Is it time to repave Atlanta Motor Speedway?

Join Scott, Kurt and Ben as they recap their recent visit to the Atlanta Motor Speedway – a 1.54-mile, quad-oval track that has remained on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule since 1960. After a couple laps around the banked turns, the guys were able to get out and examine the track’s well-aged surface and learn from track president, Ed Clark, how it’s remained race-ready for the last 23 years – without a repave.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hi,
and Welcome to Car Stuff. I'm your host, Scott Benjamin Man,
I'm Ben Bowling, and I'm Kurt Garin. Hey. Guess what, guys,
We went out finally, we finally got out in the

(00:22):
field and we're able to do some interviews, which I
thought was pretty cool. We've done that in the past,
been many many years ago. Right. We went out to
a couple of car shows and things like that, Right,
Caffeine and octane. Uh. We also went to uh. We
we've seen some exhibits of some some pretty impressive cars. Now,
when you say you went to the field, you and

(00:43):
Kurt went to the field because I was off doing
something sketchy. Yeah, I think you were out on a
vacation of some kind. Actually, not a vacation, It is
probably work trip, right you were. I think you're on
the West coast. That might have been when you were
at the Peterson Museum. Oh, yeah, you know what, I
beout your right, So I think you were like out
covering that we were covering this. It kind of worked
out well that, you know, we're able to do two
things at one time. But Kurt and I traveled about

(01:06):
I guess it's about what forty five maybe an hour
south of where we're located right now in this in
the studio, and we went to Atlanta Motor Speedway and
there's an unusual situation, and I'll call it a situation,
it's not really situation, but there's an unusual thing happening
at Atlanta Motor Speedway that it's not happening at many
other NASCAR tracks on the circuit right now, and that's

(01:28):
what we wanted to talk to them about, right, that's right, Scott.
So we went to Atlanta Motor Speedway and spoke with
Ed Clark, who's the president there, and we also taught
to Brandon Hutcheson, he's the executive vice president and general
manager of Atlanta Motor Speedway, to get some information about
their racing surface. It's very old and they have very

(01:50):
consciously made the decision not to pave it. If I'm
not mistaken, Atlanta Motor Speedway is either the oldest or
the second oldest I'm not sure track surface on the
entire NASCAR circuit right now. And that's kind of a
big deal because we're talking about a surface right now
that is about twenty three years old. Now put that
into perspective, think about how often you know, the the

(02:12):
local roads are paved, you know, around your area. We're
talking about a NASCAR racing surface that they have left
in place for over two decades now, and they've talked
many times and I'll say threatened, but it's not really threatened.
They've they've talked about repaving this many many times. In fact,
the president ed Clark and even Brandon have talked about
many times paving this surface. But what happens every time

(02:34):
is they go to the drivers and the drivers say,
maybe not so fast, Maybe you should hold off on
that because we like coming here. Yeah, it's a big
endeavor to make no bones about it, right. The punishing
environment of Atlanta is not kind to asphalts. No. I mean,
it's nothing like you know in the North, where there's

(02:54):
like the freeze, the lost cycle or whatever. But Atlanta's
got the heat. It's got a ton of heat, and
there's a lot of rain. And apparently from what we
garner from the interview, that will we'll get too later.
We're gonna have a lengthy interview in its entirety. In
just a moment, I think that that rain is one
of the major factors in the deterioration of a track surface,
and a lot of times, you know, water will well

(03:16):
up from underneath the track and and kind of degrade
or or room the track that way. You know, there's
like a like a I guess I could say like
it percolates through the through the cracks and the track.
And when we were at the track, hurt And we'll
talk about this in just a moment, because I want
to talk about when we the day we went there
and what happened there, because it was pretty fascinated is fun.
But when we we actually get to ride on the

(03:38):
track and there were a lot of patches and a
lot of it's it's not like it's a perfect surface
in no way. In fact, it's the opposite. It's it's
a really patched together, difficult surface. Yeah, one of the
most interesting things that I found was how rough it looks.
First is how smooth the actual track is. As far

(03:58):
as dips and bomb there aren't many of those relatively
smooth rolling over it. It's just I suppose it's just
a brace of due to the aware of the asphalt
over the years. All Right, So you're talking about like when, okay,
here's here's what happened. We should just lead into this
to it. I really do feel like we should, because
when we got there, we were you know, they're on

(04:18):
a non race day. Of course, you know, it was
as an off day for them, and of course there's
a lot of you know, operations going on in the
office and there's a lot happening there. But we had
somebody that helped us out on track and was able
to drive us around a couple of laps and just
kind of give us a feel for the way the
track felt. And we were in what was it a
Chevy Blazer maybe it was a late model suv. It

(04:40):
was a brand new, like bright red. It looked like
a you know, a fire engine red suv. It was
pretty cool, but you know, it has a street car suspension.
So I was thinking like, okay, this is a little
bit soft. Anyway, we'll not be able to feel a
whole lot. But it was surprisingly smooth when we got
on the track. I mean, it took a long time
to get onto the track itself, you know, under the
tunnel and through the you know, the a maze of

(05:00):
turns and twists. He had to go through to get
onto the track which road course they have a road course,
the field partially on the road course, I guess right
at that point. But to be able to get on
the track and then to be able to go a
couple of laughs in the track, it maybe I think
we're going about seventy or eighty miles an hour. It
wasn't like top speed or anything, but we were able
to kind of feel the track surface and looking at it,

(05:21):
it looked like it was gonna be a lot rougher
than it was. It It looked like again I keep
saying this word, but it was like a patchwork of
tar and uh asphalt patches, and it was just it
looks like a mess. It really does. But when you
drive on it, it's relatively smooth. And I know that
that's not a race car that has almost no suspension.
You know, the body flexes about all it's got. You know,

(05:43):
that's it. So I know it's a lot rougher when
you're in a race car. But we could barely feel
anything when we're going around that track. And the only
time that I felt anything, and I thought this was
really telling or not telling, but interesting whether is when
we got to the start finish line and we crossed,
remember we crossed the uh the logo that was painted
on the track surface at the Atlanta Motor Speedway logo.

(06:04):
And the weird thing about this is that the logo
has it's probably the original logo. The track was built
in what nineteen sixty, I think it was open in
the nineteen sixty, built in ninety eight, I would believe.
And maybe this is not true, but it seems like
they've just been adding and adding and adding to that
paint since about nineteen sixty. Because that paint that was

(06:24):
the that was the roughest part of our whole trip Bend.
We were driving around and like every time we crossed
the start finish line. Yeah, it was like it's really
rough and it was just that giant logo that they
painted on the track surface. The rest of it was
it was like not glass smooth, but it was smooth,
way smoother than you think. And so we get out
of the truck, We get out of the suv allow

(06:45):
us to kind of like, you know, we're gonna there,
We're there to talk about the track surface. So we
get out and Kurt and I are both kind of
like kneeling down and like rubbing her hands on the pavement,
and I don't know what we're doing, you know, we're
just kind of being goofy, right, but we're feeling it's
a little bit rough. It's a little bit you know,
it's not as smooth as I thought it would be.
But I went to the paint because I knew that
felt weird, and I looked at it and I realized, like,

(07:06):
over the years, the layer after layer after layer that
had been built up of that paint had created kind
of these ridges, and it was like it was definitely
a raised logo. And it's for sure the roughest part
of that whole track. And besides what you would see,
you know, all the way around, it looks like the
whole thing is kind of again kind of a mess,
but the paint is definitely the worst part. Well, you

