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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Good Racing, Good Times
A funny thing happened at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night: Racing broke out...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted September 07, 2009   Hampton, GA
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)

A funny thing happened at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night: Racing broke out.

Fast, intermediate tracks like the 1.54-mile AMS are the Achilles Heel of the new-generation NASCAR race car, where aero push too often makes passing up front all put impossible.

That most assuredly wasn’t the case in Sunday night’s Pep Boys Auto 500, where race-winner Kasey Kahne, runner-up Kevin Harvick and pole-sitter Martin Truex Jr. all led at least 60 laps. Juan Pablo Montoya and Jeff Gordon each led more than 30 circuits, and Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin were out front for at least 20 laps. That’s the kind of parity the new car was supposed to produce and it was certainly entertaining to watch.

The abrasive Atlanta asphalt, combined with the new tires Goodyear brought, meant some cars like Kahne were much better at the start of a green-flag run, while Harvick and others preferred longer runs. That made for compelling action, especially over the final 100 laps.

And then there’s the whole points issue.

Nobody climbed into or fell out of the top 12 at Atlanta, but Brian Vickers moved from 14th to 13th and is only 20 points behind Matt Kenseth in the race for the final Chase spot. Kyle Busch is just 37 back of Kenseth heading into a track where he won in the spring and has seven top-five finishes in nine Sprint Cup starts.

This thing is a long way from being decided.

Some other observations from the race:

• In a season where attendance has been weak, it was nice to see a great crowd in Atlanta. Labor Day used to be the biggest weekend in NASCAR, at least until Daytona came along in 1959. And while I still miss racing at Darlington Raceway over Labor Day weekend, Atlanta is a much, much better choice for this race date than Auto Club Speedway was.

• Seeing a champion like Bobby Labonte pushed out of his ride because of sponsorship issues sucked. Seeing Labonte, the acknowledged master of AMS, put a strong run together in the low-budget TRG Motorsports Chevrolet put a smile on a lot of faces. Labonte finished 18th but ran near the top 10 at times. Well done.


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