Superspeedway racing has always been the bread and butter for NASCAR and it has over the years helped to define the sport. Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway are the two tracks that host the most entertaining, chaotic, and most watched races in the NASCAR scene. But in 2022 a new track joined the party.
Atlanta Motor Speedway was repaved and was turned into a small Superspeedway. In the last three years, every race that the track hosted has been successful from an entertainment perspective. Last Sunday it hosted the best of all, where Daniel Suarez won the race with a 0.003-second margin to P2 Ryan Blaney and a 0.007-second margin to P3 Kyle Busch, making it the closest top-3 finish in the sports’ history.
Now Denny Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 champion, has detailed how difficult the race is. He reckons winning a race at the new Atlanta track is tougher than winning at a true Superspeedway like Daytona and Talladega. He also highlighted how much drafting is a factor at Atlanta.
Certainly, this race is more difficult than a Daytona or Talladega. I mentioned prerace as well, is that on this track at Atlanta, the runs are bigger. The actual draft and the superspeedway effect of the draft is more pronounced at Atlanta one hundred percent more than what it is at Talladega, and like fifty percent more it feels like, than Daytona. Hamlin said via Action Detrimental.
Why is the draft in Atlanta track so strong?
Hamlin, while discussing the effects of the draft at Atlanta, pointed out that the narrowness of the Georgia track makes draft runs at the track way more than what it is at tracks like Daytona. Compared to Talladega where there is enough space for air to escape, in Atlanta the draft is powerful.
What I believe is because the air just gets trapped in the facility, and the smaller it is the more the air just gets swirling and going, right? So, the runs at Talladega are not as big as they are at Daytona, and the runs at Daytona are not as big as they are at Atlanta. Because the track is narrower and the narrower the track, that air, that jetstream, becomes more powerful. Where at Talladega, the thing is so wide the air just goes all over the place and it can escape easier. Hamlin said.
Denny Hamlin will lineup alongside the rest of the Cup grid next Sunday at Atlanta for the third race of the season. He would be hoping to redeem himself after poor finishes in Superspeedways where he is usually competitive.
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