2026 Atlanta II Race Report

The 2026 Atlanta II race report questions whether Atlanta is still, well… Atlanta. All of the race hallmarks are very different from what we’ve seen before.

2026 Atlanta II Race Report Lead- and Caution-O-Gram

They’re back. My way of showing race flow in a single diagram.

This was a very unusual race for Atlanta’s new configuration.

Cautions

• The five unscheduled cautions (four accidents + weather) are the second-fewest unscheduled cautions at EchoPark Speedway since SMI re-configured it into a high-banked oval that was more superspeedway than intermediate track.
  • The fewest unscheduled cautions in the new configuration was in the first 2023 race, which had only three.
  • Last spring’s Atlanta race had nine unscheduled cautions.
• Only 14 cars were involved in cautions at the most recent race.
  • That’s a huge difference from spring, when 47 cars were involved. Given there were only 38 cars running, a number of cars were involved in more than one accident.

Leading

• Ryan Blaney led 171 laps, or 65% of all laps run. That’s the highest percentage of laps led by any driver in New Atlanta’s history.
  • Last spring at Atlanta, Kyle Larson led the most laps and led only 30% of all laps.
  • In the Spring 2023 race, Joey Logano led 53.8% of all laps. That’s the second-highest percentage of laps led.
  • No other drivers have led more than 37% of all laps over these races.
• Ten drivers led laps
  • Berry and Preece each led only one lap. Berry inherited the lead during yellow flag pit stops
  • Ty Gibbs led the second-most laps with 32 or 12.2%
• Out of 30 lead changes:
  • 22 lead changes happened under the green flag on track.

Compare with 2026 Atlanta I

The figure below is the lead- and caution-o-gram from the spring Atlanta race (2026 Atlanta I).

Compare that with the lead-o-gram for this last race. We just don’t really see drivers leading for such long periods of time at superspeedway races. So is the conclusion that Atlanta is no longer a proto-superspeedway?

There were 57 lead changes among 14 drivers and you can see from the pattern that the lead switched around A LOT.

What to Watch For Next Time:

Has Atlanta worn enough to totally change its character relative to how it was when it first re-opened? Or was this strange behavior a combination of Blaney’s car, the green racetrack, and the cooler weather after the three+ weather delay. This year’s race looks a lot more like the Old Atlanta.