HAMPTON, Ga. — When officials from Atlanta Motor Speedway and Speedway Motorsports Inc. announced plans to repave and reprofile the 1.5-mile speedway on July 6, many of NASCAR’s top stars found out about it at the same time everyone else did.
In the days that followed, numerous Cup Series stars expressed their frustration about not being consulted about the proposed plan that includes a four degree banking increase in the turns and a narrowing of the racing surface.
Chief among them was two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, who expressed his frustration with the announced reconstruction plan following his 102nd Xfinity Series victory on Saturday.
“If they’re going to narrow it up 15 feet, whatever it is, that’s the whole bottom groove,” Busch said. “We’re not going to be able to run around here three wide. You’re going to be stuck at two wide. It’s going to be as wide as Darlington. So trying to run around here at 210 mph because if they don’t put plates on it, you’re going to be going way too fast.”
Atlanta Motor Speedway was last repaved in 1997 and since then has become one of the most popular venues on the circuit for drivers because of the racing lane options in the corners and the tire falloff caused by the abrasive surface.
It’s generally agreed upon that eventually the track was going to need to be repaved and it would need to happen sooner rather than later.
From the perspective of the drivers, the lack of communication about the plans prior to the announcement is an example of a disconnect between those who run the sport and the participants.
“I feel like the relationship with the drivers and SMI has always kind of been there and been able to talk back and forth, so I don’t know why you’d make it a surprise,” said 2018 Cup Series champion Joey Logano Sunday afternoon. “I don’t get it. I think something I’ve learned over the last few years is everyone can bring something different to the table. When you bring 10 other people around, that might change your perspective. Well, if we’re all sitting around a table, we can probably change each other’s perspective a little bit to come up with what’s the best, but we’ve got to have the meeting to do that. We didn’t have the opportunity to do that.”
For Denny Hamlin, who is a competitor as both a driver for Joe Gibbs Racing and as the owner of 23XI Racing, the lack of consultation is a missed opportunity to include the thoughts and opinions of NASCAR’s biggest assets — the drivers.
“The process is just broken,” said Hamlin. “I look at a lot of the responses and people are like, ‘why should they listen to you all because you’re always going to look at what’s in your best interest and agenda is.’ The thing is, as drivers, just tell us the agenda. Do you want speedway racing here? OK. We don’t like it, but here’s what you need to do to get there. We’ll help you accomplish that, just tell us the goal.
“Don’t mix the message by saying you’re going to see something you’ve never seen, and they show a clip of iRacing cars racing in a pack, but yet you want your surface to match the old,” Hamlin continued. “That’s counter-intuitive, you can’t make it narrower and a superspeedway. Those two things don’t match up. Again, I think we can help, we’re an asset. We are the biggest asset that NASCAR and these tracks can have, just tell us your goals. We may not agree with the goal, but we can help them get to where they want to go.”
Kevin Harvick, who earned one of the most popular victories in NASCAR Cup Series history with his victory at Atlanta in 2001 following the death of Dale Earnhardt, said he’d rather SMI replace the 1.5-mile speedway with a short track than utilize the plan that was announced Tuesday.
But again, like Busch, Logano and Hamlin, Harvick wasn’t consulted prior to the announcement.
“I don’t think it’s very good,” Harvick said of SMI’s plan. “I think the proper thing to do would probably be to build a short track. The cheapest thing to do is probably just leave the walls where they are and hope for the best. I don’t think that worked out well for Texas. I don’t think it worked out well for Bristol. I don’t think it worked out well for Kentucky. I don’t think any of those were very good, so I think if you just keep winging it and don’t get the driver’s input, you’re just gonna keep getting the same conclusion.
“You would think that you would want the driver’s input and I think a lot of times the thought process is, ‘Well, we need to make the drivers uncomfortable,’” Harvick later added. “Instead, you wind up with a media press conference that winds up all about your track repave that you didn’t ask any of the drivers about, so it is what it is.”
Busch said he wanted to take a piece of the Atlanta surface home with him following Sunday’s Cup race, a memento from one of his favorite race tracks that will be completely different when the series returns in 2022.
“I sure am glad to win the final Xfinity Series race on a real Atlanta race track,” Busch said. “Because the next one is just going to be a showpiece, and it’s going to be shit.”