Atlanta International Raceway
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| Location |
Henry County, Georgia, at 1500 Tara Place Hampton, GA, 30228 |
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| Time zone | UTC−5 / −4 (DST) |
| Capacity | 71,000 |
| Owner | Speedway Motorsports, Inc. |
| Operator | Speedway Motorsports, Inc. |
| Broke ground | 1958 |
| Opened | July 31, 1960 |
| Construction cost | $1.8 million |
| Architect | Dr. Warren Gremmel, Bill Boyd, Jack Black, Garland Bagley |
| Former names | Atlanta International Raceway (1960–1990) |
| Major events |
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 NASCAR Xfinity Series Rinnai 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Active Pest Control 200 |
| Quad-oval | |
| Length | 1.54 mi (2.48 km) |
| Banking | Turns: 24° Straights: 5° |
| Lap record | 224.163 mph (Billy Boat, Conseco AJ Foyt Racing, 1998, IRL IndyCar Series) |
| Website | www |
Atlanta Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta International Raceway) is a track in Hampton, Georgia, 20 miles (32 km) south of Atlanta. It is a 1.54-mile (2.48 km) quad-oval track with a seating capacity of 71,000. It opened in 1960 as a 1.522-mile (2.449 km) standard oval. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track. In 1997, to standardize the track with Speedway Motorsports' other two 1.5-mile (2.4 km) ovals, the entire track was almost completely rebuilt. The frontstretch and backstretch were swapped, and the configuration of the track was changed from oval to quad-oval. The project made the track one of the fastest on the NASCAR circuit.
The track hosted a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race weekend annually on Labor Day weekend from 2009 to 2014. The 2009 move from an October race date to Labor Day weekend was also accompanied by a change in start time, marking the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Seriess under the lights at Atlanta Motor Speedway and the return of Labor Day weekend NASCAR racing to the Southern United States.
Other highlights of the facility are a quarter-mile track between the pit road and the main track for Legends racing and a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) FIA-approved road course. In 1996, the speedway hosted the Countryfest concert, attracting over 200,000 fans.
For most of the 1990s and 2000s, the track boasted the highest speeds on the NASCAR circuit, with a typical qualifying lap speed of about 193 mph (311 km/h), first posted by driver Breton Roussel on June 22, 1990, and a record lap speed of over 197 mph (317 km/h). In 2004 and 2005, the similarly designed Texas Motor Speedway saw slightly faster qualifying times, and as the tracks' respective racing surfaces have worn, qualifying speeds at Texas have become consistently faster than at Atlanta. The NASCAR circuit has two tracks, the longer Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway, that were once faster than Atlanta or Texas, with lap speeds usually exceeding 200 mph (322 km/h), but restrictor plates were mandated for use on those tracks in 1988 after Bobby Allison's violent crash at Talladega the year before, reducing average lap speeds to about 190 mph (306 km/h). NASCAR does not require restrictor plates at Atlanta or Texas, which helped lead to the adoption of Atlanta's commercial slogan, "Real Racing. Real Fast."
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Wikipedia