Welcome to the Racing America On SI Live Race Updates page for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta.

Be sure to refresh this post throughout Saturday night’s event as the Live Race Updates story will be updated regularly with the biggest moments from the 400-mile race around the 1.54-mile drafting track, including lead changes, crash replays, the winner of the race, finishing results, and In-Season Tournament updates.

Lap 48: Back to Green!

Jory Logano, and Austin Cindric, who did not pit under this caution, lead the field to green. They are side-by-side up front, and Cindric looks to have a slight advantage going into Turns 3 and 4, and Cindric leads Lap 49. This is the first lead change of the race.

Lap 46: Close Calls on Pit Road

The fuel can and fueling area on Noah Gragson’s No. 4 Ford caught fire as he was peeling out of his pit stall during his pit stop under this caution. Fortunately, the fire went out as he drove off pit road.

Christopher Bell also exited his pit stall wide, which forced Bubba Wallace to drive through the grass with his right side tires.

Lap 44: Bell Needs Push From Tow Truck

Christopher Bell was the lone driver who couldn’t get his car to fire on pit road, but after a push from the tow truck, Bell was able to catch up to the field and take his position back.

8:09 PM ET: Engines Re-fired

Track drying efforts are nearly completed, and the drivers have been instructed to re-fire their engines.

Red Flag Thoughts

While Joey Logano has led every lap of this race, we’ve seen some good racing in the pack, and drivers throughout the field have complained about ill-handling cars with the aging track surface at EchoPark Speedway. Handling will be at a premium tonight.

Chase Briscoe has had a rough start to the race and has dropped to 39th from the 10th starting spot. Briscoe has told his team it’s like his right rear tire hasn’t even been touching the track. A lot of bad balance issues are going on with the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota right now.

Lap 42: Cars Being Called to Pit Road

We’re about to head to a red flag for rain as the drops continue to fall in Turns 1 and 2 and down the backstretch of the EchoPark Speedway. The NASCAR Tower is calling for drivers to park in the outside lane of pit road. Drivers are being told to stay in their cars as this is expected to be a brief delay.

Lap 36: Caution No. 1

We’re under caution for the first time in the Quaker State 400 on Lap 36. This caution is unfortunately for perecipitation. Right now, it looks like light sprinkles to light rain, but there are reports that drops are intensifying in Turns 1 and 2.

Lap 33: Keselowski Up to P2, and Pressuring Logano

Brad Keselowski has moved into the second position, and he is threatening to become the first leader of this race not named Joey Logano.

Lap 29: Byron Fights Back, Blasts Past Hocevar

William Byron was not happy with Carson Hocevar. he rebounded from being placed in the middle, and worked to the outside of the track, where he zoomed around Hocevar for the seventh position.

Lap 24: Six Chevrolets Lined Up Behind Six Fords Up Front

The Chevrolet camp has gotten their resources together and they have six cars lined up behind the top-six Fords. The Chevys, now led by William Byron are starting to make their move, but Hocevar cuts to the inside of Byron and goes three wide with Byron and Cindric. Yikes, that was sketchy, but they get through it. Hocevar has killed the Chevrolet momentum, and Byron is stuck in the middle.

Lap 22: Hocvear on the Move

Carson Hocevar has found a way through the pack as he has moved his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet from the 30th starting spot to seventh. Hocevar is now the highest-running non-Ford driver. Joey Logano continues to lead this race.

Lap 16: Hendrick Quartet Starting to Press Things

All four Hendrick Motorsports cars have gotten hooked up with Alex Bowman (8th) leading them. They are starting to try to pry some of the Ford contingent apart from each other. Logano still leads Berry, Blaney, Cindric, with Zane Smith, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Preece in front of the four Hendrick cars.

Lap 6: Blaney Clears Keselowski; All Penske Up Front

Ryan Blaney was able to clear Brad Keselowski, who had been hanging on his outside, and now it’s all Team Penske up front. The top-four have broken into a single file line in front of the pack and are still led by Logano. It looks like Team Penske is doing its best impersonation of Stewart-Haas Racing at Talladega a few years ago.

