New name, same thrills await drivers in return to Atlanta

Fans looking at this week’s race schedule might be confused and do a double-take: It’s not called Atlanta Motor Speedway anymore.
For the first time on the 2025 schedule, the NASCAR Cup Series makes a repeat appearance, stopping Saturday night for the second time at the newly renamed EchoPark Speedway for the Quaker State 400 in Hampton, Ga.
While AMS is technically no more, the expectations are still as high as ever at the 1.54-mile oval south of Atlanta, where the best racing in the sport has taken place over the past few seasons with the Next Gen car — somewhat surprising considering the car’s struggles.
Complaints about the car echo from race to race. Drivers bemoan the inability to make a pass in “dirty air” once they make a run on the car in front of them.
The short tracks, previously a staple of anticipation and excitement in Virginia and Tennessee, have yielded some of the worst showings, almost unimaginable considering an action-packed ticket for Bristol or Richmond races used to be among the most in-demand purchases.
Road courses with the current car have produced a wild card, as road courses are prone to do. However, Shane van Gisbergen’s nearly 17-second annihilation of the field in his recent Mexico City triumph will not find its way into the season’s highlights package.
While the racing had its ups and downs at Pocono last weekend, it was odd that winner Chase Briscoe, desperately conserving fuel while leading in his No. 19 Toyota, was able to keep Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin at bay as his No. 11 ride hounded him.
Hamlin said he felt the only chance he had to win his second straight start — he missed Mexico — and fourth this season was to run as hard as he could, force the Indiana driver to push hard and thus use up his fuel before getting to the checkers.
“He was lifting early into (Turn) 1 … balance wise, I just couldn’t get my car to handle good enough in that dirty air to keep him honest,” said Hamlin, owner of a Pocono-best seven wins. “The key moment was when (Briscoe) and like three or four others pitted and that caution came out. It leaped them in front of us.
“At that point, we knew it was going to be really hard to pass those guys back on the racetrack.”
The phrase “really hard to pass” is all too frequent in postrace interviews, but the Next Gen car puts on its best showings at drafting tracks like Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega.
That was evident in February when Christopher Bell grabbed the first of three consecutive wins with a thrilling, three-wide victory under caution over Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson at the Georgia superspeedway.
Four of the past seven races at the oval have ended under caution, a testimony to how tight the racing gets at the end as drivers push to the ragged edge.
The track formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway may now go by another name, but luckily the racing remains the same.