The stars of the NASCAR cup series head for Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Folds Of Honor Quiktrip 500. Last season, this track underwent a massive overhaul as they raised all the banking to give the track more of a superspeedway feel. Because of this, we saw more pack racing. This will tighten up the field much more and there will be a lot of unpredictability when the green flag drops. Last season there were tons of tire failures which caused many accidents. Let's hope this isn't as much of an issue come race-day
Hendrick Motorsports Looks To Regain Lost Points: After all of the fallout of this past week, the Hendrick foursome will look to come back with a vengeance. Luckily for them, their cars won both races at Atlanta last season with William Byron and Chase Elliott. Unfortunately, it was a mediocre qualifying session as only one of their cars (Kyle Larson) qualified in the top-10 but with this style of racing, qualifying doesn't mean as much.
Team Penske Continues Qualifying Pace: Not many have been able to out-qualify the Penske fords of Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, and Austin Cindric this season this continued into Saturday as Joey Logano won the pole with his teammates behind him. When these fords all get together on these big superspeedway tracks they are hard to beat come race-day. Joey Logano will look to back up his championship-winning 2022 season with his first win of 2023. He will certainly be the favorite come Sunday.
The Longshot: I have talked about what an awesome season it has been for Corey LaJoie so far, last week was not as great for the underdog driver and team as they finished 26th at Phoenix. Fortunately, Atlanta is a huge equalizer for teams like Spire. In the summer race here last season, Corey seemed to be in a position to win that was until Chase Elliott threw a massive block and caused Lajoie to crash. Could this week spell redemption? With as fast as their cars have been the #7 Camaro should be a factor come race day/