HAMPTON, Ga. — How many pit road speeds are there at Atlanta Motor Speedway?
Alex Bowman had to think about it.
“I mean, there’s like three different pit road speeds under green, three different pit road—” Bowman stopped, looked down and scrunched up his nose as he tried to get it straight. “Yeah, basically three different pit road speeds under caution, two that are separate from the green ones.
“So yeah, there’s a lot going on, but at the same time, it is like the biggest penalty if you do speed under green.”
Last year at Atlanta, more speeding penalties were given out in the two NASCAR Cup Series races at the 1.54-mile track than any other facility on the circuit.
The spring race in February saw 14, while the playoff race in September resulted in 10 penalties.
Josh Berry was one of the drivers who got “popped” for speeding last year.
The Wood Brothers Racing driver has been hard at work in the simulator the last few weeks getting ready for pit road entry.
“It’s just hard when you pit under green,” Berry said. “The corner speed is so much different than the (traditional) frontstretch speed. … It’s just easy to kind of not leave yourself enough time to get down to pit road speed. And that’s what I did last year.”
The 2024 season was the first since Atlanta was reconfigured in 2022 where a new pit entry procedure was implemented by NASCAR.
There are two different speeds depending on where a driver is located. Under green flag conditions, the limit in sections one and two is 90 mph. In sections three through 18, it’s 45 mph. Under caution, the limit is 45 mph the entire length of pit road, from turn 3 to the exit of pit road near turn 1.
Oh, and then there’s the fact pit road technically starts at the entrance of turn 3.
Throw in pit road’s narrow stalls and its bumpy nature, and a trip down it can be an adventure.
“Pit road definitely gets messy here,” Kyle Larson said. “I would assume some (penalties) came in the corner, and there’s just playing games, not games, but you’re just trying to optimize your lights, and it’s such a long zone.
“I think maybe calculating the map, the geometry and all that, it can become a challenge sometimes. … If you do ever get a green-flag stop, you’re trying to optimize, and it’s easy to kind of step over.”
Just getting on pit road can be a challenge in itself.
Austin Dillon has missed his pit entry multiple ways
“One time, I couldn’t get stopped, and the other time I just under shot it and got beat by about a football field,” said Dillon. “I haven’t had a good green entry yet. So I practiced it quite a bit on the simulator this week. And there’s a lot to give up and a lot to gain.”
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.