Written by Gabriel Tsui, Edited by Vyas Ponnuri
Welcome to the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, with the first race kicking off at Atlanta Motor Speedway. As the playoff begins, the drivers will be bunched much closer on points, making every mistake and every move ever more so important.
Will a contender be able to secure an early advancement to the next stage here in Atlanta, or would an unexpected winner be in the making?
Track Preview
The Atlanta Motor Speedway is a superspeedway located in Hampton, Georgia. The track has been hosting two NASCAR races per season since 1960, though a second race during the late season period was discontinued temporarily from 2011 till 2020, and made a return in 2021 as one of the late regular season races.
This season, however, the track was able to make its way to the playoffs as part of the schedule reshuffle due to the Olympics break.
The drivers will be racing around the quad-oval layout, spanning 1.540 miles (2.478 kilometres) and banking up to 28 degrees on the turns. The field will drive 260 laps around the track, encompassing 60 laps in stage one, and 100 laps each in stages two and three, totalling a distance of 400.4 miles (644.24 kilometres).
The weather report shows no rain during the weekend, with temperatures reaching 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) at the track. The race will commence on Sunday, September 8th, at 15:00 ET (12:00 PT, 20:00 CET).
Race Predictions
In recent years, this track has been completely dominated by the Chevrolet cars. Out of the past six races in Atlanta, the Chevys were able to win five of those races, with only Joey Logano able to get a win in Atlanta at the start of the 2023 season.
The Chevys brought five drivers into the playoffs, with those five being William Byron, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Alex Bowman from Hendrick Motorsports, and Daniel Suarez from Trackhouse Racing.
Given the previous track record, it is considerably difficult to bet against the Chevrolet, especially during times like the playoffs. Therefore, the prediction is that one of the drivers from Hendrick Motorsport will be heading to victory lane, taking the win and a guaranteed spot in the next round.
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