Back in 2004, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Atlanta Motor Speedway were at odds. Heading into the Golden Coral 500 event, Jr. wanted to settle the business after four consecutive top 10 finishes at the 1.5-mile quad oval racetrack. And finally, after near misses, the #9 DEI Chevy found itself in the victory lane. This win came after a humbling 35th-place finish in Las Vegas, and the win in Atlanta came as a relief. “I would have raced Atlanta Monday morning if I could have, because I wanted to get as far from Vegas as I could.”

Atlanta was a pure intermediate track back then; it wasn’t known as the drafting track of the modern era. Well, even the superspeedways like Daytona and Talladega are known as drafting tracks these days. One known as a restrictor plate track, they’ve transitioned into something catchy, but that isn’t how Dale Jr. sees Atlanta. In 2021, SMI decided to repave the track again after 1997, and they increased the banking from 24 to 28 degrees on the turns and narrowed down the straightaway. It has delivered some thrilling races since then, be it the three-wide photo finish win by Daniel Suarez in 2024 or last Sunday’s thrilling win by Chase Elliott.

46 leads changes, last lap slingshot move by Elliott, this sounds thrilling, right? It is, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. feels that Atlanta would still produce this style of racing had it not been converted into a superspeedway track. Speaking on the Dale Jr. Download, the veteran driver laid it bare about his true feelings about the new configuration and his gripe with it.

“This kind of racing we’re seeing at Atlanta, they probably don’t know that, and they probably really don’t care at this point. But if you had repaved the old Atlanta and put this package on this racetrack, we would probably see the exact same race. At least that’s my opinion,” Jr. said, but he accepted that the style of racing is unique among other intermediate tracks. “You know the racing at Atlanta is unique to itself.”

But this was not his only perspective. He also raised concerns about Atlanta being labeled as a drafting track, which he calls low-hanging fruit, a lazy effort to describe the track. “We don’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, but we don’t really see the same type of racing at Daytona and Talladega. Atlanta is its own thing.”

Dale Jr. believes that the current style of racing in Atlanta isn’t going to last forever. The track surface over time will wear out and won’t provide the grip the drivers have been enjoying for the past few years. He even predicted that this shift could happen in three or four years. His issue isn’t with the racing Atlanta Motor Speedway produces, but it is the gimmick of the tag of drafting track NASCAR and SMI added to it with the 2021 repave. Had it been the intermediate track without the increased banking and narrow straightaway, the racing would have been equally entertaining.

On the flip side, another NASCAR legend shared his take on Atlanta, even going as far as to say as the best track on the NASCAR schedule.

Kyle Petty heaps praise on Atlanta Motor Speedway

Just a few days back, Kyle Petty was critical of Chase Elliott and his tag as NASCAR’s most popular driver because of his streak of winless efforts. But the hometown hero did his talking on the racetrack, and he brought the #9 HMS Chevy into the victory lane, bagging his first win of 2025 and sealing his playoff spot. However, for Petty, the Quaker State 400 had a profound impact that echoed the sentiment of the fans who left wanting more after Sunday’s thriller.

“It is the one and only Atlanta Motor Speedway. We don’t see racing like this anywhere else… We saw it in the last five, six, seven laps of the race, some of the best racing that we’ve seen in the first Atlanta race. This racetrack puts on a show for the fans, so I think it’s great racing… This race track allows these drivers to do things here that they can’t do at Daytona, that they can’t do at Talladega. They can’t do it at Charlotte or Kansas, they can only do this at Atlanta, and it’s fascinating to watch,” Kyle Petty said this via NASCAR on YouTube.

Well, the NASCAR community seems divided on Atlanta Motor Speedway’s current product. What do you think about the racetrack and the reconfiguration? Share your thoughts in the comments.