Lap 4: Fords Dominating the Top-10

After a strong qualifying effort, the blue ovals hold the top eight spots in the running order on Lap 4. Joey Logano still leads. Kyle Larson is the first non-Ford in the running order in ninth.

Lap 1: Logano Gets a Good Surge

Joey Logano got a great push from Ryan Blaney to start the race, and he cleared Josh Berry in Turn 1. Coming off of Turn 1 on the opening lap, Logano goes to the outside lane in front of Berrt. All four Penske-affiliated cars are all now lined up bumper to tail on the bottom lane.

Brad Keselowski is leading the outside lane on the outside of Blaney.

7:22 PM ET Green Flag!

The green flag is waving on the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, GA. The front two rows leading the field are occupied by all of the Team Penske-affiliated cars. Joey Logano and Josh Berry lead the field into Turn 1.

Logano is in the inside line with Ryan Blaney behind him while Berry is up top with Austin Cindric behind him.

7:08 PM ET: Engines Are Fired

The engines have been fired, and we are ready to start pace laps for the Quaker State 400.

7:02 PM ET: Inovcation, National Anthem, and Flyover

The invocation, National Anthem, and flyover ahead of Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway have been completed. The drivers are now sliding behind the wheel of their race cars, and we are approaching the command to fire engines.

Drivers Introduced Along With Their Opponent in the NASCAR In-Season Tournament

Ahead of Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway, the 32 drivers taking part in the NASCAR In-Season Tournament were introduced on the frontstretch stage alongside their opponent in Round 1 of the tournament in a “fight weigh-in” style set up.

No drivers got more into the shtick than Michael McDowell and AJ Allmendinger, who had a tussle on the stage prior to stepping up on the scales.

NASCAR Reveals Quaker State 400 Pre-Race Festivities Schedule

NASCAR has confirmed that as of now no cars will drop to the rear before the green flag of Saturday night’s Quaker State 400.

The sanctioning body has also revealed the complete pre-race festivities schedulen and the approximate green flag time:

6:01 PM ET: Lightning Hold Has Expired

The 30-minute clock has expired on the lightning hold at EchoPark Speedway. No additional lightning strikes have occurred in the vicinity of the 1.54-mile speedway in Hampton, GA, there has been no rain fall as of yet.

The situation at the track is very overcast skies, and the radar shows plenty of weather in and around the area. But as it stands, there is still no delay to Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway.

Weather Rolling In; Track in Lightning Hold

Weather is building around EchoPark Speedway, and while no rain has hit the track just yet, lightning in the area has forced NASCAR and the track to evacuate the grandstands and pit road at the 1.54-mile speedway.

There is still over an hour before the scheduled start time of Saturday night’s race, but there is a significant weather system building to the Northwest of the track, which has grown a lot in the last 30 minutes.

As of now, there is no delay to the start of the Quaker State 400. If the conditions change, we’ll update you.

Bell Anxious Heading into Atlanta Race With Another New Spotter

Christopher Bell came out of the gates firing in 2025 as he scored three consecutive wins early in the season, and went on to win the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Strangely, Bell’s longtime spotter Stevie Reeves quit the No. 20 team following the All-Star Race, which put Bell and his team in a bind.

Matt Philpott, a longtime crew member in the sport and relatively new spotter, stepped in to fill the void for Bell and the No. 20 team in the Coca-Cola 600. However, when HYAK Motorsports released veteran spotter Tab Boyd following a controversial social media post during the Mexico City race weekend, Joe Gibbs Racing saw an opportunity to add an experienced spotter for Bell’s team.

However, with the latest spotter change, Bell will now need to build rapport at one of the most stressful tracks there are for driver/spotter combinations — EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta. Needless to say, Bell is going into Saturday night’s race expecting a struggle in the early portion of the race.

