Of all the NASCAR tracks that ought to sell out all the time, the magnificent facility here is the one.
Or so you would think, at first glance.
Atlanta Motor Speedway is the fastest track in NASCAR. Cars, unfettered by restrictor plates on the 1.54-mile oval, easily hit 200 m.p.h. entering the turns. The grooves are wide for lots of passing, and drivers find the power and agility in their cars to do it.
They love/fear this place, and they call it the very essence of what they do for a living. The tension in their voices will be evident on their radio channels throughout Sunday’s Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500.
If the short tracks at Bristol, Martinsville and Richmond are as entertaining with their bumper-car races, Atlanta with the sheer speed of its scrambles must be singled out as the most breathtaking.
And all around it, the 124,000-seat grandstands, towering luxury condominiums and the skyboxes rise from the piney horizon as one of the grandest palaces in motor racing.
But it has all come to this:
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue felt compelled to have a rally at the state capitol in Atlanta on Thursday to express support for keeping two Winston Cup races annually at AMS. The state legislature is likely to join Perdue in the cause.
Why the need for political intervention?
Because Atlanta, the centerpiece city of the South for decades, finds itself–from a racing standpoint–in the same position as backwaters such as Rockingham, N.C., and Darlington, S.C. All are vulnerable to losing races to other markets.
It has been suggested, from as high as NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr., that one of Atlanta’s dates be moved to Dallas-Ft. Worth or Las Vegas by Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman Bruton Smith, who controls all three tracks and has been pleading for second dates annually for the western venues.
Smith staunchly maintains he won’t move a race from Atlanta, but as long as he refuses, France will have a point of resistance for NASCAR granting additional dates at Texas and Las Vegas.
For all its wonders and creature comforts, AMS simply cannot fill those enormous grandstands very often. There are myriad reasons, many dating back to well before NASCAR’s boom time.
First is the weather for the two dates here. March is typically dismal in these parts. November is even worse, so bad that AMS President Ed Clark was willing to let go of the annual Winston Cup season finale in exchange for an October date. That didn’t work last year–bad weather even then.
How did Atlanta, which for years was the biggest market NASCAR visited regularly, get stuck with such awful race dates? It’s grimly laughable now. The late L.G. DeWitt, one of the financiers who bailed the track out of bankruptcy in the 1970s, despised hot weather and so demanded the cooler dates. Promoters could get what they wanted from NASCAR in those leaner years.
The other virtually insurmountable problem is traffic. The track was built in 1960 by investors who knew Atlanta was about to boom, but not in which direction. They guessed the south side. For the next 40 years, the city’s wealth and grandeur would go to the north side.
We’re not talking north side-south side in the mere terminology of, say, Chicago. Geographically, metropolitan Atlanta is the largest human settlement in history, 90 miles deep and 150 miles wide, according to a Time magazine study.
And AMS is at the very bottom of the area. At the top lie not only the posh Lake Lanier suburbs, where so many disposable sports dollars are held, but all of Georgia’s stock-car racing tradition, from current driver Bill Elliott back through the pioneering Flock brothers, all the way to the legendary 1930s moonshine runners Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall.
In between lie downtown Atlanta and its cramped, teeming urban sprawl, rife with commuter traffic that rolls up a total of 100 million miles a day–you read it right. And there is all the saturation by traditional pro sports, especially the Braves, to obscure the race track in the awareness of most Atlantans, regardless of the $455 million a year the track claims to pump into the area’s economy.
By the 1970s, north-side race fans realized they could go to Talladega Superspeedway, 100 miles to the west in Alabama, more quickly and easily than to their own “hometown” track.
For all of Atlanta’s expressways, 10 lanes wide in places, Interstate Highway 75 is the only one that even runs to the region of AMS–and for the last 14 miles, U.S. 19-41, outdated and dotted with stoplights through the drab southern suburbs, is the only semblance of access.
The exodus from AMS after a race can be a nightmare of hours before you even see signs for I-75 again.
