AMS looks forward to date change

Sunday’s Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway marks the end of the track’s championship era. After 23 straight seasons of being a major player in deciding the champion of the series now known as Sprint Cup, the track is giving up its late-season race date so it can run a night race on Labor Day weekend.

Track president Ed Clark said the opportunities offered by a night race in a favorable weather season far outweigh the advantages of being a part of the championship battle because holding races in November often pits the track in a losing battle with Mother Nature. Friday’s rainout of practice, qualifying and a special Late Model race was just one of many late fall events to be negatively affected by weather.

“Obviously we won’t be here dealing with this next year,” a dejected Clark said Friday night as he watched a steady mist fall on the track.

“There are no second thoughts about anything. Labor Day weekend is the way to go, and we’re going to make the most of it.”

Clark said the model he would like to follow is the one crafted by AMS’ sister track Bristol Motor Speedway, which turned its night race date into an event that has grown into one of the circuit’s most successful races. Bristol recently celebrated its 53rd straight sellout. During that span, the track’s seating capacity has grown from about 40,000 to 160,000, with the August night race leading the way.

“It’s certainly worked for our company at Bristol,” Clark said. “We’re in a very similar situation. We’re going to condense it down into a two-day deal and run pole qualifying with a Saturday Nationwide race just like they do. It’s a formula that works well for us. Fans obviously have supported it there. Why wouldn’t they here?”

If Clark and his AMS staff are able to duplicate the highly successful Bristol model, it should bring back the kind of drama that has been missing since the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Cup championship, even without a Chase format to tighten the standings late in the season, often came down to the last laps at Atlanta.

The title battles in those years were near-epic battles between the sport’s top stars. Twenty years ago, Bill Elliott took his only Cup title, winning by 84 points over Rusty Wallace, who gave it his all by winning the finale at Atlanta while Elliott was 11th. The next year, Dale Earnhardt won the 500 at Atlanta, but Wallace won his only Cup championship by 12 points over Earnhardt. In 1990, Earnhardt finished third at AMS to take the championship by 26 points over Mark Martin, who finished sixth in the race.

The 1992 season finale at Atlanta might well have been the best race ever in NASCAR. Six drivers — Alan Kulwicki, Elliott, Davey Allison, Harry Gant, Mark Martin and Kyle Petty — entered the race mathematically eligible for the title, but it came down to a battle between Kulwicki and Elliott. Elliott won the race, with Kulwicki second. Also, Kulwicki led one more lap than Elliott to get the five bonus points for leading the most laps, and he claimed the crown by 10 points. On top of that, it was Richard Petty’s final race and Jeff Gordon’s first.

The last really good points race at AMS was in 1997, when Gordon won by 14 points over Dale Jarrett, who finished second in that race to Gordon’s 17th.

After that, the championship magic was gone from AMS. The next three years, the title was decided before the circuit arrived in Atlanta. In 2002, the late-season race was moved to October, but the weather conditions haven’t been significantly better for fan comfort.

Driver Jeff Burton said AMS is making the correct move.

“Obviously having a race that’s in the Chase seems like on the surface to be a really good thing,” Burton said. “But I think it’s more important to have it on a weekend the weather stands a chance to be better.”

Carl Edwards predicts the AMS night race will become just what Clark envisions.

“Any time you can race at night at a place like this, it’s going to be cool,” he said. “It’ll be an all-star style event in all aspects, so that should be a blast.”