Kurt Busch wins over his brother in the Quaker State 400

Kurt and Kyle Busch are among the best sibling duos in NASCAR Cup Series history, and in Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the racing heavens favored the elder Kurt. Throughout the final stage, the two battled it out, but Kurt was able to complete the Busch 1–2 finish with the support of Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Ross Chastain.

The brothers dominated Sunday’s race, the final on the current Atlanta circuit before it is redesigned ahead of the 2022 season, as they led a combined 235 of 260 laps, with Kurt accounting for 144 of them. Chase Elliott, a Georgia native and pole sitter, was the only non-Busch to lead double-digit laps, with thirteen to open the day.

Kyle launched the Busch run by passing Elliott on lap 14 and winning the opening stage ahead of Kurt, Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, William Byron, Martin Truex Jr. (who started last after failing pre-race inspection twice) and Kevin Harvick. On lap 32, Cody Ware became loose in turn two while running four-abreast with Anthony Alfredo, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Daniel Suárez; Stenhouse and Suárez then collided and spun into the inside wall on the backstretch, with Alfredo squeezing past to avoid damage.

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The older Busch dominated the second stage, only giving up the lead to Aric Almirola for a brief moment; whilst Almirola led, rumors of rain hit the track, but no red flag was issued. Ironically, one would happen near the end of the stage when the aged track surface, which had not been replaced since 1997 and would only be changed in 2022 with the reconfiguration, broke off on the frontstretch, forcing a delay to fill it in. Kurt won the stage ahead of Kyle, Bowman, Larson, Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon, and Truex after a roughly twenty-minute pause that coincided with the full duration of the Euro 2020 Final’s penalty kick shootout.

When Stenhouse exited with a suspension problem shortly after the final stage began, he became the race’s lone retirement. Kurt and Kyle shared the lead throughout the segment before hitting lapped traffic; one of these cars was Kurt’s teammate Chastain, who took the high line on lap 236 and stopped Kyle from catching up to Kurt. Chastain’s actions irritated Kyle, who said in a post-race interview that it “shows you what kind of driver he is.”

Kurt pulled away in front of him to earn his thirty-third career victory, his first in 2021 to secure a playoff spot, and his first at Atlanta since 2010. It’s Chip Ganassi’s first victory since declaring in June that he’d sell the team to Trackhouse Racing Team at the end of the season.

“Atlanta Motor Speedway is one of the top tracks for all the drivers based off of how we’re able to slide the car through the corners and choose which lane we want to race in,” said Busch, as the winner of the final race with Atlanta’s current design. “Like a raceability factor, Atlanta Motor Speedway was always at the top of the list. I came to respect her surface and to ask her for the right amount of grip today, and I could feel it. I could feel she was helping me pull through and come out on top. I really wanted to win this last race on the old surface. I was pushing hard, and really happy for our GearWrench team to win this last race here.

“It’s going to go through a facelift, going to have a lot of new feel and a lot of new action next year, but this was the last little bit of the old school, and I’m glad an older guy won the race today.”

Kyle came in second, giving the brothers their fourth 1–2 finish. Kurt Busch defeated Kyle at Atlanta and Kentucky in 2019, but the younger Busch won the first two races at Sonoma in 2015 and Bristol in 2019.

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