Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway
Front Runners highlights the drivers that lead laps, run fast laps, and run inside the top 10, 5, & 3 the most at correlated track types.
The NASCAR Cup Series makes its first return visit of 2023 when drivers will take 267 laps around the 1.5-mile quad-oval at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Although Atlanta is an intermediate sized track, the reconfiguration following the 2021 season has made Atlanta into a mini-superspeedway. Atlanta is now banked up to 28 degrees in the turns. Like at Daytona and Talladega, success at Atlanta requires drivers to successfully navigate and stay in the draft.
This week I am focusing on three data sets. First, the largest dataset includes all nine races that the Cup Series has completed at Atlanta, Daytona, and Talladega in the Gen 7 car. The second data set is just the three races at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the Gen 7 car. The final data set is the three drafting races so far in 2023.
The chart below is sorted by percentage of laps led by default. There was a data corruption in a few races that eliminated finishing position and fastest laps from about half the races I am considering this week. Since that data was corrupted I have removed the columns of number of finishes and fastest laps from this weeks chart. I’m hoping to get it restored before the next drafting race at Daytona in August. The good news is that at drafting tracks, finishing position can often get misleading and fastest laps are largely random. So if there is any race where missing these stats has the least impact, its this one.
Laps run inside the Top 10, 5, 3, and led as percentage laps driver completed at Atlanta (3), Daytona (3), and Talladega (3)
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Laps run inside the Top 10, 5, 3, and led as percentage laps driver completed at Atlanta in 2022 and 2023
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Laps run inside the Top 10, 5, 3, and led as percentage laps driver completed drafting tracks in 2023
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Thanks for checking out the Front Runners! Let’s WIN THE RACE!
