Pep Boys Auto 500 Atlanta Facts

compiled by Mike Forde
NASCAR Media services

At Atlanta Motor Speedway:

History
• Originally called Atlanta International Raceway, the track was then a 1.5-mile paved speedway.
• The first NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta was on July 31, 1960, won by Fireball Roberts from the pole.
• Jeff Gordon won the first NASCAR Nationwide race at Atlanta held March 14, 1992.
• The first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Atlanta was held March 13, 2004, won by Bobby Hamilton.
• The track was re-measured to 1.522 miles in the spring of 1970.
• It was renamed Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1990.
• The track layout was reversed and the track was re-configured to 1.54 miles between the two races in 1997.

Notebook
• There have been 100 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Atlanta Speedway, two races per year except 1961, which had three.
• Fireball Roberts won the pole and race for the first NASCAR Sprint Cup race in 1960.
• 43 drivers have won a pole, led by Buddy Baker and Ryan Newman, each with seven.
• Six of Newman’s seven poles came in back-to-back races between March 2003 and October 2005.
• 42 drivers have won a race at Atlanta; 21 have won more than once, including Kurt Busch, who won his second Atlanta race earlier this season. In that event, Busch scored a perfect Driver Rating of 150.0.
• Dale Earnhardt scored nine victories, more than any other driver. Cale Yarborough is second with seven.
• Bobby Labonte has six victories, most among active drivers. Labonte is tied with Richard Petty for third on the all-time win list.
• The Wood Brothers are the most productive car owners with 12 victories. They last won there in 1993 with Morgan Shepherd.
• 14 races have been won from the pole. The last to do so was Kasey Kahne in 2006.
• 57 races at Atlanta 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 that a race winner has started at Atlanta.
• There have been seven season sweeps, most recently by Jimmie Johnson in 2007.
• Kurt Busch’s perfect Driver Rating of 150.0 in March was the eighth perfect rating since the inception of the Loop Data statistic in 2005. There has been one more since then: Jimmie Johnson at Dover International Speedway.
• Jimmie Johnson is the only active driver to average a top-10 finish (9.1).

NASCAR in Georgia
• There have been 159 NASCAR Sprint Cup races in Georgia.
• 169 NASCAR national series drivers all-time have their home state recorded as Georgia.
• There have been 14 race winners from Georgia in NASCAR’s three national series: