NASCAR 2022 at Atlanta: Who said what going into the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway

NASCAR is all set to kick-off the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The fifth NASCAR Cup Series race will start at 3 pm EST on Sunday, March 23.

Heading to Atlanta, Martin Truex Jr. failed to finish on last weekend’s Ruoff Mortgage 500. He talked about the unknowns at the newly renovated Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“I have no idea; I don’t see it being three-wide in the corners. But it could be. I don’t know that the third lane could be competitive. You never know. It’s going to be crazy.”

There will be a white-and-red line rule for this weekend's Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.

According to the rules, racers must race above the line, which divides the racing surface from the apron. RFK Racing team driver Chris Buescher felt that this rule was necessary to avoid major accidents for Sunday’s race and said:

“We need to have some kind of boundaries, and at the same time, we’ve been talking about the racing surface being maybe wide enough for three-wide and the frontstretch being wide enough for six — and where in the world are you going to go? It’s going to feel like you’re going up, but it’s really caused from the fall into it first, and I think it’s large enough that it is going to send spike loads through [the car].”

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Ross Chastain talks about NASCAR’s newly reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway

Trackhouse Racing team driver Ross Chastain, who finished second in last week’s race, talked about the major challenges of the new Atlanta racing track. Chastain said:

“If we're bump-drafting, there's a chance that you get hooked to the right on the straightaway through one of those doglegs, and that angle would just be too sharp. We asked for help, and they were more than happy to do it. And so they poured concrete, took some of the angle out of the safer barrier. It's not a performance thing. It's truly just if somebody hits the wall, we want it to be a glancing, the angle to be just in line with all of our other tracks, and we didn't feel like it was.”

Drivers appeared happy that NASCAR had made changes to the wall, though some also hoped for a change in Turn one. The newly formed NASCAR’s driver’s council played a role in talking to Speedway Motorsports about making the changes.