The fifth race of the NASCAR season is here in the form of the Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500 at Atlanta. It’s not your typical Atlanta race though. Far from it in fact. It’s so far from it that we have to throw out everything we’ve counted on at Atlanta and have learned about these cars. Why is that you might ask? Well, let’s dive in.

For the last 20-plus years, Atlanta had the oldest racing surface on the schedule. The drivers and fans all liked it that way. It made the racing challenging and the strategy of taking tires of the utmost importance. That’s all out the window now though. Not only did they repave the track with a shiny new surface. Not only did they change the banking in the corners to make them steeper. Not only did they change the width of the track in the corners and the straightaways. They are now also using a completely different aero package on the track from any other 1.5-mile layout on the schedule.

Sunday’s Folds of Honor 500 will feature Cup cars with a package that’s identical to the Daytona and Talladega ones. What does this mean for the racing on Sunday? To be honest, and I know this isn’t common to say, we have no idea. That might be unsettling to hear, but there are two ways this race can play out and both are equally as valid. I’ll breakdown the strategies for both in this piece, and give some data for those strategies (though not in my normal tables). We’ll have to watch practice on both Friday and Saturday though to get a better feel for what the racing could be like.

Track Figures

So what is new about Atlanta Motor Speedway? Just about everything. They provided some handy images detailing the changes to the track. The banking is steeper, the track is both wider and narrower, and the transitions are banked more. There’s also been a double-yellow line (though it’s red and white) rule put in place for these races. For those that need a refresher on that, it means no racing or passing for position can happen below that line. The new format of the track is described by the management of the track as Superspeedway-like and they designed it with that intent in mind.


On-Track Schedule

This is the Cup schedule for Atlanta, assuming no weather interference.

Friday: 5:05 pm ET practice

Saturday: 12:30 pm ET qualifying

Sunday: 3:00 pm ET Cup race of 500 miles, 334 laps

Tire Notes

The new repave would seem to be a good thing for tires this week, but that’s not necessarily true. In the case of repaves, the added grip on the asphalt can generate heat in the tires. Heat in the tires isn’t a good thing if it’s not managed properly. Given how things have gone this year with tires to this point, this might be a race with some more issues. For the Cup series race, the teams will have 13 total sets of tires with 12 stickers and one from qualifying. If this race is more like a plate race, then tires won’t be changed that frequently, but if it’s like a standard intermediate, tires will be more popular. Another added thing to keep in mind, the wider tires will pick up heat more quickly than previous year’s Goodyears would have. 

DFS Strategies

So with all of the stuff we’ve talked about to this point, what can we expect for DFS? Well, it’s really not that simple. Not even the drivers know what to expect. Literally. What does this mean for DFS building then? There are a couple of ways we can go.

The first way we can approach Sunday’s race is to see it as a plate race just like we’d have at Daytona or Talladega. That is to say, a race with a lot of chaos and pack racing with everyone in the same 510-horsepower package with a seven-inch spoiler. It won’t be quite the same comp given that Atlanta is still a mile shorter than Daytona. If we expect it to be the same chaos as a plate track, #stacktheback, or mostly the back, is in play once more. Laps led won’t matter quite that much, though more than Daytona since there are 134 more laps this week. We’ll be looking at drivers who are typically good at plate tracks and have been known to stay on the track the longest; these will be mentioned in the playbook.

The second way we can approach Sunday’s race is to see it as an intermediate track from the last few years. If you harken back to the last few years and remember the low-horsepower, high-downforce package that was in place at places like Las Vegas and Charlotte, and Texas, this could be similar. We could see a very track-position heavy race in which qualifying is the main way to get a good finish. If that’s the case, it will mean a completely different strategy for DFS. Building lineups in a track-position race will mean that we’ll want to bank on laps led coming from the top few spots in the grid, and it being hard to pass. Remember what we said about Vegas the last few years, this year notwithstanding? It is the quintessential track for this kind of strategy. Also, if it’s a lot of single-file racing, expect more heat to build in the tires and potentially have more tire issues/cautions than if it’s more like a plate race.