(07:27):
know how it is when when you think about fixing
something like that, why would you fix that paint if
you know you're already going to fix the track. As
a matter of fact, in twenty and nineteen, uh Motor
Speedway started to apply some some fixes to the cracks
in the pavement. They used this stuff called tis a flate. Yeah,

(07:49):
you know, what that's gonna be brought up a little
bit later in the interview. Yeah, yeah, Just so what's
it called. It's called Takes the Fault. And I think
Brandon Hutchinson will mention this in the interview later out
this type of product and what it does. And I've
I've watched a couple of videos about tis of fault.
It's strolls strange like they put it on a piece
of it looks like a piece of tile, right, And

(08:09):
when they put the tixel fault down, it repels the water.
It pushes it away. You can see it physically moving
the water away, which is kind of cool, Like there's
tiny hands just it's it. It's it's pushing it away.
It's like a little squeegee or something that's moving it away.
And and Brandon will talk about the Tixel felt and
what that's all about. But you know another thing that

(08:29):
he mentions, and again this will come up during the interview,
but there's very few people that actually are involved in
the preservation of this whole thing, right, And it's not
just the track surface, it's the whole facility, which is enormous.
It's eight and fifties square acres and it's just twelve
people that are maintaining the track and all of this property,

(08:53):
and it's incredible that they're able to do this because
like the surface itself is really really not not prestige,
but pretty darn close. I mean, they're really really good
at what they do. Yeah. Yeah, and Brandon and uh
and Ed we're both very very complimentary about the whole
team and what they do to keep you know, keep
on top of this whole thing. And uh, you know,

(09:13):
as far as like the feedback from the drivers, a
lot of drivers are really happy with the surface as well. Right, Oh,
they love it. Yeah, they don't want it to be repaved. No, No,
some of them are, you know, like kind of excited
by the by the challenge of it, I guess. Driver
Clint Bowyer said that it's one of the reasons Atlanta
Motor Speedway is one of his favorite racetracks. We have

(09:35):
a quote from him, the worn out surfaces the best
I hate repays. I get excited when we go there.
The speed, how the tires fall off, how you're able
to run all over the racetrack make it great. And
then another another driver, Ryan Blaney, says it's definitely a handful.
It definitely makes you work hard and search route constantly,
which is a lot of fun. It's an incredible facility,

(09:56):
it really is. And and Kurt, when you and I
went there, there was so much more too it then
I thought there was. Now, we'll get to the interview
in just a few minutes. I promise you. We're gonna
talk to Ed and Brandon and hear what they have
to say. But I guess I did not expect this.
I didn't read up on it ahead of time. I
should have. I should have, like really studied about what
it was about. But I didn't understand that they're actually

(10:17):
condos on the property. You can buy a condo that
faces the track itself, so that when you know, if
you if you own one of these properties, and there
are forty six condos that I think I've been around
since about and if you own one of these forty
six condos, you have essentially track front property. You're able
to watch a race anytime that it happens, but you

(10:38):
gotta live there all year. Probably somebody has decided that
during race weekends, I'm going to show up to this
condo and live there, you know, bring my friends and
you know, we'll have the essentially the box seats. Maybe
you've retired, you know, and you want to go during
specific races, but I don't. I don't know if there's
someone who lives there, you know, as like that's their

(11:01):
main Domati possibly maybe maybe it was a cool thing
to do, and maybe it still is. I think it is.
But you know, you've got to drive into this facility.
First of all, it's in uh it's in kind of
a rural area. It's Campton, Georgia, so you can look
up Hampton, Georgia and see where that is. And that's
one thing. I guess. It's kind of out of the way.
It's again about an hour south of Atlanta. Then you

(11:21):
gotta drive into this eight and fifty acre facility. Then
you gotta park on the you know, the facility property
and imagine what that's like if there's an event going on.
That's another thing. But when we got there, Kurt like,
it's not what I expected. It wasn't like a tower
of condos that are off to the side. This is
something that's built up behind the main grand stands. So like,
you know, the front of the property. I guess the

(11:43):
front of the condos look out over the track. You're
actually on the track with your windows and your your
box seats or whatever. The back of it is facing
the parking lot of the whole thing, but all around
you are the grand stands. It's it's really a kind
of a unique build. And if you haven't seen this,
maybe it's it's worthwhile to google it and check out
what's going on, because it's not what you would think.
It's not built the way you would think it would be.

(12:04):
It's very much integrated with the facility itself, and the
track itself is really building up. They're trying to do
a lot for the fans this year as well, and
that's that's another thing. And you've gone to a few
races at this track, Yeah, you've you've been there. Uh,
I've never been there for a race, I'll be honest
with you, but um I plan to go very soon.

(12:24):
I think it's a really cool facility. Now I've seen it,
but you've been there many many times. And you know,
one really cool thing about this track is that you
can see the entire track. It's a big surface. It's
it's it's one point five four miles all the way around.
So let's say a mile and a half around, but
you can see the entire track from wherever you are,

(12:45):
which is unique. That's one of the best viewing experiences
of any oval that I've been to, even like a
shorter track. It's just the end field is kind of
down lower than the backstretch, so when you're sitting anywhere
basically on the front stretch, you can see the whole
back stretch. So it seems like all seats are good
seats because I've been I've been to places, you know,

(13:05):
in the past that are that are so big that
you know, when the cars exit turn one, you don't
know what's happening until they come around turn four. Again,
you can camp on the property. In fact, they've opened there.
They've opened their facility. Now we said it's eight fifty acres.
There have been many times in the past since about
I think I've read the number and I'm gonna hopefully,
hopefully this is right. Somewhere around two thousand four there

(13:27):
was a hurricane and they decided that, you know, anybody
evacuating from Florida could pull off five and park in
their parking lot. They have a huge camping facility area
that they can you can park your r V or
you know, even put up a tent or whatever. There
wasn't just the one in two thousand four. There were many.
There have been like, you know, four or five along
the way, and I can't Yeah, I wish I could

(13:48):
rattle them off right now, that the names of them.
But many of the hurricanes saw several hundred thousand, you know,
several hundred thousand, if not you know, a million people
coming out of Florida up into Georgia. They try to
find someplace, you know, just escape the weather, and they're
able to take you know, I'm gonna ballpark this, but
you know whatever, able to park them and let them
stay there instead of having to make the trip all

(14:10):
the way into northern Georgia, which I think is pretty nice.
What else there's there's so many things about this. They
completely reconfigured it. You said that you in the early
days had gone to it when it was a different configuration, right, Yeah,
it used to be I think right at a mile
and a half oval traditional oval. Interesting layout of the track. Actually,
the turns are very long, like think think each turns

(14:32):
about a half a mile and then the straight away
the flat parts are quarter mile. Yeah, it was a
different shape though altogether right, So what had they gone from?
And two, well, it used to be just an oval
with two sweeping turns of for four NASCAR turns, and
now they have a I think it's called a quad

(14:53):
oval where the front stretch kind of has two little
elbows in it. Can I can I take just a
moment to mention something off to the site? All right?
So I was intrigued by this because I saw the
measurement of the facility. It's one point five four miles,
and I was thinking, Okay, how do they measure one
point five four miles versus just a mile and a
half if it would be a mile and a half.

