Track: EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway)
Location: Hampton, Georgia
Track length: 1.54 miles
When: Saturday, 7 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: TNT Sports/truTV, Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,055,250
Race distance: 260 laps | 400.4 miles
Stages: 60 | 160 | 260
Defending winner: Joey Logano, September 2024
Starting lineup: Logano earns Busch Light Pole Award
RELATED: How to watch on TNT Sports, truTV
Yearning for a spotless bracket? Atlanta will make it tough
EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) acts as the In-Season Challenge opener, and the spectacle of 32 drivers racing head-to-head among 16 matchups will be a sight to behold.
“I think all of us will be paying attention to it, and who we’re paired up against and how they’re doing,” Josh Berry, who will match up against John Hunter Nemechek in the opening round, said regarding the In-Season Challenge. “It should be interesting to follow, for sure. Obviously, a drafting-style track will be a lot about just making it to the finish. That will play a big part of that. It will be hard to have a perfect bracket with a place like Atlanta because you never know. An accident can take you out or something like that, but it will be exciting to follow.”
Like any bracket-style bout, marquee clashes are aplenty, and there is a ripe opportunity for upsets. Given the nature of Round 1’s opening track, such unexpectedness has to be expected.
Atlanta is quickly gaining — if it hasn’t already — a reputation. The reputation? A newfound drafting track that, with an ever-growing sample size, is becoming quite the harbinger for late-race wrecks, frantic overtime results, thrilling three-wide finishes and a collection of different victors.
RELATED: Cup Series standings | Full 2025 schedule
Since its reconfiguration ahead of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, the Georgia facility has hosted NASCAR’s premier series seven times; in that span, the track has crowned five different winners. Between those seven races, four have ended under caution, while the other three had margins of victory of 0.145 seconds (2022 spring), 0.193 seconds (2023 spring) and a microscopic 0.003 seconds (2024 spring).
The circumstances for these finishes can be best summarized by two constants: cautions and the final stage. Starting with race yellows, let’s cut to the chase: There have been a ton of them here. All seven races since the reconfiguration have totaled 65 cautions, averaging 9.2 per race; in the seven races before the change, there were 33 cautions combined. There have been 46 DNFs for accidents on the reconfigured layout, more than the previous 24 races combined. Six of the last seven Atlanta races have had at least five DNFs for accidents.
Then there’s the final stage, where much of this calamity has occurred; in four of the last six races, the final stage had five or more cautions, including the last three contests. Eventual race victors haven’t even been decided until right at the buzzer, with the pass for the win coming in the final two laps in five of the last six Atlanta races and on the final lap in three of the last five. (Christopher Bell’s February victory is most notable as he led his only lap of the race during the final circuit, giving the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver the fewest laps led among a race winner at Atlanta since David Pearson in September 1961.)
MORE: 2025 NASCAR In-Season Challenge hub | Inside the tracks of In-Season Challenge
And so, we make our way back to the In-Season Challenge, where bracket-fillers will have their hands — and pencils — full in trying to pick matchup winners. Perhaps you pick upsets after upsets at a chaos-laden track, but then again, in terms of head-to-head finishes at Atlanta since 2022, only seven out of 16 matchups favor the lower-seeded driver, per Racing Insights.
In other words, it’s anyone’s guess how Atlanta will play out, and good luck to any bracket aficionado in attempting to crack the Georgia code.
“It is going to be a unique layer to the race,” Chase Briscoe, who will take on Noah Gragson in the opening round, said about the In-Season Challenge. “Maybe it could cause chaos at the end. I don’t know how desperate people will be in the first round, but if you get knocked out the first round, you can’t move on. I think it will add a very unique element to the race and I’m looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun.”
MORE: Full Friday recap
From atop the pit box …
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Saturday’s race?
Although the Cup Series is already seven races into Atlanta’s new race configuration, there’s still plenty to learn from the 1.54-mile track, even for teams that have already triumphed on the new layout since its 2022 debut.
