The final few laps in the 2021 Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway turned into a battle royale between two rival organizations. Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney passed Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson with under 10 laps to go Sunday (March 21) after Larson had trouble getting around Joey Logano. Blaney’s Penske cohort was trying to hang onto a lead-lap finish, creating dirty air for Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet in the process.
Larson admitted after the race his tires were worn, but it sure didn’t help to have Logano racing right in front of him. Was the No. 22 Ford driver in the wrong and should he have given Larson and Blaney more room to race among themselves? Frontstretch’s Bryan Nolen and Adam Cheek discuss the issue, along with the length of Atlanta’s 500-mile event and the incident between Noah Gragson and Daniel Hemric in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race earlier in the weekend.
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Bryan Nolen is the Operations Manager and Multimedia Director for Frontstretch.com. He also hosts the Bringing the Heat with Bryan Nolen Podcast and occasionally makes appearances on The Happy Hour Podcast. He has a Sportscasting degree from the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting. He resides in Boise, Idaho, with his wife, his French Bulldog Archer and two rabbits.
Follow him on Twitter @TheBryanNolen
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.