(15:13):
Leave it at that. Everybody drives us, you know. It
said that's how we measure our our races or whatever
it turns out. And I hadn't really, I don't know
why I hadn't thought of this. But when you know
they're racing in let's say there's a race coming with us,
a five hundred mile race, not all the drivers are
really racing a true five miles because some of them
because the racing lines are only different, so you're never

(15:35):
racing exactly five miles. And I was thinking, how do
they ever get the exact calculation of how far track
is around, like a two and a half mile or
you know, two point six six for Talladegger or whatever
it is. It's a huge track. How do they get
that measurement and where do they measure it from? Well,
I found out that the appropriate way to measure a track,
a race track is fifteen feet in from the outside wall.

(15:59):
So they always go in fifteen feet and it's kind
of an average. So like let's say that you know,
you you bring the you know, the the roller wheel
or whatever it is. You know, you measure fifteen feet
in from the outside wall all the way around start
to finish, and you get a mile and a half
exactly a mile and a half. So all these races
that are you know, the I'll make them up like
the Firecracker four hundred or whatever it is. You're not

(16:20):
really going four hundred miles. You might be going a
little bit more, you might be going a little bit less.
It's just the way it works out. It's kind of cool.
I thought I had never heard of how they had
measured a racetrack other than that, other than you know,
just I don't know, loose science, I guess, but yeah,
there's really something to it. How do they measure a
road course? You know what? That's really tricky. I don't know.

(16:41):
I'll have to look that up. Yeah, yeah, I've wondered
that to myself. Yeah. So fifth, where do they choose
to Well, it's fift run them in from the outside wall.
If anybody ever asks you how they measure? Now you
know everybody. Now, everybody knows you, four or five other
people that are listening to this. No. So one thing
I want to point out this is it's kind of dumb.

(17:02):
But I don't think we ever got a chance to
talk about on air. Uh. A few years back, one
of the other people in our production family here, a
guy named Ramsey Young Tonight went to Atlanta Motor Speedway
to meet Burt Reynolds. Let me tell you, this is
not dumb. This is cool. This is this is weird. No,
this is really cool. I'm just mentioning it because I

(17:24):
never had the chance to say it was. It was
one of the first times I had gone back in
a number of years, and like, like we're talking about
they had done a lot of work, you know, Um,
I think it was it was in the late nineties
when they went from Oval to quad Oval and so
so I went to check it out and they were

(17:44):
doing uh, they were doing all these stunts from like
from Smoking in the Bandit. Yeah, this is now, this
is the anniversary of the movie, right, yeah, so this
is back in two thousand seventeen. This is when he
went and the man himself, Burt Reynolds, was there, right, yeah, yeah,
he's still alive. He's not with us anymore. Burt Reynolds

(18:06):
was still there, and he was there doing interviews. I
don't know if you were able to get near I
think he got kind of near him, but didn't an interview.
We didn't get a full interview, but we talked to
him and then he did the you guys know the
finger gun thing. I'm talking about bold one in those
moves and made our day. Um and he and he
stayed and did you know photo ops and and autographs?

(18:29):
Can I ask you a question? All right? So there
were stunts, right, There was a stunt where the Bandit car.
Actually there's a lot of like police chases and that
kind of thing. I think it was like a I
don't know why. There was like a drifting car that
was doing some a bunch of stuff too. I'm not
sure what that had to do with it. But they
had some cars that look like like Beauford t Justices
car and they were doing some jumps and some you know,

(18:50):
slides and crashes and things. They jumped a trans am,
that's right, they did. Burt Reynolds did not do that jump. No,
he did not. He was not behind the wheel Old
for that way. They actually had the guy who they
had a fairly famous car stunt creator, an expert, who
was handling these things. But Ramsey and I were It's weird.

(19:13):
It started out real formal, but by the time we
were actually watching the stunts in the crowd was there
and everything. Uh. Ramsey and I had somehow talked our
way into being like on the track, and the people
in charge of the stunts said, okay, you guys aren't
really supposed to be here, but just sort of like
stand next to this tractor trailer and you know, if

(19:36):
something goes wrong, be quick. And when they said that,
they walked off. They had stuff to do, and and
I thought, okay, yeah. I looked at Ramsey. I was like,
all right, yeah, we're quick, quick, sure, nimble enough. We
can we can duck a trans am? Trans am? Um?
It was. It was weird because you know, if you

(19:57):
have if you've ever been in the stunt world or
in production, you've been behind the scenes when you see
one of those things happen. So much work goes into
doing that stuff, and it can be dangerous, even when
like the Smilokeie in the Band that stunts have been
extensively studied and people have done them legally and legal. Well, okay,

(20:21):
so this is before I feel like we need to
kind of get into the interview soon and then we'll come.
We'll come. No, sorry, we'll come back and talk later
about a couple other things. But I really want to
talk about this first just a second, because the original
jump over the river was what was going to happen
that weekend, right, That was supposed to be like the
high point of that whole weekend. And there was a

(20:42):
jump over the river that was done during the original
Smoking the Banded movie in and of course that bridge
is washed out and as it was in a movie, right,
that was part of the whole thing. They were going
to recreate that jump that weekend, and they had tried
to get permits and everything and I don't know if
it ever went through or not, but they couldn't get
the like the lead up road to it ready or something.

(21:04):
They were going to recreate the whole jump right in
the in the environment. Yeah, and it never quite panned
out exactly. I mean, it was like there was a
big lead up and there was even like I think
there was even a giveaway of a trans am car.
You know, you could you could have a raffle you know,
you could buy a ticket or whatever it was and
and you know, win the raffle rams and were pretty
excited about that for a short time. I know, because

(21:24):
that was my first car. It was a trans that's
pretty trans am. It looked a lot like the Bandit's car.
It was really cool. But I I would love to
have won that car. In a way, I also would
have hated to have won that car in away because
it would be bringing up bad memories. But they did.
They had to jump on the track, yeah, they did,

(21:46):
and it just didn't work out. And I don't know
if they've ever redone it. I know I've seen groups
that have gone back to that location, you know, with
the type of car that they you know, they had
in the banners and all that, and you know, kind
of celebrating the anniversaries or whatever, but they've never really
recreated that jump at the exact same spot before. Maybe
they're waiting for the right driver. Maybe it's you man,

(22:07):
Maybe if I'd won that raffle. Maybe, I mean, what
the heck it's it's a free car, right, Yeah, you've
got trans am experience. Jump over, I'll jump over a river.
Who cares? Yeah? That's when I say about you. All
this is water? What is that dangerous? So come on,
I'm around water all that. I got water in front
of me right already? No, okay, here, how about I

(22:28):
proposed this. Uh, we're getting a little close to having
this episode be an entire episode. That's called a lead
up to the interview. Yeah, it's spinning out of control.
So I suggest, first off, I'm bringing up the Burt
Reynolds sing uh and the smoking the banded thing because
it was an amazing experience and good on Ramsey for
putting that together, but also because I want to emphasize

(22:49):
that the Atlanta Motor Speedway is a hidden gem. They
have events like this all the time. So how about
we go to the excellent interview that you guys have
conducted and we come back, maybe we can talk a
little bit more about some other events that the speedway
has going on. Sure, yes, some events, and maybe a
little bit of a little bit more of the pop culture.

