Dale Earnhardt Jr. rants about how Atlanta is viewed in NASCAR, takes issue with 'lazy' approach

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has an issue with how the Atlanta track is viewed in NASCAR. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt talked about how Atlanta is viewed after its reconfiguration.

“A long time ago, restrictor plates came into the sport, and we call those tracks where they ran them restrictor plate tracks,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “Atlanta got reconfigured, and we started seeing a similar style of racing there. They don’t have restrictor plates anymore. They have carburetor spaces and different things and different ways to limit the horsepower. We didn’t know what to call Atlanta, because it’s not a restrictor plate track. Those parts and pieces aren’t around anymore.

“So, we call them drafting tracks, which I hate, but it is what it is. I don’t get to choose. We don’t see the same type of racing at Daytona and Talladega that we see at Atlanta.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. says the Atlanta tracks is ‘it’s own thing’

Earnhardt continued, “Atlanta is its own thing. It has a little bit to do with the shape of the track and how short it is. It has the dog leg. All those things produce a unique style of racing we see nowhere else. Somebody decided, ‘Well, what are we going to call this? Drafting tracks. It’s just really low-hanging fruit, lazy way to sort of describe these three tracks together.”

Earnhardt made the comments after Chase Elliott won a wild race at the Atlanta track last weekend. Weeks before the race, Speedway Motorsports announced that the track had been renamed from Atlanta Motor Speedway to EchoPark Speedway. It’s a part of a seven-year agreement with EchoPark Automotive.

EchoPark Speedway opened as Atlanta International Raceway in 1960. The track hosted NASCAR’s final race of the season from 1987 to 2000. In 2021, the track was reconfigured to a 28-degree banked superspeedway-style track, which is why it’s compared to Daytona and Talladega.

According to NASCAR’s official website, Echopark Speedway is the only drafting track. As mentioned earlier, the track is built like a Superspeedway, but it’s significantly smaller as it’s only 1.54 miles. Daytona and Talladega are at least 2.5 miles.