Even with all the time he’s spent at Daytona and Talladega, NASCAR analyst Kyle Petty has a new favorite racetrack.
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Petty took to his Kiss My Asphalt podcast on Sunday and declared EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) — site of Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 — as the “best track on the NASCAR calendar.”
Those are big words. And for some fans, fightin’ words. How could KP pick Atlanta over Daytona — where his father won a record seven times — or Talladega?
“So many times this racetrack was classified as a mile and a half like Texas, like Kansas, like Charlotte, all these racetracks,” Petty said. “It was not the superspeedway of Talladega and Daytona.
“But somehow it busted out of its boundaries, it busted out of its venue, it busted out of its genre and it moved to a different category. It is the one and only Atlanta Motor Speedway. We don’t see racing like this anywhere else…
“You don’t have to have 36 to 40 cars to have a great NASCAR race. We saw it in the last five, six, seven laps of the race, some of the best racing that we’ve seen since the first Atlanta race [earlier this year, which was won by Christopher Bell]! That’s what it’s all about, this racetrack puts on a show for the fans, so I think it’s great racing.”
Petty added, “This racetrack allows these drivers to do things here that they can’t do at Daytona, Talladega, Charlotte, Texas. They can only do this at Atlanta and it’s fascinating to watch.
“So for me, the art of racing and to watch these guys do this on this racetrack, is some of the best racing that I see all year… They should race there every week as far as I’m concerned because it is great NASCAR racing.”
Petty believes Atlanta has its own track category
Later, on the NASCAR: Inside the Race LIVE podcast, Petty reiterated his comments to host Steve Letarte, including discussing how the racetrack went through a massive reconfiguration and rebirth after the 2021 season.
“You had the (super)speedways, Daytona and Talladega, and you had the mile-and-a-halves, and Atlanta was in that group,” Petty said. “And somehow, (Speedway Motorsports President) Marcus Smith and those guys redesigned the place and said, ‘We’re going to create a whole new category of racetracks.’ I love this place, man.”
A lot of people didn’t like the changes, but it’s pretty clear that what used to be very good racing at the ‘old’ Atlanta Motor Speedway is now great racing at the newly renamed EPS.