(23:11):
It's it's surrounding that whole thing. So so let's let's
jump into the interview and see what happens there. It's
twenty three seasons now that we've used this surface. That
is Ed Clark. He is the president of Atlanta Motor Speedway.

(23:35):
Scott and I sat down with Ed and Brandon Hutchinson,
the tracks executive vice president and general manager, ahead of
the Folds of Honor quick Trip five hundred to discuss
at Lanta Motor Speedways gracefully aged racing surface. It was.
We had built not only new grandstands, but new garages,
media center, really just kind of rebuilt everything that was

(23:57):
here when our company bought the track in October of nine.
Brandon explained that throughout the nineties the race track underwent
a dramatic facelift that included a complete reconfiguration of the
track itself, which also included a fresh code of asphalt.
We came in the day after the March race tore

(24:18):
up half of the track as part of the reconfiguration project,
so the first race was ran November. I don't think
anybody would have guests that we would be sitting here
twenty three years later with the same racing surface. Bill
Elliott actually tested the day after the March race, and

(24:39):
at the end of his test that day, he stopped
his car on what was then the backstretch, got out,
got on a bull doze and started knocking the fence
down and plow on the wall up. And I guess
at that point we figured we were going to have
to do something because the track was torn up. And
now some say that the track surfaces again torn up,
only this time not by Bill Elliott, but by time,

(25:01):
repaving the track would turn Atlanta Motor Speedway into a
speed Demons dream, the fastest race track on the NASCAR
circuit Relapse, with average close to two hundred miles per hour.
So why not do it? Already three years ago we
announced that we were going to repave. After that event,
and our boss to time, Bruton Smith, went down into

(25:22):
the NASCAR garage and I believe Kevin Harvick may have
been the first driver to approach him. About not paving,
and once it became obvious they maybe we'll consider that.
The words spread quickly and by the time he emerged
out of the garage area about six drivers that stopped
him and told him why we shouldn't repave, And at
that point our repaving program went by the wayside. With

(25:45):
the exception of two road course events, the rest of
the NASCAR schedule takes place on ovals of varying configurations
and links. Some are considered short tracks, like Bristol and Martinsville,
and some offer unique challenges in their design alone, like Pocono.
Reach of its three turns is wildly different. Since oval
racing a NASCAR go hand in hand, races can often

(26:06):
be a game of inches and thousands of a second.
Small mistakes equate to large gains in oval racing, and
there aren't very many opportunities to make up time. Very
rarely do we get a driver comment that they don't
like the surface. Drivers like to have options and a
new surface. The fastest way around is the shortest way around.

(26:27):
Everybody wants to dive to the bottom of the track
and it produces pretty much one groove racing. Also, when
we repaid the track here, with a new design. It
was lightning fast. Even brave drivers like Dale Earnhardt were
very cautious because it was tough on tires. It took
good Year a couple of years to figure out a
compound that would work and not have blown tires. Drivers

(26:50):
even back then just they just really didn't like it. Now,
once we got about four or five years of age
on the surface, then it became their favorite place to
race because you would see so many different setups. Some
guys would set up to run the bottom all the
way around the track. Some guys would run the bottom
and one turning up against the wall another turn. Other
guys would be all the way up against the wall
the whole time. So they go in the corners and

(27:12):
fan out and you'd get two and three wide racing
through the corners. The fans loved that, the drivers loved that.
They'd get out of the cars in high five and
it was just a ton of fun. And still today
with the abrasive and worn surface we have, it's really
tough on tires, but it lets them slipping slide around.
The drivers like it because they're more in control. They
really got to drive the car. You see those arms

(27:34):
and hands flailing after about a dozen laps on new tires.
But they feel like, hey, I'm the best driver, so
I can have more determination on the outcome because it's
up to me. It's not the car necessarily, it's the
way I drive, the way I set my car up
to run through a full tire run. And I can
tell you as it relates to racing. Typically, if you

(27:55):
take a poll of forty different drivers, you're gonna get
twenty that like one way and twenty that like it
the other. But I can tell you as it relates
to our racing surface. The overwhelming responses we love it.
As Ed says, it puts the driver more in control
of the car. I asked Eric Almerola after qualifying in
twenty nineteen, what do you think should we change it?

(28:18):
And it was don't touch it. At the end of
the Axfinity race, I asked Christopher Bell, what do you
want us to do? Should we repave? And again, don't
do a thing. It's so much fun to drive. It's
a racy surface. Thinking about inches at two hundred miles
per hour over five hundred miles on an oval racetrack
with three hundred plus other cars, all trying not to

(28:39):
lose momentum can cause a person to become just as
mystical about the tracks layout in Nuances as fans of
the nurbur Green Spa or Bathhurst. Besides Atlanta Motor Speedways
old surface, the tracks layout is rather unique in its
own right. You've got to understand that Atlanta Motor Speedway,
you're going through the corners two thirds of the time
or turns or half miles each and they're straightaways are

(29:01):
a quarter mile. Back in the early days, we had
a couple of different tire companies involved in the sports,
so compounds were a little more on the edge, and
that led to some of the failures that we saw.
Good Year is a great company and now that they're
the lone tire builder, we don't have those issues at all.
But what happened was, after a couple of events, they

(29:21):
actually brought Bobby the Bonny, Jeff Gordon and Mark martin
In and ran simulated races, I mean full tire runs
and actually one time they went out and round about
three hundred miles straight and through that series of tests
they found a compound that really worked and handled the
side bite which had been the problem and since then,

(29:42):
tires haven't really been that much of an issue. But
you have to build a tire to match the track
surface air track surface. It's ugly if you look at it,
there's nothing beautiful about it. If you drive it, it's wonderful.
But they build a tire that gives up some which
the drivers like, but will last a full fuel stop
and that's what you won't you know, Guys tell me

(30:04):
that they halfway sat tires rolling the car out the
pit road to get ready to go on the track. Here.
The track is celebrasive, but that's also why they love it,
and it's not universal. We do a Voice of the
Fans study after every race, and I would say the
comments back now regarding the surfaces, close to fifty fifties

(30:26):
want us to repay because they want to see the
fast speeds and and what that may bring. And the
other just says absolutely, don't touch it, and that probably
has their opinion because that's what their favorite drivers saying.
The repair process becomes longer and longer every year because
we continue to get more and more cracks. If you

(30:49):
look at it, it looks like somebody that was in
our wreck and had a bunch of stitches. I mean,
we have repaired and patched, and we've got patches on patches.
But you know, at the end of the day, if
you get good product out of it, it doesn't matter
how pretty it is. So we'll continue to evaluate each
and every year after the event, and at some point
we'll say, yet it's time. I think at that time

(31:11):
the team's good year, NASCAR Speedway Motorsports, our company will
I'll probably be in agreement it's okay, it's time to
do this. For now, Atlanta Motor Speedway is reveling in
the fact that their racetracks providing a worthy testing ground
for competitors while cementing its place in NASCAR history. You

(31:32):
never know when it's time to Obviously I'm the one
that had the idea to repay, and we didn't repay.
It appears now to three years later that it was
the thing to do to leave it as it was.
This surface is going to have a life. It's probably
used it up. But the good thing is we haven't
had water issues after a rain that is delayed a race,

(31:54):
or we had rain last year and started on time.
And as long as we can do that logistically, there's
no reason not to repay, but we we're gonna have
to at some point, and the teams will go through
the challenge of being back on what at that point
will be the fastest track in NASCAR, and how they
deal with the speeds and in all the issues that

