In a heart-stopping display of skill and determination, Daniel Suarez managed to secure a close victory in the final laps of the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night.
So close was the finish that it required an extensive photo review between three drivers – Suarez and fellow competitors Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.
3-WIDE AT THE LINE! WHAT A FINISH. Repost to congratulate Daniel Suárez on his Atlanta Motor Speedway WIN! pic.twitter.com/RdewRqJiwg
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 26, 2024
In the end, Suárez was declared the winner by a mere 0.003 seconds. Fans on social media were declaring the three-wide finish to be one of the greatest NASCAR races they had ever seen.
Bounding Into Sports reporter John Hanson deftly covered details of the race.
It truly was incredible. Seriously, the finish couldn’t have been any closer if the three cars involved were named Lightning McQueen, The King, and Chick Hicks.
And yet, if you head over to the ESPN homepage at the time of this publication you will see exactly zero references to the race, NASCAR in general, or the victory by Daniel Suarez – a significant one as his first since June 2022 at Sonoma and one that secures a playoff spot.
ESPN Not Covering An Incredible NASCAR Finish
Daniel Suarez’s win was Atlanta’s closest finish in recorded history. As we mentioned, several observers called it one of the greatest NASCAR races they’d seen in years, if not decades.
ESPN’s homepage though is littered with stories they feel are more important – such as the Los Angeles Lakers complaining about the refs, the Cincinnati Bengals placing a franchise tag on their wide receiver, and the pitch clock in MLB.
Zzzzzz … Oh, sorry. I fell asleep looking at those headlines.
X users took notice but seemed keenly unsurprised that ESPN had eschewed NASCAR for other big-time sports.
“Not even a whisper of the incredible finish to yesterday’s NASCAR race on ESPN,” reads one post.
Others noted that ESPN didn’t even bother to post any comments or highlights of the NASCAR race on their own social media timeline.
“The result wasn’t woke enough for a headline,” another joked.
It reminds me of the line in Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldblum’s character asks, “Eventually, you do plan to have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour, right?”
ESPN stands for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. You do eventually plan to have entertainment and sports on your network, right?
The network does have an article on the race in their NASCAR section, buried in the other sports area of the main topics menu. Even then, there’s no original coverage or commentary. They simply use an Associated Press report.
