This is the recap from the top three Nascar series at Atlanta Motor Speedway:
On Saturday there were back to back races that included The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
In the truck series Christian Eckes won driving for Bill McAnally Racing, this was the first series win for driver and racing team.
At the conclusion of the truck race, NASCAR Xfinity series began their race. Austin Hill was the winner of this race, this was his third win of the season. Each race that occurred on Saturday was ran at a standard pace and not much exciting details. Although the Xfinity race did have a battle at the end of the race to make for an exciting conclusion.
On Sunday we closed out the triple header weekend with the NASCAR Cup Series. Joey Lagono was dominant all weekend by winning the pole, leading over half the laps of the race, and winning the first stage. Joey won this race by passing the 6 on the last lap and taking his first win of the season. Team Penske won both stages, as Cendric won the second stage.
The Cup Series had multi car wrecks due to bump drafting gone wrong.
In my opinion the racing at Atlanta has approved greatly due to the reconfiguration of the track. They turned an intermediate track into a small Daytona/Talladega type track.
This week’s tech report is about pit strategy for super speedway style racing. Given the tire for all three series is a harder compound to ensure the life of the tire due to the strain of being at a constant high speed and extreme load due to the banking. With that being said that creates a lot of fuel only, two tire, and occasionally four tire stops. These varying strategies typically jumble up the running order.
This weeks classic race is the 1992 Hooters 500 at Atlanta. This race was on a quad oval much like the current set up for Homestead Miami Speedway. Many people consider this race to be one the best races in NASCAR history. There were 6 drivers that came into the race with a logical shot at winning the championship. Davey Allison came into the race leading the points over Bill Elliott, Davey regained the points lead following a victory in Phoenix and Bill Elliott struggling with overheating issues. This was a highly competitive race with Rick Mast winning his first Busch Pole Award. On the second lap of the race Rick Mast and second place starter Brett Bodine wrecked out following contact with each other. Mark Martin, who came into the event with a mathematical shot at the championship was leading the race and blew an engine. There was a multi car crash on the front stretch which notably involved Richard Petty, who was making his final Winston Cup Series start. King Richard’s car went up in flames and his team was able to make repairs and get him back out to run the final lap of the race which concluded his driving career. Davey Allison was involved in an accident but his team was able to make repairs and keep him in contention; but coming off of turn 4 later in the race Ernie Irvan blew a right rear tire and Davey was caught up in the accident, which sadly ended his championship hopes. The race and the championship was decided between between Bill Elliott and Alan Kulwicki with Alan leading one more lap than Bill to gain the 5 point bonus for leading the most laps of the race. The race came down to fuel only stops for both with both taking 3.5 seconds of fuel to make it to the finish. Alan had a bit longer of a pit stop because he had trouble getting off of pit road due to not having second gear. Bill won the race but Alan won the championship by finishing second in the race. This ended up being the closest championship race in Winston Cup Series history.
Of notable mention this was the first Cup Series race for a young gentleman by the name of Jeff Gordon. He wrecked out of the race, but he will go down in history as a 4 time Winston Cup Series Champion, winner of 93 points paying races, winner of many pole positions, and a magnificent human being and steward for our sport. In conclusion, this is my favorite race in the history of our sport due to the fact of the current, past, present, and future being on a stage all at once. If you have time watch the full race on YouTube or watch The Day on FS1. Thank y’all very much for your time this week. Have an awesome week everyone and remember to raise hell and praise Dale!
David Johnson