Chase Elliott recently won his home race in Atlanta last Sunday at EchoPark Speedway. The cheers were deafening as the hometown hero pulled off his first win of the season in one of the most chaotic races of the season. But it wasn’t just the victory that got fans talking; rather, it was what Elliott said about the track that turned some heads.
The Dawsonville, Georgia, native didn’t just call Atlanta a fun place to race. He went a step further and admitted that Atlanta is better than Daytona or Talladega. The two giants of superspeedway racing were called inferior to Atlanta by Elliott.
Chase Elliot Shines at His Home Race in Atlanta
Atlanta Motor Speedway (now EchoPark Speedway) received a major reconfiguration three years ago. These changes turned it into a mini superspeedway. The banking was increased, while the track surface was narrowed and repaved. These changes were made to promote better racing compared to those on other superspeedways on the calendar.
Sunday’s race was a wild and chaotic one. Two huge crashes took out almost half of the grid early during the race. Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, and Ryan Blaney were all out by the second stage. However, those crashes opened the door for some to compete for the race win. And one of them was Elliott.
CHASE ELLIOTT WINS IN ATLANTA! pic.twitter.com/EQfNV9JuNR
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) June 29, 2025
He crossed the line ahead of Brad Keselowski by just 0.168 seconds to win the race. This win brought an end to his nine-month winless streak. Both he and the fans were ecstatic after the win. Recently, on the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio podcast, Elliott talked about how tough it was to race at Atlanta and how much fun it actually turned out to be.
“Yeah, I mean it was just a lot of jockeying for, you know, for position and, you know, obviously there was a limited number of cars too,” Elliott said. “I don’t know how much that played into it, but it just seemed like, there was a lot of decision-making going on and whether or not you wanted to take your runs or if you wanted to try and kind of stay up in that top lane and hope that nobody went with the guy that did.”
Elliott Gives Atlanta the Edge
He mentioned during the interview that the race was quite entertaining to watch, and that Atlanta has a different vibe compared to other superspeedway packages.
“I think from a speedway perspective, for what we got going on, rules package-wise, for whatever reason, Atlanta seems to be kind of the best of the three,” he said. “Why that is, I don’t totally understand, but certainly the Daytona-Talladega speedway stuff has a totally different vibe to it right now. And kind of curious where things go at those places, but certainly Atlanta is a good one to go watch if you’re in the market for trying to get out to a race.”
Other drivers have stated the same before. Blaney recently said that Atlanta races are more exciting, and even Hamlin admitted to it being harder compared to others.
And fans are loving it too. Social media has been full of compliments for the track in Atlanta. The reworked Atlanta track has become a fan favourite and maybe a driver favourite too.
Atlanta might have become the new king of superspeedway racing. NASCAR officials need to do something about Daytona and Talladega, too, to bring them on the same page.