(32:16):
the extra speed ranks. As a race track surface ages
and changes, the tracks characteristics morph into something different, enabling
to track to become a unique character in the story.
At the end of the day, we're in the entertainment business,
so as Ed said, as long as the track surface
holds up and provides an entertaining package for our fans,

(32:38):
that's what it's all about. So NASCAR and speedway Motorsports
really more than ever, are working in lockstep on how
we entertain the fans, because again, that's the most important
thing that we think about, is the fans experience. So
hopefully we'll get a few more races out of it,
but you never know. A couple of years ago, we
were of the mindset that, all right, we're gonna repay

(32:59):
after this race. So now it's a hot topic of
conversation every time this time of year rolls around. Are
they going to repay? When are you going to repay?
Why aren't you going to repay? Please don't repay. So
it just adds to the allure of one of the
most historic, iconic tracks on the NASCAR circuit and what

(33:20):
exactly does it take to keep at Land a motor
speedway in tip top racing shape. We've got an operations
team of about twelve guys and they're on the track
every day. Are they actually doing something to extend the
life of the track every day? Certainly not, but we're
we're taking really close tabs on what the track surfaces doing.

(33:41):
As you know, in in our sport, water is not
a good thing, so we're always trying to do everything
we can to figure out where the water is coming
from route those water channels, away from from the track itself.
They're calling for rain later this week, so you can
rest assured that when the rain stops, we're looking for
new weepers areas where waters come maybe coming up through

(34:03):
the track. But we've been very fortunate over the last
couple of years because of their work and determination to
really extend the life of this track, that we don't
really have many water issues. But the team will go
out there. As we talked about for about a month
in the fall to seal any cracks, but absolutely throughout
the week they're out there taking a look and just

(34:24):
seeing what might need to be done to extend a
life as long as possible. The surface would not have
lived this long. We started that very early on after paving.
I think we always targeted kind of like the first
week of October because it's a dry period. The reason
asphalt doesn't last at race tracks are a lot of
tracks have to be repaved. As moisture gets underneath the track,

(34:46):
you get freezing and that creates a heath. So now
you've created a bump, and we just don't have those
lumps and bumps that the drivers still are amazed at
how smooth their surfaces, and that's because we religiously went
year after year and sealed this thing up both behind
the outer wall and on the track side, just to

(35:06):
make sure that moisture didn't get underneath and freeze. And
we've actually had people come from other tracks, other NASCAR
tracks to look at what we've done to seal air
track and ask us about what our program is because
they're kind of astounded that literally that any surface can
last this long, which is a great compliment to our team.
It's a testament to how hard they work and and

(35:28):
and that's the same group of people. We've got additional
part timers, but that's the same group of people that
take care of eight hundred and fifty acres. So it's
not just a mile and a half track surface that
they're interested in. They're interested in every nook and cranny
of this place. It's a massive footprint if you think
about it in terms of major NFL stadiums. You know,

(35:49):
right up the road twenty seven miles we've got the
Mercedes Ben Stadium. You could fit three Mercedes Ben stadiums
in our infield. We've got campgrounds, we've got lakes that
people fishing throughout the year. We've got over one point
two million square feet of asphalt parking and as you
start thinking about parking lots, it's very rare that you
find something that big without obstacles in the middle of it.

(36:12):
So we've got the infield, of course, with two three
thousand square foot garages. We've got a fuel station, we've
got an infield care center. We operate Legend Cars of Georgia,
which is Legends and Bandalira's manufacturers, so we're we're running
another racing program out of our speedway every year with
our Thursday thunder Will race about twenty races a year.

(36:34):
We've got our Friday night Drags programs, so we dragged
right down pit road. So while most of it looks
like open fields throughout the day, to us, it's it's
so much more of the place stays very active and
it takes a lot upkeep. If it weren't for the
hard work of our operations department, we would have had
to repay some time ago. We're always closely watching the

(36:57):
track and seeing how the weather is changing the track.
We as I said earlier, we have a bunch of
different events that take place, but as it relates to
the full mile and a half, our operations department every
year applies a compound and this year we went to
a new compound called tis a fault, and it's basically
a compound that you put into any cracks that you

(37:19):
might have where the seams of the track may be
coming apart. They put it in there, bake it in,
and the tix a fault is actually a flexible compound,
so it's really really cold. If it's really really hot,
it can move as the asphalt moves and hopefully we'll
see positive results out of it. Technology now makes it
possible for manufacturers and e sports and gaming companies to

(37:42):
create scans of a race track surface that allow for
very accurate simulations to be made. Each of the manufacturers
will come out and they'll they'll scan the track so
that they have all the information that they can sit
in North Carolina and pretty much know exactly what the
track looks like. And to take that a step further,
even the gaming companies do the same thing. My son

(38:03):
is sixteen years old, and like every other sixteen year
old in the world, he's got the PlayStation. He'll call
me in his room and he'll say, Dad, you're not
gonna believe how lifelike this is. And from marks on
the track wall to marks on the track, to the billboards,
to the suites to the trees, it's identical to to

(38:24):
what you would see here live at the track. So
it really is not only really cool to be able
to sit in front of your TV at home and
race on the exact racing surface that you would see
here live, but it also gives us an opportunity to
try to cultivate that next generation of race fan. They're
sitting at home playing a game, they can come out

(38:44):
to the track and see exactly what they've been racing,
and so it's pretty cool for the for the fans
that choose to game as well. They actually come in
every couple of years and do a skin that I
guess the information goes to the race teams in good
year and people like that that they use in their simulation.

(39:05):
You know, the teams now have seven post shakers and
other tools that they used. Really that almost alleviates having
to come to the track and test because of that,
and so they update that from time to time and
it's become a primary element in the team's being able
to unload off of their trucks pretty close to the
set up they need when they come here to race.

(39:26):
There's not an open testing period per se like there
was twenty years ago. Now the teams get a certain
amount of vouchers and they apply for tests. We had
a test here. You've got rookie tests that tend to
take place a month or two before your race. When
rookies need to be approved, whether it's to go run
at Daytona or to go run at Las Vegas or

(39:48):
even run here in Atlanta, so you've got tests like
that that go on from time to time. But as
far as a open test, we used to have open
tests where you'd have thirty teams out here testing, and boy,
those a lot of fun to watch. As Ed said
when Goodyear was here just after the repay, to see
teams running a full fuel cycles pretty cool. But we'll

(40:09):
have some testing just after the folds of our Quick
Trip five in March to take a look at that car.
Next season in NASCAR's Premier Cup Series, will debut at
seventh generation car. There has even been some talk about
new manufacturers jumping into NASCAR, but first and foremost, the
handling of the car will be dramatically altered, thanks in

(40:30):
large part to an independent rear suspension. Earlier, Ed mentioned
NASCAR's tire supplier, good Year and the impact that tire
design has on the show. In an effort to make
the seventh generation car look more stock, it will feature
a lower profile tire with an eighteen inch wheel as
opposed of the current fifteen inch tire. The contact patch
may also be wider. Teams will now have to start

(40:51):
from scratch with their setups next season. Essentially every track
they go to will be like going to a new
race track for the first time. We haven't had the
twenty Winny one car on our track yet, so I'm
not sure what the changes will be and how it
will affect the cars handling on our track, but they
will be doing some testing right after the race to
figure that out. Oval racing truly is a game of inches,

