The 2025 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway

This is one of the crown jewels, and the longest race of the year, the Coca-Cola 600. 4 stages, 400 laps, it has to be tiring. I got tickets to see the Arca, Truck, and Xfinity races. To be honest, the first two weren't that entertaining, and the Xfinity was good, just no one could stop wrecking. I also got to see many drivers, including Austin Dillon, Carson Kvapil, Justin Allgaier, Sammy Smith, Aric Almirola, etc. Anyways, enough with that. I got an article to write.

The first caution was on lap 42 for Kyle Larson spinning from the lead. He got up in the high groove, then lost his car and spun. He was able to keep it off the wall, though. So he was able to continue on with his race. He also crashed out of the Indy 500 eariler in the afternoon.

Another yellow flag flew for a 3 car incident involving 7 time champion Jimmie Johnson, rookie Connor Zilisch, and the 41 car of Cole Custer. It looked like Johnson got loose the same way Larson spun, getting up in the high groove. Then made contact with Connor Zilisch, sending the 87 spinning, and then Custer pilled into Zilisch.

On lap 245, there was a wreck through the tri-oval, taking many cars out of contention for the win. Chase Briscoe got loose on the exit of turn 4, making contact with the 12 of Ryan Blaney. The contact upset Briscoe's car, causing him to hit the quarter panel of Daniel Suarez's 99 machine, then the 99 swerved up into Blaney, causing some damage. Suarez then spun down the race track, and barely clipped Justin Haley, then made heavy contact with Larson.

Towards the end of the race, Ross Chastain was able to pass William Byron, who had been dominating the whole race. Apparently, a wreck in practice didn't stop the 1 car, because he won the Coca-Cola 600.

I hate it for Byron, but I'm just happy it wasn't anyone worse than Chastain. Also, when the annoucer came to interview him, he kept calling it "The World 600". I looked it up, and it was called the World 600 in 1960-1984, then the Coca-Cola World 600 in 1985, and then finally the shortened it to the Coca-Cola 600. Anywho, I'm done here. Tune in next week for the Cracker Barrel 400.