How decision to reconfigure Atlanta Motor Speedway turned into a smash hit

When NASCAR rolled into Hampton, Georgia for the 2022 spring race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the 1.54-mile track that had been hosting NASCAR races since 1960 was an unknown quantity. 

How exactly had a facility with six decades of history behind it become a question mark? That was thanks to a massive overhaul of AMS that included a repave and a reconfiguration that included narrowing the track surface and increasing the banking in the corners. 

The intended result was to produce superspeedway racing akin to that at Daytona and Talladega. The actual result has been the saving grace of modern superspeedway racing in NASCAR. 

While the racing product at Daytona and Talladega with NASCAR's Next-Gen car has suffered, Atlanta — renamed to EchoPark Speedway in early June — has become the hottest ticket in all of stock car racing. Current racing at Daytona and Talladega is largely built on drivers saving fuel for a majority of the race, only to not be able to make any moves when the pay window opens and they attempt to push. 

But Atlanta has bucked the trend and become a call back to the speedway racing of decades past. With a track surface that has worn at a rapid pace, handling and tire wear matter much more at Atlanta than either Daytona or Talladega. Drivers can make moves even after pulling out of line, and a driver's skill in the draft and the quality of their vehicle both matter in determining if they get to the front. 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. called the reconfigured version of Atlanta the 'hottest ticket in NASCAR' in July 2023 after only the fourth race on the reconfigured track. When the Cup Series returned to AMS in February 2024, fans were treated to a thrilling, three-wide photo finish. 

Even a massive crash that broke out on Lap 69 of Saturday's Quaker State 400 and took out a host of contenders couldn't dampen the action, as even with half the field either out of the race or driving wounded cars, Atlanta still put on a show. Over the final 190 laps, drivers swapped the lead back and forth, while others staged furious charges to the front, such as Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who finished sixth after breaking a toe link and incurring a pit road penalty earlier in the race. 

When Chase Elliott crossed under the checkered flag and won in front of his home crowd, the final tally was 46 lead changes, following a race at Atlanta in February that featured 50. 

NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports had tried bold, new ideas prior to the reconfiguration of Atlanta. SMI CEO Marcus Smith turned the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway into must-see television by incorporating the infield road course, while Bristol's struggling spring race was turned into a dirt race — the first in the NASCAR Cup Series since 1970 at the time — from 2021-23. 

Bristol's spring race has since returned to a traditional event at the Last Great Colosseum, and while the Roval will return for the eighth time in October, it doesn't have the same allure it once did. 

But Atlanta has risen above other bold moves made by NASCAR in recent years to become one of the best tracks on the circuit. As racing at Daytona and Talladega has become relatively stale, Atlanta has become what Daytona and Talladega were in the 1990s — a high-speed, edge-of-your-seat superspeedway thriller that's far from a crapshoot and guaranteed to keep fans coming back for more.