(41:14):
and Ed has high hopes for the seventh generation car
as well. There was a period of time we had
like three of the closest finishes in NASCAR history, and
we have had one in a while, and hopefully that'll
bring back that coming off the fourth turn, two and
three wide bouncing off of each other for the wind
that the fans love and the guy who winds loves that.
The other two don't like it. The team at Atlanta

(41:36):
Motor Speedway is looking into the future. They are currently
in the early phases of once again reimagining the facility.
The idea is to convert some of the open space
they have into a casino resort, something we're extremely interested
and we work on it every day. A lot of
elements have to fall into place for that to come
to fruition, but our company is very much interested in

(41:57):
pursuing that and hopefully it's something that will be an
addition to what we have here. We feel like the
hundreds of thousands of people who come through this place
on a yearly basis would be a great core business
for the resort property, and that it would also allow
us to have additional events at Atlanta Motor Speedway and
would be a win win. So we're looking forward to

(42:18):
the future of that and working every day to hopefully
make sure that happens. In the nineties, Bruton Smith, the
head of Speedway Motorsports, the company that owns Atlanta Motor Speedway,
had the vision to convert the track into its current
quad oval configuration that mimicked another one of the company's tracks,
Charlotte Motor Speedway. I recently saw a rendering of the

(42:39):
resort project and to me it appeared as if it
depicted Atlanta Motor Speedway as an oval once again. So
I had to ask, are there any plans to convert
Atlanta Motor Speedway back to a true oval? You know,
the mystique of that true oval is something that some
of our fans tell us about, and you know, but
the the vision of Bruton. To change us to a

(43:03):
quad ovill is something that I don't see us taken
away anytime soon. Thanks for listening and join us. After
the break, we'll we'll wrap it all up. So there
you have it. Ed is promising a tight finish, a

(43:25):
photo finish, right, I mean there's no way around it.
He's ordered the photo finish. Decreed, He's decreed, he's decreed
the photo finish, right, So like it's guaranteed. I don't
think there's any way that's not going to happen. Yeah,
if not, I mean full refunds. Okay, none of this
is binding by any means. But you know what, one
quick thing, Ben, I think we need to go back

(43:46):
to this because this was just an egregious mistake on
your part. You said that the human body has set
what way way off and I think a lot of
doctors are going to write in and have a problem
with this. Yeah. So what's the actual percentage of body
that is water? Uh, it's up to sixty. However, in
my defense, both the brain and the heart finding characteristics

(44:11):
of a person are around seventy. Al Right, now, I
have I've always my whole life, I've heard I think
you're getting confused with earth. I think he's right. I
think that I've heard that the surface of the Earth
is eighty percent water. That might be where I'm getting
but I had I had somehow like switch that around
in my head, that you know, the human body is
eighty percent water. That's wrong too, So the earth water man.

(44:36):
We are off today. I don't know what's gone any
any any landing you can walk away from, you know. Uh,
Luckily we are. Luckily we have done our due diligence
correcting one of by terrible jokes. But we're also learning
a lot about the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Again. It's just
so fascinating to me that you can live in the

(44:59):
same place or years or decades and never see some
of the astonishing stuff around you. Like we have received
letters over the years from people telling us some fantastic
stories about their local tracks, you know, And I'm always
surprised that people who are maybe they're they're car fans,

(45:21):
but they're not specifically NASCAR fans. Yeah, sometimes they don't
know about this. Well, been here we are, We're we're
an hour we're less than an hour from a track
that has been a NASCAR track. For fifty seven years,
and this is my first trip to it. I mean
I told Ed and Brandon it was my first trip
to it when I was there in the interview, and
I think that might have been a little bit of
a mistake because they were kind of like, oh, shame

(45:42):
on you for not ever, you know, coming here before.
And they were super happy with Kurt because Kurt had
been going there since he was a kid. Of course,
you know, he had to be the kiss as was there,
you know, telling him like, oh, I have so many
memories when I'm a child, and you know, it's been
so fantastic to be here and everything. And then I'm like, oh,
I've never been here before, but it looks like a
nice place, and I I'm sure you have plenty of
good races here. And they were like, oh, well, well,

(46:03):
we're not gonna pay much attention to this guy. But
that Kurt guy, he knows what's going on. He knows
what time and day it is, he knows what time
it is on the street. That's what they said. When
I contacted them for a release to you know, use
their voices on air. They said that they really thought
that Kurt was a top notch guy, and they said
you had made a powerful enemy. Yeah, well that's true.

(46:24):
And they did say but but however, they did say
that he really does need a beard trim that you know,
it's a little bit out of control, it's a little
bit wild. Maybe you could do like tone it back
next time he comes into the executive offices over there,
because there's a certain standard that they, you know, they
require come into some place like that. It's it's it's
it's like an executive office. Ben it was. It was

(46:44):
high class, out of respect. You would think you would
think that that would happen, but he didn't. And uh
and I did, you know, that's just the way it goes.
But um, you know, we were talking just a little
bit about like the pop culture. I guess, so the
whole thing. And there's a couple of movies that have
have been there and one that there really took me
by surprise, and I didn't remember this, okay, So you know,

(47:06):
we talked a little bit about Smoking the Bandit and
actually Smoking the Bandit Part two. A lot of the
opening scenes were filmed at the track itself, as was
the movie stroker Ace. If you remember the film Stroke Race,
Ine and I remember that one quite well, I guess,
quite clearly from cable days away back then, you know.
But one that I'll tell you that I remember very

(47:28):
very clearly, watching many many times on early day cable,
like when he first got cable in my house, there
was a movie called six Pack and had It had
Kenny Rogers in it, and it was about him and
a bunch of kids that would travel around in this
RV and race he was a race driver. And I
don't remember a whole lot about the plot now, but
I must have seen that movie a dozen times. It's

(47:48):
just been you know, thirty five years since I've seen it,
that's the problem. But it was always on cable back
in you know, the early nineteen eighties, and I remember
watching that one. Also. Another thing that I find kind
of fascinated is that former US President Jimmy Carter was
a ticket taker at this very track, which kind of
makes sense. I mean, it's a it's southern Georgia, right,
That's where he's from. At the time. Of course, he

(48:10):
wasn't you known as former US president. He was, you know,
just someone kind of coming up through the ranks at
that point. But yeah, just Jimmy and later you know,
it was he as he was governor of Georgia and
then later as US President, he attended a couple of
races there, so it's kind of a big deal. And
then later, much later, in two thousand seventeen, there was
a highst comedy film called Logan Lucky, which I have

(48:32):
never heard of. I've never heard of Logan Lucky. I
have to look that one up. But the Atlanta Motor
speed we kind of stood in for the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
And I would guess that you know this, you know
the way it works. It's like some kind of tax
break or something to shoot down here. Probably that makes sense.
I mean, you saved so much money. And also everybody
who is familiar with Atlanta in the Atlanta metro area

(48:53):
is noticing that more and more, Like you watched got
any Marvel film now, And if you're familiar with this
city at all, you'll be able to say, Hey, that's
not London, that's my house, that's that's actually that's what
they were doing there. Yeah. Yeah, you know it's funny.
You'll see, you know, movie productions that block off entire
city blocks, and you'll find that this is one thing

