After two-straight years of finishes that made headlines across the sport, it makes sense to ask the question: is Atlanta Motor Speedway NASCAR’s best track?
With all of the twists and turns (both literal and figurative ones) that the NASCAR Cup Series will take in 2025, few have or will handle the Next Gen car quite like Atlanta has the past two years and five race weekends under its new configuration.
However, does that make it the best track on the schedule? Our writers here at Frontstretch took some time this week to weigh in.
Atlanta Has the Best Racing. Full Stop.
Irony is a funny thing, isn’t it?
The Oxford Dictionary tells us that it means “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.”
Truth be told, there may not be a better way to describe what has transpired at Atlanta Motor Speedway the last two years than that very definition. See, what people have to understand about the word “best” is that it’s not an arbitrary term.
When it comes to the “best” of something, much like in racing, there’s no wiggle room.
A driver either finishes first or they don’t. They either crash, or they don’t. Similarly, racing is either good or it isn’t, and the actual racing at Atlanta, especially the past two years, is as far from arbitrary as it gets. It’s been the best fans have seen.
Sure, there have been really enjoyable moments at other tracks. The “Big One” at every superspeedway track, the bump-and-runs of every short track race and even the heady, strategic racing that takes place on road courses in the Next Gen car — all of these have had their truly great moments. But they haven’t been the best.
Again, it’s important to take arbitrary things like favorite drivers, tracks and viewership numbers out of the conversation, so let’s get down to the facts. What track had NASCAR’s closest finishes of all time last year?
Atlanta.
At which track were drivers able to use each and every lane to jockey for position?
Atlanta.
Is tire wear actually a factor at Atlanta?
You bet.
Is it still a drafting track, meaning that the entire field has a chance to compete?
You bet.
Is it such a long track that it becomes a fuel-mileage race until the last 50 laps?
It sure isn’t.
Is it an absolute crapshoot to see who can simply survive about 10 crashes and make it to the checkered flag?
Nope.
All of these are common complaints grieved upon by fans throughout the last year and over the course of the young 2025 season, and all of them are mitigated with a race at Atlanta. The cherry on top, though? Nobody — except Marcus Smith — wanted it to change in the first place. That’s where the irony comes in.
The old Atlanta surface was loved. It provided something different for fans of the sport that they didn’t get to see anywhere else, and the track’s configuration didn’t hurt the racing by any means. It was a solid track on the schedule with its own personality, and that was nice.
When AMS general manager Brandon Hutchinson set out to complete the repave, he was met not only with push back from the fans, but from drivers as well. Hutchinson knew it was time, and by that point, even Georgia’s native son agreed.
“I think it’s time for it,” Georgia native Chase Elliott said to the Associated Press in 2021. “I have a lot of friends and folks who go down there, and listening to their comments and my own thoughts as time has gone on, I just feel like it’s time. … I’m good with the change down there and I hope it’s for the better. I think it will be.”
Fast forward to now, though, and it’s so much more than that when viewed through an unbiased lens. Despite it still being called “New Atlanta,” the surface itself is aging like a fine wine. All of the resistance to change left NASCAR fans with what, then?
Sure, there’s no Talladega Boulevard. It doesn’t draw the same millions that Daytona does, and there’s no beautiful city skyline surrounding the track (if you’ve been to Atlanta, you know). But there is a Waffle House two blocks down the road, and the best racing that America’s best professional racing division offers, and that package itself is more than worth the price of admission. – Tanner Marlar
Atlanta Is Good, Just Not Great.
To claim that one track is the best on the NASCAR schedule, one must look into the lens of modern times.
Martinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway, for example, are not bad tracks. In fact, historically speaking, they’ve been two of the best, mainly with Bristol’s night race having a year-plus waitlist for tickets. What determines the current-best ovals, to me, needs to be the purity of the racing itself.
Pre-repave and drafting-style, Atlanta had been known for great racing and close finishes, including one that launched Kevin Harvick into overnight stardom after besting eventual champion Jeff Gordon by inches at the line in 2001. In 2025, looking back into the current races of the Next Gen car, three tracks reign supreme. Atlanta is not one of them.
Homestead-Miami Speedway and Kansas Speedway are two I’d argue are better with the combination of the track and racing. If you had to visibly show what NASCAR racing is in 2025, these two would be the best examples.
Sure, Atlanta has had amazing finishes and racing post-repave, but both of the aforementioned tracks have, as well, without the need for a gimmick such as Atlanta’s style of racing. Tyler Reddick‘s borderline wall ride to win Homestead in 2024, or one of the closest finished in the sport’s history between Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher at Kansas, are the payoff for the great racing we saw the entire event.
If one track is above Atlanta, it would be the best of both worlds between the track and purity of the racing: Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Coca-Cola 600.
From the patriotism of Memorial Day weekend to the on-track product where drivers battle to outlast their competitors and endure the longest night of the season; and especially after the Next Gen drastically improved a race that had received criticism for its entertainment values, this event has to be the best example of what NASCAR’s racing and culture are. – Trenton Worsham
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s OnSI Network, a contributor for TopSpeed.com, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.
