Atlanta Motor Speedway

The Atlanta Motor Speedway is one of the original Super Speedways of NASCAR. That means it is a paved track more than one mile in length. It was the seventh, super speedway to feature NASCAR Cup racing, and of those seven track only three remain on the NASCAR Schedule; Daytona, Darlington, and Charlotte and the others.

The track is located just outside of Hampton, Georgia which is 25 miles south of the city of Atlanta. The track hosts two dates on the Sprint Cup schedule one in early March, and the second on Labor Day Weekend in early September. Atlanta got the Labor Day race as part of schedule realignment following the 2008 NASCAR season, and that race is now run as a night race.

The Atlanta track was built in 1960 at such a high cost that four of the original owners had to bail out and new investors had to be found. It hosted its first NASCAR race in 1960, and since has become a fixture of the NASCAR schedule. It use to host the finale of the NASCAR Cup season, but that prestige in the Schedule realignment of 2002 http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2002/data/schedule.html

Atlanta hold several very special memories in the hearts of NASCAR fans. It was the place where Richard Petty drove his final race in 1992. http://racing-reference.info/rquery?id=pettyri01&trk=t0&series=W It was also the site of Jeff Gordon’s first start <ref> http://racing-reference.info/rquery?id=gordoje01&trk=t0&series=W Ironically both occurred in the same race.

This is also the place where the NASCAR world started to heal from the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. when Kevin Harvick dueled Gordon for the win, and it was the place where Carl Edwards scored his first win in the cup series, and we all saw him do the back flip for the very first time.<ref> http://www.atlantamotorspeedway.com/media/history/