(49:15):
that I think we talked about maybe a couple of
years ago now, but I was coming down past the
Fox Theater in downtown Atlanta on one of the many
peach tree streets that we have, and there was a
whole section blocked off by um I think it's the
Livingston Hotel is a you know, big beautiful hotel with
a great grand porch and everything. It's a big stone building,
really impressive. Right. They're doing a movie scene outside and

(49:38):
there's all these taxi cabs parked out front. I mean,
like fifty taxi cabs parked outside, and they've all got
like I think it was New York Taxi Cab Service
written on the side of them. It was all you know,
dummy cars that were you know, made up for the movies.
But it's funny to see it in downtown Atlanta, you know,
trying to pretend as if it's like downtown New York.
And that's why there's so many cabs there, and they've
got them even labeled as such, which I thought was

(49:59):
really weird. It's it's just a strange thing when you
drive around your own city and you see stuff like
that happening. But just kind of a cool thing. That
they're able to use this track for you know, some
pop culture things that people can you know, can can
kind of get behind, they can you know, recognize. And
they're building a community like the new stadium north of town.
They I think they have condos too. Yeah, this is

(50:22):
what they just changed the name of it to Truest Park,
I think. But it's got you know again, they've got
living facilities, they've got restaurants, they've got all kinds of things, nightclubs.
I mean, you can go there and you know, any
time of the year practically, even when there's not a
game going on, and just kind of hang out there.
It's kind of a cool place. And I don't know
if the speedway is at that level yet. Yeah, it's close.

(50:43):
It's pretty close because they have a lot of events
going on there and when when Kurt and I were there,
they were talking about, you know, they have um a
drag racing event that happens on the on Friday night.
Oh Friday nights. Okay, but in the summer right. It's
really it's not like what you would think. It's it's
not like you know, a Christmas tree event. It's like
somebody waves their hand, you know, flag with their hand
and that's the drag race. UM. It's kind of like

(51:05):
an old school event which is really kind of cool,
and that happens on the um the pit road, I believe,
and it's uh, I think it's just kind of uh.
I don't know how it works if you have to
sign up to go or whatever, but look into it.
Check out the Lanta Motor Speedway website and you'll be
able to find out more information about how to get
there and actually, you know, drag your own personal car
if you want. If you want to do something like that,

(51:27):
We've we've talked about some disasters that have happened with
stuff like that, so be careful if you decided to
do something like that, be realistic. And then they have
racing schools that happened there all year long. They also
have a couple of like exotic car events where they
allow you to drive exotics around the track and you know,
on the race on the road course. Rather, They've got
all kinds of just things happening all week long. It's

(51:49):
not just the one, you know, big NASCAR event that
they have every year. It's there's a lot more to it.
They host the NASCAR Craft and Truck Series, I believe, Yeah,
that would be the same weekend, and then it's the
other one. There's another support series, right, Vifinity Series, The
Axfinity Series is also there. So they have three really
big NASCAR focused events that happened there every year. In

(52:10):
addition to that, they're busy all year long. It's there's
never a break really, and so you know, Ed and
Brandon are working their hearts out trying to keep the
place going, and the facilities people, the operations people are
doing their best to keep the track surface intact and
uh and you know, we saw many people in the
office there as well that are just running the day
to day operations, doing a fantastic job of that. And

(52:33):
it's just it's a really well run facility. And I
was really impressed with it when we were there. I
guess overall, we just at least Kurt and I don't
know about you, Ben, I mean, we haven't really talked
about this, but we're kind of hoping that they were
able to hang onto that surface just a couple more years,
you know, just just for the nostalgia sense of the
whole thing, I hope. So, I mean, you guys know me,
I'm a don't fix it if it isn't broken person.

(52:55):
And it sounds like a lot of the racers like it.
But but still it's gonna get to a point where
it may be just simply a quality and safety issue,
at which point we have no choice. But as they
approach that point, yeah, of course, because that's what you
want in a track, especially storied, when you want something unique,

(53:16):
you know, like people Okay, I'll say people like the
Nuber Green so much because for a long time it
was weird and dangerous. It was still is as dangerous
as hell, and that's that's that's part of the allure
of something like that, right, And and the drivers are
into the challenge. The fans if they wanted a little

(53:39):
bit faster, fine will repay if they want to see
like a true challenge for the drivers. You know, that's
somebody who can really like win because they're a good driver.
That's what Atlanta provides for them. And and I think
that if they can hang onto that for a couple
more years, fantastic. But it's getting to the point where
it's like a fifty son to drive it. I think

(54:00):
they said this during the interview. Maybe it was a
I believe, but he said, the drivers are saying, yeah,
it's time. Others are saying, don't do anything to it,
and then the fans are kind of fifty fifty also
because they're mirroring what the drivers are saying. Rather so
like whatever their favorite driver says, they're just going to
kind of go along with that, and they're saying, like,
let's do that. But we may see some faster speeds

(54:22):
and we may see some you know, well you'll see
improved handling, etcetera. On the new track if they do
decide to pave it, And that's fine. If they do,
it's you know, definitely lived, it's it's full life. It's
had a full run of it. But if they do
decide to do it, we are going to see some
faster speeds, We're gonna see some better handling, We're gonna see,
you know, a different race altogether, at least for the
first couple of years, and then later it'll start to

(54:44):
kind of, you know, be aged a little bit more
and it'll have a little bit more of a character
to it. And I think, as Kurt said, you know
that the in the interview, he was mentioning that the
track itself becomes, you know, a character in itself. It
becomes like one of the um you know, during a
race weekend, you'll hear a lot about how you know,
entire compounds play a big story, weather plays a big story.

(55:05):
At Atlanta track surface plays a huge story, and it
does every single year, and it will every year until
they repave, and then in fact, after they repay, it's
going to play a big role, you know, until everybody
kind of gets used to it again and it becomes,
you know, like one of these tracks that's been around
three or four years and everybody knows it. And I
find it really fascinating that they're making scans of this

(55:26):
and trying to preserve it and trying to keep the
historical element of this track intact for people that are
playing online games and even teams that are trying to
prepare for the next race or whatever. I just find
that fascinating as you're able to do that and able
to make an exact reproduction of the track in order
to prepare for something like that, which is really really cool.

(55:48):
Fifteen years ago, you never would have been able to
do that, But now, you know, in the last ten
fifteen years or so, it's gotten better and better, and
every year it just seems you get, you know, um,
more and more precise to where teams can arrive with
the car set up exactly the way they want it
and be able to run with very few surprises. Again,
it comes down to driver's skill, of course, and that's

(56:09):
a huge part of this. But I just feel like
they're they're more ready now than ever when they come
to Atlanta, And that's just kind of a cool thing
to to be able to say, too, is that you know,
we've come so far into such a short amount of time.
That's always one of the more intriguing parts of this
whole thing to me, is that you know, like how far,
how far we've advanced. So we want to hear from
you folks. What are some of your favorite tracks in

(56:31):
these our United States or in your neck of the
Global Woods if you're outside of the US. Yeah, sure,
And you know what, before we go, I don't want
to let this pass because we're not selling tickets or
anything like that, but I want to tell you that,
you know, we went there ahead of this race, and
they were talking about this during the interview. It's the
Folds of Honor, Quick Trip five D and it's happening
on Sunday, March, So if you get a chance, if

