Atlanta Turning Point: Goliath’s Achilles’ heel, enigma that is the Georgia 1.5-miler

Here's what's happening in the world of NASCAR with the Daytona 500 in the rearview and Atlanta (Sun., 3 p.m. ET, FOX) up next.

THE LINEUP

1️⃣ Everything going right for Hendrick Motorsports ... except that one thing 2️⃣ Cracking the code of back-to-back drafting tracks 3️⃣ 'So Damn Close' — here's what happened last time 4️⃣ Martin Truex Jr. passes the baton to Joey Logano 5️⃣ Catch the pack -- news and notes from around the garage [caption id="attachment_459174" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images[/caption]

1. Everything going right for Hendrick Motorsports ... except that one thing

Hendrick Motorsports has opened 2025 with two marquee victories, including the Daytona 500 -- but its star driver and most recent champion Kyle Larson can't seem to figure out how to stick the landing at superspeedways. Hendrick Motorsports opened the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season with the kind of dominance that tends to finish with a flourish -- and a championship. William Byron’s Daytona 500 win to go back-to-back -- a feat achieved by just five drivers in history -- headlines a start that includes Chase Elliott's dominant victory at Bowman Gray Stadium in the Cook Out Clash; the series-record fourth time the team has done that. The organization’s 10th Daytona 500 win tied Petty Enterprises for the most in history, and though it's only February, the team should rightly expect all four of its drivers to make deep postseason runs. Yet, amid the confetti and champagne, a glaring anomaly persists: Kyle Larson, the team’s most recent champion and arguably the sport’s most talented driver, remains conspicuously absent from any sort of superspeedway success that his teammates, particularly Byron, seem to enjoy regularly. Crossing the mythology streams here a bit, but if there's one Achilles' heel to the Goliath that is Hendrick Motorsports -- this is it. The statistics tell a story of near-flawless execution for No. 24. Byron’s nine top-10 finishes in the last 11 drafting races (including three wins) underscore his mastery of NASCAR’s most chaotic tracks, while Elliott has won at Talladega and Atlanta and Bowman (Sunday's sixth-place finisher) seems to have turned a corner on them in recent years, even landing the Daytona 500 pole in 2023. But Larson’s superspeedway struggles defy logic. The 2021 Cup Series champion, who can seemingly win at will on any other track or discipline of racing, continues to be plagued by crashes at the sport's three superspeedways. Larson is 0-for-42 on drafting tracks, with nine DNFs at Daytona alone. While teammates Byron and Elliott draft with surgical precision, Larson’s aggressive style -- a hallmark of his success on intermediate tracks -- often leaves him vulnerable in the touchy nature of pack racing. His 20th-place Daytona finish extended a streak of futility that now stretches back to 2021 without seeing a top 10 there. Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon acknowledged the paradox in his post-race presser alongside Byron. “Gosh, the guy (Larson) is not perfect. I think now I’m starting to see it’s getting in his head," said the four-time champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer. "I've had a few conversations with him, and like, man, just go for it, just forget about it, don't try to even overthink it. ... "I don't know what advice to give him other than -- all I told him today is just be Kyle Larson. Don't try to be something you're not. Don't look at what somebody else is doing that's having success. Just go out there and execute, and the other things will turn around and come your way eventually. I think. ... It's a head-scratcher, for sure." The team’s confidence in Larson isn’t misplaced, and despite the mountain of evidence against it, it still feels more likely than not he figures out how to finish cleanly. His 23 wins since joining Hendrick in 2021 lead all drivers, and his dominance at tracks of any other size/style of racing suggests the Daytona drought, at the very least, won’t derail his title bid. Still, the superspeedway gap looms larger in a playoff format where one bad race can eliminate even the most consistent contender. Thankfully for Larson, only one remains in this year's postseason slate -- Talladega. And even if Larson might not factor into the finish this weekend at Atlanta (though, wouldn't that be something if he did?) it's only a matter of time before we see him back to