As Atlanta Motor Speedway returns to two annual stops on the NASCAR Cup Series in 2021, the race expansion is tied into an ambitious future for the track that includes a repave and "reprofiling" of its 1.54-mile surface.
Speedway Motorsports president and CEO Marcus Smith said the plan remains to attract a $1 billion casino and entertainment complex that would be built adjacent to the track located in Hampton, Georgia, about 40 minutes south of downtown Atlanta.
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Before its 1997 repaving and reconfiguration into a "quad-oval" layout similar to Charlotte Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway, Atlanta had a more traditional oval shape a la Homestead-Miami Speedway.NASCAR on NBC analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr. and others have lobbied to return Atlanta to its original oval layout.
Since Homestead (which originally was created as a 1.5-mile version of Indianapolis Motor Speedway) was redesigned and repaved with progressive banking in 2003, the South Florida track largely has been regarded as a gold standard for intermediate track racing in NASCAR.
There has been Twitter buzz that some of AMS’ casino complex renderings indicate a return to its former layout (without swapping the front and back straightaways as in the original configuration).
There also is speculation about whether a repave could include reconfiguring Atlanta as a new NASCAR short track (as has been proposed for 2-mile Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California).
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