The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series continues this weekend in Atlanta. On Sunday, the NASCAR drivers take over Atlanta Motor Speedway to compete in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. The race will start at 3 p.m. ET and will air on Fox. The total purse for the race is $8,263,045.
Atlanta Motor Speedway has been repaved and revamped for the 2022 season and beyond. That’s going to make things a little challenging for the drivers due to the Next Gen cars. The last time NASCAR was in Atlanta was in July of last year when Kurt Busch won the Quaker State 400. For the 2021 Folds of Honor QuickTrip 500, it was Ryan Blaney who came out on top.
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“I think the goal has been to try and find some fall off everywhere we’ve gone, and I think Goodyear has done a really good job of that at a lot of places,” NASCAR driver Chris Buescher said this week. “With new asphalt at Atlanta and speeds as high as they are and loads as high as they are, I don’t know what kind of box that puts them in. I would say that we ran through a bunch of different compounds, but I don’t know that we got a good read on what we’d expect for fall off or where the grip would go. I would say that bigger thing that came up across the three drivers that were there was not so much sliding tires as much as chattering. New asphalt, when it gives up, it goes to a chatter more than a slide and just trying to hang on.”
One driver who is coming into Atlanta with some momentum is Chase Briscoe. The 27-year-old won his first Cup Series race last week, taking home the checkered flag at the Ruoff Mortgage 500 in Phoenix. After last week’s race, Briscoe talked about the challenges he faced getting to where he is today.
“I said it in my post-race deal, seven years ago I was literally two days away from giving up racing, at least on the pavement side,” Briscoe said. “Briggs and Beth Cunningham called me and asked me if I wanted to test their ARCA car. That turned into a race, then a full season, Ford taking a chance on me. There were many times along the way my career could have been over, even in the last four or five. To now be a winner in the Cup Series is unbelievable.”