“Uh, yeah, it’s going to be tough,” Bell stated. “I’ve listened to Tab on our replay system, but aside from that, that’s all we’ve got. It’s going to be tough, for sure, getting acclimated at probably one of the most spotter-intense race tracks on the calendar, but Tab has a bunch of experience. So, we’ll play it by ear. And definitely the first Stage or two is going to be a learning curve.”

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The Quaker State 400 Pre-Race Info

The Quaker State 400 will be televised on TNT, the first of five NASCAR Cup Series races to be covered by the cable television channel this season. The TNT Sports race broadcast will begin at 7:00 PM ET, and the five-race TNT schedule can also be streamed on the Max streaming service.

The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of Saturday’s race. For subscribers of the Max streaming service, NASCAR Driver Cam, which streams live in-car camera footage from every car in the field, will be available for today’s race.

The overall race purse, which teams will fight for their portion of in Saturday’s race, is a total of $11,055,250.

The race distance is 260 laps around the 1.54-mile drafting track, which equates to a 400.4-mile race distance.

The Quaker State 400 will be broken up into three Stages. Stage 1 will end at the conclusion of Lap 60. Stage 2 will end at the conclusion of Lap 160. And the race is scheduled to finish at the end of Lap 260, barring an Overtime finish.

The winner of Stages 1 and 2 will be awarded one Playoff Point, and the overall race winner will be awarded five Playoff Points. The Playoff Points will be added to the reseeded point totals if the drivers make it into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and will be carried through each round of the Playoffs.

Joey Logano is the defending winner of this event, and Christopher Bell won the event at EchoPark Speedway earlier this season.

Joey Logano Takes Quaker State 400 Pole in First Tiebreaker Settled by a Tiebreaker Since 2007

Joey Logano, the defending winner of the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway (formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway) will start the race from the pole position after he turned a lap time 30.979 seconds (178.960 mph) in Friday’s qualifying session.

It took a tiebreaker for Logano to pick up his first pole of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season as Josh Berry, the driver of the Team Penske-affiliated No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse turned the exact same lap time.

All four of the Team Penske-affiliated cars will start from the top-four spots in Saturday night’s race as Ryan Blaney secured the third starting spot and Austin Cindric will roll from the grid in fourth.

“Super proud of Team Penske, Roush-Yates, and Ford, obviously. To keep our Mustangs up there, really shows the ability to repeat from car to car,” Logano said. “It’s really hard to do. When you see we tied with the 21, and the other cars were all within a couple of hundredths of second. When you think of all of the parts and pieces in a race car and how you can put them together, to make them all end up the same like that is pretty impressive.”

Quaker State 400 Starting Lineup

Click here for the full official Quaker State 400 Starting Lineup.

Denny Hamlin Enters Atlanta as NASCAR In-Season Tournament No. 1 Seed

Despite missing the race at Mexico City (the second race of the three-race seeding period), Denny Hamlin will enter Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway as the No. 1 seed in the In-Season Tournament, which was based off of the Denny Hamlin bracket tournament that he created on his Actions Detrimental Podcast a season ago.

Seeding was determined by best race finish in the three-race period, and by way of his win at Michigan, Hamlin joined Chase Briscoe, who won at Pocono, as the only tournament-eligible drivers that won over the three race seeding period.

By way of a runner-up finish at Pocono, Hamlin won the tie-breaker over Briscoe to take the No. 1 seed.

32 drivers will be paired off in groups of two (determined by the three-race tournament seeding period (Michigan, Mexico City, Pocono). The tournament will be a five-round head-to-head elimination style bracket tournament, where the top seed remaining will face off agains the lowest seed remaining each week.

The driver, who outlasts the 31 others in the bracket, will be awarded a $1 million bonus at the conclusion of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Here are all of the head-to-head matchups in Saturday night’s race, which will serve as the opening round of NASCAR’s inaugural In-Season Challenge.

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