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My thoughts:
-plate racing in a nutshell-that race, it's one giant clusterf*** that has no bearing on the rest of the season
-yeah, stage racing is so great, we're halfway through the race and most of the contenders are gone
-Fox didn't mention this at all (more on them in a second), but before the stage finishes everyone 15th to 20th on back intentionally stayed some seconds back of the lead group to not get caught up in the wreck, which did happen
-talking actual racing, I thought it was an actual improvement, cars at the back end of the lead draft could and did lose the lead draft
-I stick up for the little guy, but 12 or so to go you have Brendan Gaughan, Chris Buescher, and Matt DiBenedetto in the top 7. Almirola led with half a lap to go and had done absolutely nothing to that point the whole race.
-Fox had a bad broadcast. What matters most in a plate race as far as consequences is losing the lead draft and running by yourself. They very rarely tackled this. Larson at one point looking at the timing went from back of the lead draft to a lap down. What happened? No idea. And this is later in the race where one less car in the lead draft means one less contender for the win, and before Byron's wreck that screwed up everything it was down to 14 I think.
-Also, they had 2 larger wrecks, 2 big long prearranged caution breaks, other caution periods, and Fox had to have 4 commercial breaks late in the race in about a 20 to 25 lap span when it looked like Stage 3 would go green the whole time. That's bad management by the director.
-Mark Thompson and D.J. Kennington finished ahead of Kyle Busch.
Atlanta entry is out - only the 36 charter teams, with 1 of those in bankruptcy court today
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