Is Chase Elliott the Most Successful Current NASCAR Driver at Atlanta?

For a flickering moment when Chase Elliott won the first stage in the 2024 Daytona 500, energy surged through the fandom in the belief that the popular hero had finally found his groove for the victory lane. However, mistakes that followed over the following 135 laps rendered his work incomplete as he finished outside the top 10. The question that arises now with the Ambetter Health 400 upon us is, can he finally get his kill?

The upcoming race in Atlanta is the second superspeedway race in the calendar and will be raced over 260 laps and 400 miles. Since his debut in 2015, Elliott has sped at the track in 10 races and won once (2022 Quaker State 400). His average finish rate over the last three seasons stands at 13.0, one of the best in the current grid.

Only three names, Ryan Blaney (7.3), Kyle Busch (12.5), and Brad Keselowski (12.7) hold better figures than him in the period having raced an almost equal number of races. Also, it is only Busch and Keselowski who have more wins than him on the track, with two wins each. He brings in seven top-10 finishes to go along with his runs.

Paved along a length of 1.540 miles, the Atlanta Motor Speedway oscillates between being a superspeedway and an intermediate track. The super high speeds that it commands over the relatively short length make handling a difficult challenge to overcome for drivers. However, Elliott has already mastered his home track once and will hope to do so again.

Rivals of Chase Elliott wary of the challenges in Atlanta

Joey Logano won last year’s Ambetter Health 400 and is poised to win this year’s edition holding odds of 10-1, according to DraftsKing Sportsbook. He says of the Atlanta track, “I call it (Atlanta) kind of a confused racetrack. It doesn’t know if it wants to be a superspeedway or a mile-and-a-half.”

He explains, “It seems like you’re wide open all the way around it most of the time. If you’re leading, for sure, but there are other times where you’re hanging on and you’re in the back and you’re lifting and all that stuff.”

Logano’s fellow Ford driver Chase Briscoe agrees with the take calling Atlanta the “most mentally racetrack” on the schedule.

In his words, “Daytona and Talladega have always been mentally draining at the end of the day, but you go to Atlanta and things happen four times the speed because you lose a mile with that racetrack.”

From the words of these drivers and more that follow similar patterns, it can be ascertained that the upcoming race weekend will make for some really good entertainment with high speeds and precision handling.