Despite Christopher Bell capturing his first Cup victory of the 2025 campaign at Atlanta, Adam Stevens, crew chief for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, still believes the blueprint to triumphing at this track is very much a work in progress.
“I think we’re still writing the book. It’s a tough place,” Stevens told NASCAR.com on Friday. “Things unfold very quickly. There’s a lot of potential chaos and a lot of circumstances that can affect the finish. Restarts can be wild, the frontstretch on the restart can be wild, let alone before they get to Turn 1. But a lot of strategy and a lot of circumstance.”
Atlanta strategy comes into play early and often, according to Stevens, who utilizes Stages 1 and 2 to fine-tune and prepare both the driver and the machine for snap-call decisions late in the race.
“There’s a lot on driver intuition and how quickly he makes decisions. It’s nothing like a Daytona (International Speedway) or a Talladega (Superspeedway), even though the rules package with the cars is the same,” Stevens said. “It doesn’t race anything like that. You’re not riding around part-throttle in a big ole’ group and saving fuel and pitting with 15 other cars. You know, it’s a totally different animal, so there’s a lot more in the driver’s hands here, as far as speedway races go, but you got to survive the restarts and you have to have a car that you can really stay in the gas in the late stages.”
Carson Hocevar contended for the Atlanta win in February before finishing runner-up to Bell in a three-wide finish under caution. The performance — which resulted in ruffling feathers with several drivers, including Ryan Blaney, who Hocevar will battle in the In-Season Challenge’s opening round — hasn’t been a one-off for the 2024 Sunoco Rookie of the Year winner; Hocevar ranks seventh in Passer Rating and 10th in Defense Rating on drafting tracks, according to NASCAR Insights.
Luke Lambert, crew chief for the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, views Atlanta as a throwback to Daytona before its repave in the early 2000s, emphasizing the importance of handling in conquering such a track.
To Lambert, there’s a fine balance between playing for points during the first two stages and being more assertive during the final 100-lap segment.
“Our plan of attack is to be aggressive, try to get stage points, but try to race up front all day long and try to learn what our car does, trying to make moves in the front of the field, see who’s fast up there that’s working hard to stay in the front,” Lambert told NASCAR.com on Friday. “I think that that’s the best approach for us to learn about what we’re capable of doing and hopefully be prepared for the moments when they come at the end of the race. I feel like that, unfortunately, you do have risk getting tore up at these places pretty highly, but that’s somewhat the cost of doing business, and we just have to be aggressive and put ourselves in position to try to win.”
RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Saturday’s race
History tells us …
Stay for the finish. According to Racing Insights, the final green-flag stretch at Atlanta has been five laps or less in five of the last six races. The race winner didn’t lead for the first time until Lap 167 or later in each of the last four races at the track.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
DANIEL SUÁREZ. The No. 99 Trackhouse Racing pilot has finished inside the top two in three of the last four Atlanta races, including a victory last February in a 0.003-second photo finish. Matching up against Bubba Wallace in the opening round of the In-Season Challenge, the No. 99 has finished better than the No. 23 in five of seven Atlanta races since the start of 2022.
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
– NASCAR at Atlanta: Key information, links, results through the weekend | Read more
– In-Season Challenge: Your hub for everything related to In-Season Challenge | Read more
– In-Season Challenge: Meet the seeds for inaugural event | Read more
– In-Season Challenge: Fill out your bracket for a chance at $1 million! | Read more
– In-Season Challenge: NASCAR.com staff members provide predictions | Read more
– Racing Insights: Where your favorite driver is projected to finish Saturday | Read more
– Field of 16: Valuable stage points up for grabs with Atlanta on deck | Read more
– Turning Point to Atlanta: Is RFK Racing primed to break out? | Read more
– At-track photos: Scenes from Atlanta, Lime Rock | View gallery
– NASCAR Classics: View the electric Cup races to occur at Georgia facility | Watch races
– Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs slated to tackle Atlanta, Lime Rock this weekend | View gallery
– Power Rankings: How the Cup Series field stacks up before Atlanta | Read more