his dominant ways elsewhere -- just ask his Harley J. Earl-winning teammate. “Wait until we get to Vegas, and he’ll just be ripping.” This season's Cup Series calendar once again delivers a one-two punch of drafting-track drama, following the spectacle of Daytona with Atlanta Motor Speedway’s hybrid 1.5-mile oval that races like a superspeedway -- a track that defies categorization and has become a can't-miss stop twice a year. While Daytona’s 2.5-mile high banks demand precision (to an increasingly larger degree) in pack racing, Atlanta’s reconfigured surface, repaved in 2022 to mimic drafting conditions with 28-degree banking and narrowed lanes, creates a unique challenge. Here, the chaos of pack racing collides with the tire management demands of an intermediate track, forcing teams to recalibrate strategies in real-time while not having the luxury of 2.5-mile track lap times to fix any damage. The result is a laboratory for innovation, where past trends of the Atlanta of old crumble under the weight of asphalt attrition and the Next Gen car’s evolving dynamic. Atlanta’s unique identity has become its defining characteristic. Designed to replicate Daytona’s pack racing, the track initially rewarded bold drafting maneuvers, but as the asphalt continues to age, tire wear -- an Atlanta staple for years -- is re-emerging as an unexpected variable. Drivers now report handling drops quickly after 15 laps, a phenomenon more akin to Darlington’s abrasive surface than traditional superspeedways. This duality has rewritten the playbook for success here -- where early Atlanta races with this reconfiguration favored drivers who dominated in laps led, recent events punish front-runners, with no driver leading the most laps in the past three Atlanta races finishing better than 10th. Todd Gilliland’s 2024 collapse from 58 laps led to a 26th-place result, courtesy of a late flat tire, epitomizes this shift. Teams must now balance aggression with preservation; a tightrope walk that has exposed weaknesses in even the most storied programs. Toyota’s Atlanta struggles highlight this new reality. RELATED: Atlanta Cup entry list The manufacturer hasn’t won here since Kyle Busch’s 2013 victory, a 15-race drought that defies its superspeedway and general prowess elsewhere. Despite fielding competitive cars, Toyota drivers have managed just five top-five finishes in six Next Gen-era Atlanta races, with Denny Hamlin’s fourth-place run in 2024 standing as its best result. This contrasts starkly with Busch’s Georgia resurgence at Richard Childress Racing, where his four consecutive Atlanta top 10s stem from a focus on mechanical grip and classic RCR superspeedway speed. Perhaps, after a noticeable uptick in speed for Toyotas at Daytona (including the manufacturer's first 500 pole), this could shift come Sunday. While Toyota grapples with grip, Team Penske has built a drafting-track dynasty in recent years. The Ford powerhouse has led 898 laps on superspeedways since 2023 -- triple that of even Hendrick Motorsports’ total -- through a blend of strategic restraint, technical ingenuity and, above all else, teamwork — no lineup works better together on superspeedways than the trio of Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric and reigning three-time champ Joey Logano. The discipline and collaboration starts well ahead of race weekend, in the shop and the sim, extending eventually to real-time collaboration. During Atlanta’s 2024 playoff race, Blaney’s late surge from fourth to second created a draft pocket that slingshotted Logano to victory -- a move rehearsed in pre-race simulator sessions. Though Byron wound up with the win, Penske was once again dominant at Daytona, combining to lead 125 of the race's 201 laps. NASCAR’s playoff format elevates the stakes of drafting-track performance -- both Atlanta races are in the regular season this year, potentially adding another wild-card driver into the playoffs -- so there could be an added degree of pressure to the track's pair of events in 2025 on top of the already unpredictable nature. In NASCAR’s evolving landscape, Atlanta stands as one of its major paradoxes -- a track where momentum is fleeting, and survival is an art. Those who crack its code unlock not just a provisional playoff spot, but a blueprint for conquering the unpredictable. For everyone else, the 1.5-mile enigma remains a puzzle wrapped in tire smoke, waiting to be solved. [caption id="attachment_459176" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Logan Riely | Getty Images[/caption]