But all Smith could see in 1990 was that magical market named Atlanta. He would not be deterred by the worst possible location. He would have invested better by paying the $90 million asking price, shutting the track down, cannibalizing its dates and building a new facility, far to the northeast of the city, both to tap Atlanta’s affluence and provide easy access from the fan hotbeds of the Carolinas.
Now he’s in for more than $200 million counting all the improvements, and stuck. He cannot physically move the vast palace and he will not move a date to Las Vegas or Texas, where fans would buy up every seat.
The governor Perdue defeated, Roy Barnes, promised to build an expressway straight to AMS. Perdue’s current intervention would imply he’ll push forward with Barnes’ project.
Such an artery may help, years from now. Until and unless that works, AMS will remain a magnificent monument to miscalculation, standing perpetually in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Making his mark: Michael Waltrip, who’ll turn 40 in April, is leading the Winston Cup points for the first time other than the week after the season-opening Daytona 500, which he won in 2001 and this year.
By that age, his older brother, Darrell, already had won three Winston Cup championships. But Darrell was 42 when he won his only Daytona 500, in 1989.
Michael’s third-place finish at Las Vegas last week not only pushed him back atop the standings, but began to fulfill a goal he has this year: proving critics wrong when they say he’s incapable of running well except on restrictor-plate tracks. The only three Cup points victories of his career came at Daytona, including the Pepsi 400 last July to go with the two 500s.
He could make a satisfying leap into victory lane Sunday. His and teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s DEI Chevrolets should be even stronger on high-banked Atlanta than on the flat Las Vegas track, where they finished second and third to Matt Kenseth in a Ford.
In the pits: Tony Stewart, currently fifth in points, is defending champion of the March race here, and Kurt Busch, sixth in the standings after wrecking at Vegas last week, won the most recent Atlanta race, last October. . . . .Formula One begins its most precarious season in decades Sunday with the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne. If the dominance of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari continues to drive down world television ratings, F1 moguls likely will continue their wild reaches at fixing the problem.
MAKING THE CIRCUIT
NASCAR WINSTON CUP
ATLANTA 500
Site: Hampton, Ga.
Schedule: Friday, qualifying (FX, 7, tape); Sunday, race (Fox, 11:30 a.m.).
Track: Atlanta Motor Speedway. Race distance: 500.5 miles, 325 laps.
Last year’s winner: Tony Stewart.
Last race: Matt Kenseth won the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas.
Next race: Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, March 16, Darlington, S.C.
FORMULA ONE
AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX
Site: Melbourne.
Schedule: Thursday, qualifying (Speed Channel, 9); Friday, qualifying (Speed Channel, 9); Saturday, race (Speed Channel, 8:30).
Track: Albert Park Circuit.
Race distance: 191.591 miles, 58 laps.
Last year’s winner: Michael Schumacher.
Last race: First race of season.
Next race: Malaysian Grand Prix, March 23, Sepang.
BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL
Last race: Joe Nemechek won the Sam’s Town 300 at Las Vegas.
Next race: darlingtonraceway.com 200, March 15, Darlington, S.C.
CHAMPIONSHIP AUTO RACING TEAMS
Last race: Paul Tracy won the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Next race: Tecate Telmex Grand Prix, March 23, Monterrey, Mexico.
CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS
Last race: Rick Crawford won the Florida Dodge Dealers 250 at Daytona.
Next race: Craftsman 200, March 14, Darlington, S.C.
INDY RACING LEAGUE
Last race: Scott Dixon won the Toyota Indy 300 at Homestead, Fla.
Next race: Copper World Indy 200, March 23, Avondale, Ariz.
NHRA
Last event: Brandon Bernstein won Top Fuel category at the Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals in Phoenix. Ron Capps won Funny Car; Greg Anderson took Pro Stock category.
Next event: Mac Tools Gatornationals, March 16, Gainesville, Fla.
