September 5, 2010
By Allen Madding
NASCAR has been coming to Atlanta Motor Speedway since July 31, 1960, then known as the Atlanta International Raceway. In 1960, Atlanta was a 1.5-mile oval shaped speedway. The track had two straight aways that were each just a tick over a quarter-mile long (measured at 1,800 feet) and two larges sweeping turns at the ends of the track that were a half-mile each. The original track was re-measured in 1970 by the standard NASCAR implemented that year measuring 10 feet out from the outside wall and was officially recorded at 1.522 miles total.
The track’s name was changed to Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1990. Parent company Speedway Motorsports Incorporated, owner of Charlotte Motor Speedway, reconfigured the track between the two race dates during the 1997 season. The NASCAR Winston Cup teams competed on the original track configuration for the Primestar 500 in March. Those in attendance will recall that some of the grading along the backstretch had been completed prior to the race, but the track surface was unchanged. As soon as the race was completed, construction crew went to work building the new grandstands, condominiums, and suites on what had been the backstretch. The track was changed to put a double dog leg in front of the new grandstands and moved the start finish line and flag stand to what had previously had been the backstretch making the old frontstretch the new backstretch. The old pit road was demolished and the new pit road was constructed.
Once the reconfiguration work and new paving was completed, the track was re-measured to 1.54-miles. The track surface itself has remained untouched since the reconfiguration and subsequent repaving.
Goodyear has had a few struggles over the years to produce tires capable of the cornering speeds at Atlanta. The track has always been fast but in recent years, it has become one of the fastest 1.5-mile tracks on the NASCAR schedules. NASCAR Sprint Cup cars have been clocked at 200 miles an hour entering the turns at the ends of the track and lap times have been recorded as high as 197 mph on the old track configuration and as high as 184 miles an hour on the new configuration.
For this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Emory Healthcare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Goodyear brought a new tire configuration. The left side tires supplied to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams is the same left side tire they competed on in the race in March of this year. The right side tires are a new item – tire code D4406.
Goodyear has had its work cut out for itself as the track surface at Atlanta has continued to change with age. As the asphalt has aged over the last 13 years, the surface has become more abrasive on tires and slicker.
Jeff Burton commented on the track surface prior to qualifying, “Man, I made a comment here last year racing in the race car during the race, ‘Are you sure we’re not at Rockingham?’ The place was so slick. The speed fell off so much, which is why it’s fun. The cars move around a lot here. There’s a lot of rear movement in the car. It’s a very, very difficult race track. This race track has a bigger personality split from qualifying to racing than anywhere we go. Qualifying is so fast, crazy fast.”
Carl Edwards described the current tire and track surface combination like this, “When you drive down in the corner here, there’s a certain amount of grip that you’re looking for. You expect to drive down in the corner and have the car grip a certain amount, and what’s happening here is that on the entry and exit of the corner, the tire feels really slick. The car has to be really compressed in the center of the corner to make a bunch of grip, so it becomes difficult to drive because it’s like ice. You’re sliding and sliding until you get the car compressed in the corner and then it turns. I don’t know what causes that. I don’t think my crew chief knows what causes that, so we’ve been struggling with it. In the race, you’ll see guys kind of go in a little too hard and miss the line or something and the car just takes off sliding. It’s just hard to drive, and I think that makes for good racing. I like that style of racing. I like that type of tire. I don’t know how they can get it to do that at other places, but its neat when you drive down here in the corner and you’ve got to pitch the car sideways and wait for it to grip and do all that. I think it’s a neat way to race.”
Jeff Gordon described the track surface and staying out on old tires by saying, “This track right now is very, very abrasive. It wears tires very quickly. You are taking a real gamble by staying out here. The only thing that can work in your favor is if it is going to be a green-white-checkered and the caution comes out. Otherwise, if you stay out on tires, you are going to get beat. I just don’t think there is any way around it.” He added, “When you take off, the brand-new tires are just able to run wide open though one and two and just about we open through three and four coming to the first lap and that is just such a huge advantage.”
Goodyear conducted testing on the new tire combination at Atlanta Motor Speedway in June with drivers Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard and Ryan Newman. Coincidentally, Newman was the fastest car in the final practice for the weekend’s Emory Healthcare 500 and second fastest of the two practice sessions prior to qualifying on Saturday. All practice sessions have been held during the day with the second session during the hottest time of day. Historically, the track surface gains more grip as it cools off in the transition from day to night, which used to make a car become tighter and not want to turn. But with the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Series chassis and tire combinations, when the track surface gains more grip as it cools off at night, many drivers and teams are finding the cars slide around more as if the car’s rear tires are sliding around more with cooler temperatures.
Sunday night’s Emory Healthcare 500 should favor the driver who is comfotable pitching a car sideways entering the turns and the team that can best adjust to the difference between practice, qualifying, and the night race’s track conditions.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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