(56:53):
you're in the area, go out and check it out.
It's one of those supporting events Ben and and Kurt
that I feels like it's still accessible, you know, like
there's a lot of things that are just inaccessible to
a lot of people because of the price. And again
I'm not selling tickets, but tickets are less than fifty
dollars if you want to get in the grandstands, and
I feel that's reasonable comparatively to you know, going to

(57:14):
an NBA game or going to an NFL game. I
know that, you know, Major League Baseball might be the
only thing that's cheaper at this point, so you know,
it's it's definitely a cool thing to go to. And
if you've never been to a NASCAR race, check out
the Fold of Honor quick trip. It's again March Atlanta
Motor Speedway, and if you can't make it to that one,
go to one that's in the area nearby. I mean,

(57:35):
NASCAR is a cool thing to attend. It's fun. I'm
not a huge, huge NASCAR fan, but I'll tell you
I've been to a couple events. They're fun. There are
a lot of fun. It's not my favorite racing series,
and I've been up front about that for many, many years.
But man, when you're there in person, of course, it's
like the best day ever. Just you feel it in
your chest. It's just it's there's just like an electricity

(57:57):
about the whole event, and it's so much fun. And
Kurtin knows all about this as well, right, Yeah, I
mean it's just it's a fantastic day. Yeah. I mean,
going to any sporting event is always fun. I mean
I feel the same way about baseball. I mean I
watch on TV every now and then, but when you
go to a game Baseball on TV is I'll tell you,
baseball on TV, it's awful. Going to going to a

(58:20):
baseball game is again one of the best days you
can ever have in the summer. Is so much fun.
And Ben, I don't know if you have any like
similar things that you like to attend or anything like that.
I mean, yeah, in person. I I prefer to see
stuff in person, generally if it's racing or if it's sporting.
I I read some statistic years back. You know, you

(58:43):
always hear people say, well, why is American football only
popular in this country. Why isn't it more popular in
other countries? And part of it, I think is because
of how much of a football game at least if
you're watching on television and is uh, there's very little
actual gameplay in comparison how many commercials. Yeah, it's like

(59:06):
it's like one of those like, uh, it's super abrupt.
It's like it happens. There's there's five seconds of action
and then there's like a it feels like a minute
of waiting or commercials or television time outs or things
like that. But I'm bringing that up because with Nascar,
there's a ton of action. Oh from green flag to
the checkered flag, and it's it's just action NonStop. It

(59:27):
feels like so it is one of those events where
you know, it just goes and goes and goes, and
it's hours and hours, and I mean it's just really
really cool. You know, one thing that we probably should
mention that we may we may get to in the
near future here and I think I hope that all
three of us can go out to this. Well yeah,
it's a little bit of a spoiler maybe, but there's

(59:49):
something that's held at the Atlanta Motor speedway that's called
Atlanta Motorama, and it's happening in late April. It happens
late April every year, so this is like the last
week of April. If we go to this, you know,
we'll probably you know, talk to a few people that
here and there. But Kurt, do you remember how they
kind of described this to us, like what they told
us would be there maybe at this event. And it's

(01:00:11):
not just remember them telling a story about monster trucks.
There's like they've had all all the generations of big
Foot there. That's one thing that's monster trucks. There's but
all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, there's hot rods, there's
I'm sure there's gonna be like drifter and tuner cars.
There's gonna be classic cars of all sorts. Is gonna
be all kinds of modified vehicles, you know whatever. There's

(01:00:33):
gonna be all kinds of cars there. It's one of
those things where there's like, you know, over a thousand
cars in attendance. It's an enormous complex, one of those
things where, like the whole weekend, you may never get
to see every car that's there. But the good part
about this thing is that all of the owners of
the vehicle are gonna be just kind of camped out
near their vehicle and and sitting by them, and they

(01:00:54):
love to talk about their cars, and that's what we
want to hear, right, So we can go and maybe
kind of find some of the the odd, the quirky,
the unusual. Like maybe I don't know, I mean, I'm
gonna make like a jet powered truck or something like that.
You know, we can we can talk to them about,
you know, what the hell made you want to build
a jet powered truck? You know that kind of thing? Um, Like,
what did they do with it besides bring it? Why

(01:01:15):
why do you build? Why do you build a one
third scale whatever escort GT or whatever it is. I
don't know. Um that's a terrible example, but um yeah,
Like they have just this huge show that happens at
the Atlanta Motor Speedway at the end of April, and
I feel like if we go down there and talk
to a few people, we'll probably be able to get
a lot of material out of it and a lot

(01:01:36):
of interesting stories from people that are really really into
their car and into cars in general. And I might
be able to give us some insights. So a lot
happening down there, and again, Ben, hopefully you can you know,
hang out with us on the next time around when
we go to motor around and no pressure. But you know,
if you're around that weekend, if you're not, you know,
jetting off to uh I don't know, Australia or outer

(01:01:58):
space or wherever you go. You're traveling around all over
the place. Now, if you guys, you guys, do could
I say this off air like this? Uh well, not
off air, you're I was, yeah, yeah, well, okay, you
know what happen just between the three of us. Go
ahead whatever, say whatever you want, all right, so you
you guys know where where I'm going. Like right after

(01:02:19):
we record this, I have to go get in a
fight at the tag office. So hopefully hopefully I'll have
that all resolved. But wait, before this podcast, I made
you a tag. If you don't recall, dude, I'm telling you.
You can write tag applied for on anything and it
doesn't work. You know, it works. I've seen it. I've
seen it in traffic. You can write it on the

(01:02:39):
back of a pizza box and it works. Apparently here
in Georgia. This sounds like the inspiration for a future episode.
Let's call it various myths your friends told you about
the police and drive. Okay, fine, fine, Maybe I should
go online and print a sticker or something like, something
that makes it more official. Read how about I write

(01:02:59):
a day eat on the bottom of that tag applied
for yeah, sign that I'm and maybe make the font
papyrus so it looks classy and official. It sounds good.
So I just just hope it doesn't rain on the
way there, because then it's all gone, The whole thing
is gone. Right. But I would very much like to
join Motorama. You know, it's been a guys, don't make

(01:03:20):
fun of me, but I've never got to actually hop
in to a monster truck. I've got to see them
time and time again. But my mission will be to
get into a monster Okay, well, why would I make
fun of you for that? I would love to get
in a monster truck myself. I've never done it, never
done let us. I don't I don't know. I don't
know they're really Are they really like gonna um not compete?

(01:03:44):
But are they gonna like do a show like, you know,
an exhibition? I don't know. Surely, at least a little
bit well thinks. I mean, you bring a monster truck
to a racing track. Yeah, there's a certain expectation you
gotta bring. You gotta bring several cars to crush, right,
I mean really, I just hope I don't park in
wrong spot that day. And you know, you know what
I mean, Like I'm cautious about where I parked my

(01:04:05):
car on trash day. I don't want to keep it
like too close to the curb because you never know.
Just wash it, so they go. It's pretty beat up. Now,
put put a paper sign in your rear view that
says car wash applied for What a great solution? All right, Well,
more problem solvers here. I mean everybody can see that, right,

(01:04:25):
So maybe maybe we should move on to a couple
of new problems for the next week and see where
we end up and come back here next week and
have a fresh topic for you guys. How about that.
We'll see you guys later and thanks for listening. Car
Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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(01:04:48):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.