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Atlanta PING!

just FReepmail if you want on or off the NASCAR Ping list.

Track/Race Length: 1.54 mile quad oval, 325 laps, 500.5 miles
Degree of Banking: Turns: 24 degrees; Straightaways: 5 degrees
Straights: Frontstretch - 2332 feet; Backstretch - 1800 feet
Pit Road Speed: 45mph
Pace Car Speed: 55mph
Grandstand Seating: 124,000
Opened: 1960

National Anthem: American Idol’s Michael Johns
Military Flyover: C-130, 919 Special Operations Group, Eglin AFB, FL

Atlanta Nuggets:

At Atlanta Motor Speedway:
• Originally called Atlanta International Raceway, the track was then a 1.5-mile paved speedway.
• The first Sprint Cup race was on July 31, 1960, won by Fireball Roberts.
• Jeff Gordon won the first Nationwide race at Atlanta held March 14, 1992.
• The first Craftsman Truck series race at Atlanta was held March 13, 2004 and won by Bobby Hamilton.
• The track was re-measured to 1.522 miles in the spring of 1970.
• The track layout was reversed and the track was re-configured to 1.54-miles between the two races in 1997.
• There have been 98 Sprint Cup Series races at Atlanta Speedway, two races per year except 1961, which had three.
• Fireball Roberts won the pole for the first Sprint Cup race in 1960.
• Fireball Roberts won the first Sprint Cup race.
• 43 drivers have won poles, led by Buddy Baker and Ryan Newman, each with seven.
• Six of Newman’s seven poles came in the six races between March 2003 and October 2005.
• 42 drivers have won races; 20 have won more than once there.
• Dale Earnhardt scored nine victories, more than any other driver. Cale Yarborough is second with seven.
• Bobby Labonte heads the list of active drivers with six Atlanta victories. Labonte is tied with Richard Petty for third on the all-time Atlanta win list.
• 14 races have been won from the pole.
• 55 races have been won from the first five starting positions.
• Bobby Labonte won the 2001 fall race from the 39th starting position, the deepest in the field a race winner has started.
• There have been seven season sweeps at Atlanta, most recently by Jimmie Johnson in 2007.
• There has been one green-white-checkered finish at Atlanta: 2007-2 (329 laps).

Hot Facts
Atlanta has produced three of the 12 closest finishes since the advent of electronic timing in May 1993.
* Dale Earnhardt finished 0.010 seconds ahead of Bobby Labonte in the sixth-closest race (tied with Rockingham-2004) on March 12, 2000.
* Kevin Harvick beat Jeff Gordon by 0.006 seconds on March 11, 2001, in the fourth-closest finish.
* Carl Edwards beat Jimmie Johnson by 0.028 seconds on March 20, 2005, in the 12th-closest finish (tied with Texas in April 2004).

Info courtesy Jayski.com

A tad late, but I got it. Thanks!

Thanks for the ping. How great would it be if Awesome Bill had an awesome day. That’s about as likely as the 43 doing so I guess. Oh, well. Does anyone know how many chasers have been mathematically eliminated?