HAMPTON, Ga. – Christopher Bell won the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway after the caution came out on the final lap. Bell was just barely ahead of Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson as they were battling three-wide for the win.

Larson led the field across the line for the white flag in NASCAR Overtime, but Bell was on his outside with momentum and speed. As the two drivers made their way down the backstretch, Bell nosed ahead. Heading into Turn 3, Bell received a big bump from Hocevar, who was running third. Hocevar then split Bell and Larson with a three-wide, up the middle move. The three drivers were side-by-side-by-side when the caution came out for a crash along the backstretch. The win marked Bell’s first at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“I’ll tell you what, that right there is what you dream of, to be able to restart on the first or second row in a green/white checkered in a speedway,” Bell said. “You never know how those things are going to play out, but I’ll be the first to tell you, I love superspeedways (laughing).

“I don’t know. This style of racing has just always been a little bit of a struggle for me, and throughout the beginning of the day we obviously were just stuck way in the back. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and these boys back here, they did an amazing job getting this thing fixed up to where I could just hold my foot down. That’s what it’s all about. You have to be able to stay in the throttle, and that last half of the race we were at our best.”

Hocevar finished runner-up in the No. 77 Delaware Life Chevrolet, a personal best for the Spire Motorsports driver in the NASCAR Cup Series. While Hocevar wanted the win, a second-place effort helped make up for a 30^th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500.

“I hit the 20 (Bell) to get him out of the way and fill the middle,” Hocevar said. “A little bit longer, maybe we win the race. Big thanks to Spire Motorsports, Chevrolet, everybody, Delaware Life. I normally ride in the back and run last, and I tried to get a good, decent finish. For how bad we were at Daytona, I was no riding.”

Finishing third was Larson in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet. He hadn’t finished the four prior races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, so a third-place effort feels like a win for the Hendrick Motorsports team.

“Obviously the 20 got to my right side, but I don’t know,” Larson said. “I don’t know what I did wrong or right. I thought maybe the 20 picked me up. He was just going to push me and get clear of me into one anyway.

“I think it kind of worked out okay. Then, yeah, just didn’t get the caution to come out late enough until I got the run back to the inside. Came up a little bit short, but proud of the effort today by everybody on our HendrickCars.com Chevy. Yeah, finally finished at Atlanta and finally got to run up front.”

Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rounded out the top-five. Completing the top-10 was Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and John Hunter Nemechek.

Josh Berry won Stage 1, and Larson won Stage 2.

There were a record number of lead changes throughout the day. The lead was changed 50 times between 15 drivers. Joey Logano led a race high of 83 laps.

The caution came out 11 times for 63 laps.

The largest accident occurred on Lap 185, when eight drivers crashed on the frontstretch. It all started when Todd Gilliland, Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suarez ran out of room while battling three-wide. A chain reaction between the three ignited the crash.

“Yeah, I mean it was quickly, definitely, but the No. 54 (Ty Gibbs) was there,” Suarez said. “He was in the middle, and I didn’t know he was in the middle. That’s on me and my spotter. I think we have to do a better job in those situations. It’s part of it. I think that, overall, we just put ourselves in very bad situations throughout the race. We were not fast enough.”

The race was sent into NASCAR Overtime after Austin Cindric and William Byron crashed exiting Turn 2 on Lap 259. Cindric was trying to pass Larson for the lead when he bounced off the outside wall and collected Byron. The two drivers then spun down the track and hard into the inside wall.

“It was unfortunate,” Cindric said. “As a team, as Fords, we had the best cars here this weekend. We put ourselves into position to win the race and got used up and into the fence and didn’t win the race. It’s a shame. Two weeks in a row I feel like we have had the car to beat and haven’t done it. One way or another it is disappointing.”

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Circuit of The Americas on Sunday, March 2 for the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. Live coverage will broadcast on FOX at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Mitchell White/TheFourthTurn.com