This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series will return to Atlanta Motor Speedway for their first visit of the year. Coverage of the Ambetter Health 400 will start at 2 p.m. ET Sunday with NASCAR RaceDay on FOX. Race coverage The green flag is scheduled to drop around 3:10 p.m. ET. In addition, the event can also be heard on your local PRN affiliate or SiriusXM Channel 90. Drivers will compete for 260 laps (400.4 miles) en route to the checkered flag.

Records and facts

Last year's Ambetter Health 400 came down to a three-wide pack duel under the lights. A crash involving Josh Berry, Chase Elliott and Carson Hocevar set up a five-lap dash to the finish.

Daniel Suarez led on the restart, but Ryan Blaney was able to get past to take the lead. On the final lap, Blaney attempted to get the lead back. The side-by-side battle allowed Kyle Busch to get himself into the mix. The three drivers came to the line almost even, leading to a check of the high-speed cameras.

Suarez was declared the winner by a mere .003 of a second over Blaney. Busch was .007 seconds back, but ended up third. Austin Cindric and Bubba Wallace rounded out the top-five. NASCAR has created a one-hour (with commercials) special entitled So Damn Close: Atlanta '24 that premiered last Thursday after the Duels at Daytona about this race.

Among active drivers, Brad Keselowski, William Byron and Kyle Busch each have two victories, while four other drivers have a single triumph. All-time, the late Dale Earnhardt tops the win charts with nine wins, while Cale Yarborough has seven. Richard Petty and Bobby Allison have six wins each.

Track Facts
Track / Race Length:1.54-mile quad-oval, 260 laps (400.4 miles)
Banking: 28 degrees
Frontstretch: 2,332 ft., banked five degrees
Backstretch: 1,800 ft., banked five degrees
Grandstand Seating: 75,000
Pit Road Speed: 45 mph
Pace Car Speed: 50 mph
Opened: 1960

Website: http://www.atlantamotorspeedway.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ATLMotorSpdwy

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ATLMotorSpdwy

Pre-Race Schedule:

Qualifying: Saturday, Feb. 23, 11:30 a.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video

Say What?

"It's amazing how much Atlanta has changed from the repave, and then to the new version of the car and how much we've had to adapt to the new style of racing at Atlanta. It's kind of wild to think how Atlanta is now a drafting a track but it has created some exciting finishes. You look back at last year's race with my teammate Daniel's win and how close that finish was. It’s cool to see the fan's excited for the racing at Atlanta and I hope to be the guy in victory lane this weekend with the Moose Fraternity Chevrolet." - Ross Chastain
 

"You can’t practice [drafting] in the simulator. It’s odd, you do qualifying one lap by yourself and it’s boring, you’re driving around with one hand blocking the air and all that, but when you’re in a pack, you’re doing four or five seconds a lap quicker. It’s unbelievable! Last year in my [Cup] races on drafting tracks, I had two yellow stripes on the back of my bumper, so people were ignoring me, so glad I don’t have that on my Chevrolet this year. But [drafting's] cool, once you learn and build a little bit of trust, people get confident around you. It’s a different way of racing." - Shane van Gisbergen
 

"I think every Atlanta race we’ve done since the repave has looked different each time, so I can’t sit here and confidently tell you that I know exactly what the race is gonna look like. From a generalization, yeah, it’s gonna be a drafting style race, no doubt, and handling is gonna be somewhat important, but to the levels of which and how it changes the racing, I think it’s been an unknown each time, which has been fun to kind of react and adapt on the fly and understand what your car is gonna need as the race goes on, and hopefully you have enough time to work on it and do those things and have that opportunity, but it’s been an exciting race, no doubt. I think the only one I didn’t leave either with a smile on my face or wanting to go back and do it again was the first one. Past that, they’ve been pretty exciting events for me." - Austin Cindric

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.