Kyle Petty makes bold claim about EchoPark Speedway following Chase Elliott's thrilling win

Saturday night's NASCAR Cup Series race at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) was the latest reminder of the exciting racing the track has continued to produce since its reconfiguration ahead of the 2022 season.

The race featured 46 lead changes and constant passing throughout the field, similar to the slingshot moves drivers used to make in the Daytona summer race. Drivers fought ill-handling cars all night, and the 400-mile race came down to a thrilling last-lap pass for the win as Georgia's own Chase Elliott got around Brad Keselowski and prevailed for his first win of the season.

Atlanta produced 50 lead changes in the spring race and featured a three-wide, photo finish in the 2024 spring race, won by Daniel Suarez over Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch. 

With so much passing — which has been hard to come by at most tracks in the Next Gen Car — and thrilling finishes, has EchoPark Speedway become the best track in NASCAR? Former driver Kyle Petty weighed in on the latest episode of his "Kiss My A--phalt" podcast.

"I think so," Petty said. "So many times, this racetrack was classified as a mile-and-a-half like Texas, like Kansas, like Charlotte, all these racetracks. It was not the superspeedway of Talladega and Daytona. But somehow, it busted out of its boundaries, it busted out of its venue, it's busted out of its genre and it moved to a different category. It is the one and only Atlanta Motor Speedway."

Petty then pointed to the uniqueness of Atlanta and how it gives drivers the opportunity to make moves that they typically could not at other tracks.

"You can't argue that Brad K (Keselowski), that Chase Elliott, that Alex Bowman, that those guys, the skill level they have to race this way, to make those moves, to make those counter moves," Petty said. "This racetrack allows these drivers to do things here that they can't do at Daytona, they can't do at Talladega, they can't do at Charlotte, they can't do at Texas. They can only do this at Atlanta.

"I don't know why they're not hanging from the rafters at that place every time they open the gate," Petty continued. "They should race there every week as far as I'm concerned because it is great NASCAR racing."

Yes, the race featured several crashes, including the Lap 69 "Big One" that either ended the race for or severely damaged over half the cars in the 40-car field. There was so much carnage that only four drivers were not involved in an incident.

Still, as drivers struggle to pass on short tracks and are forced to save fuel at the other superspeedways in Daytona and Talladega, Atlanta presents an entirely new challenge.

Even though most of the field was eliminated on Saturday night, the drivers who were left put on a thrilling race and traded the lead back and forth. It threw the In-Season Challenge upside down with so many upsets, but the race itself was everything the reconfigured EchoPark Speedway was designed to do.

It was edge-of-your-seat racing that took until the final lap to decide the winner. To top it off, Elliott won in front of his home crowd for the second time in his career and returned to Victory Lane in a points-paying race for the first time since April 2024 at Texas Motor Speedway.