevrolet is the manufacturer to beat overall. However, Fords are the ones to beat at superspeedways.
Logano and Aric Almirola won their respective duel races at Daytona in February. The RFK Racing duo of Keselowski and Chris Buescher dominated the Daytona 500 until a late caution wiped that away. Logano followed that up with his win at Atlanta.
Toyota and Chevrolet need to catch up with the Blue Oval when the Cup Series goes to Talladega Superspeedway next month.
#2 A tale of two races
While Saturday's Truck and Xfinity Series races were caution-filled, Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race was a tale of two races.
The first and second stages were primarily single file with no passes for the lead. The most intriguing part was the green flag pit stops during stage 2. This is mostly due to the new pit road rules at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where drivers must enter on the backstretch heading into Turn 3.
The final stage was action packed with the field being mostly two and sometimes three-wide for the majority of the stage. The best part is that for the most part, there were no major wrecks and we got a clean finish.
#1 Brad Keselowski’s statement day
So far this season, Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing have seen major improvements compared to their 2022 season. Sunday was probably the peak of that and a statement day.
Keselowski was in the top 5 for the majority of the day and was leading on the last lap until Logano passed him on the backstretch for the victory.
If Keselowski and RFK Racing as a whole can continue to keep the momentum going in the coming months, there’s no reason why one or even both RFK cars can't make it into the NASCAR playoffs.
