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Atlanta Notes & Facts - Sunday - race:
· There have been 106 NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Atlanta Motor Speedway since the first race there in 1960. Until 2010 there have been two races per year except 1961, which had three. This year marks the third season with only one event.
· 544 drivers have competed in at least one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway; 364 in more than one.
· 43 different NSCS drivers have won at Atlanta Motor Speedway, led by NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt with nine wins. Jeff Gordon leads all active drivers with five.
· There have been three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races resulting with a green-white-checkered finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway (Scheduled No. of Laps/Actual No. of Laps): fall of 2007 (325/329); spring of 2010 (325/341) and fall of 2012 (325/327).
· Since the advent of electronic scoring the closest margin of victory (MOV) in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Atlanta Motor Speedway was the March 11, 2001 race won by Kevin Harvick over Jeff Gordon with a MOV of 0.006 second.
· The Wood Brothers have the most wins at Atlanta in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with 12: Cale Yarborough (three), David Pearson (three), Marvin Panch (two), Neil Bonnett (two) A.J. Foyt (one) and Morgan Shepherd (one). Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports are tied for the second most wins at Atlanta with 11 each.
· Nine different manufacturers have won in the NSCS at Atlanta; led by Chevrolet with 37 victories; followed by Ford with 29. Toyota has three wins at Atlanta.
· The deepest in the field that a race winner has started at Atlanta is 39th, by Bobby Labonte in the fall of 2001.
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Gordon to make 750th career start UPDATE: On Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, #24-Jeff Gordon is scheduled to make his 750th career Sprint Cup Series start. Through 24 races in 2014, Gordon leads the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings, 27 markers ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. This weekend in Atlanta, Panasonic's Toughbook brand will be featured on the car's hood and quarter panels. The #24 Panasonic Toughbook Chevrolet SS debuted at Sonoma Raceway in June when Gordon piloted the car to a second-place finish. Panasonic will be featured as a primary sponsor of the #24 team in two Sprint Cup races annually and as an associate-level partner in all other events
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UPDATE: Making 750 starts in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is quite an accomplishment in itself. Doing so without interruption is even more remarkable. #24-Jeff Gordon will make his 750th start at NASCAR's highest level in Sunday night's Oral-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Gordon hasn't missed a race since he took the green flag in Cup competition for the first time, in November 1992 at Atlanta. "It seems like just yesterday that it started right here, over 20 years ago," Gordon said. "I love this track, love racing here, so it's pretty cool to have 750 happening here." If Gordon's streak remains unbroken, he'll surpass Ricky Rudd's series-record 788 consecutive starts in the 28th race of 2015, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
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Ty Dillon Set to Make Sprint Cup Series Debut at Atlanta UPDATE2: Ty Dillon will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the #33 Realtree/Rheem Chevrolet SS for Circle Sport Racing. Dillon, who is competing full time in the NASCAR Nationwide Series this season in the #3 Chevrolet Camaro, will have Nick Harrison as his crew chief for Sunday's Oral-B USA 500. "It's going to be a pretty special moment when I make those first laps this weekend, one that I won't forget," said Dillon, the 22-year-old, Welcome, N.C. native. "I've been fortunate enough in my racing career to have great opportunities like this one. I'm looking forward to racing the #33 Realtree/Rheem Chevrolet under the lights on Labor Day weekend." Dillon is no stranger to the 1.5-mile speedway. He won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at AMS in 2012 in the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet Silverado. He also participated in the Cup Series test there on August 5 and 6. Dillon is currently third in the Nationwide Series driver point standings with 10 races remaining.(RCR)
UPDATE: Realtree, the world's leading camouflage designer, marketer and licensor, will be on the hood of the #33 Chevy for Sunday night's Oral-B USA 500. Realtree served as a primary sponsor for Dillon's Camping World Truck Series debut in 2011 at Kentucky Speedway. Rheem, a leading provider of heating, cooling and water heating products such as gas furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioners and indoor air quality products, will be featured on the #33 Chevrolet SS this weekend. An American operated company, Rheem was founded in 1925 and is headquartered just a few miles from Atlanta Motor Speedway
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UPDATE2: #33-Ty Dillon met with members of the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Friday and discussed making his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut at Atlanta, the transcript in part:
Q) DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY CUP RACES YOU WILL DO THIS YEAR AND KIND OF NEXT YEAR AS FAR AS WHAT IS THE PLAN FOR YOUR PROGRESSION?
DILLON: "I know we were already planning on hopefully doing some stuff next year. This year is kind of an open book. This whole Atlanta first race didn't come until a couple of weeks ago. I think it's wherever my Grandfather feels like he can throw me in and we will have a great opportunity. It's still open to running a couple of more hopefully this year and definitely planning on doing some next year also. Looking forward to the future opportunities and just trying to make the best out of this weekend."
Q) CAN YOU ELABORATE A LITTLE BIT - YOU THIS DEAL DIDN'T COME TOGETHER UNTIL THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS. WHICH CAME FIRST? YOUR GRANDFATHER SAYING ATLANTA IS THE PLACE FOR YOU TO BE, OR THE DEAL JUST HAPPENED TO FALL IN PLACE?
DILLON: "It all came together at different times. At the beginning of the year, my grandfather sat down with me and wanted to look over the schedule. We picked out four or five tracks where I felt like I could make my first Cup start and do well. This was one of the tracks on the list. We didn't really talk about it very much during most of the season, and then things kind of came together. Here recently we got the sponsorship to make things happen. So it all started off with me and him; he had a plan to run me in a Cup race. We sat down and picked a few tracks, and this was one of them. Then within the past couple of weeks, it all came together
Biffle talks about Roush Fenway Racing problems in 2014: #16-Greg Biffle spoke about a few issues with members of the media on Friday at AMS:
Q) WHAT HAS BEEN WRONG WITH ROUSH FENWAY THIS YEAR?
Biffle: "I wasn't specifically calling our team out, I was more specifically calling our organization as a whole, Roush Fenway. We let go of our guy who was the head of engineering a while back. We don't want to point fingers in our organization, but we plain and simply didn't keep up with the Joneses. We got behind in simulation. We are still behind in simulation. We're trying to roll out a new model that is gonna carry us on into the future and make us as equal as some of these other teams are. And quite honestly the worst we ran, the harder we worked, the more we tested, the more meetings we had, the worse we ran because we were pushing down a wrong road on aerodynamics and our theory and balance and everything else. You can clearly see that it's plain and simple we were headed kind of in the wrong direction and since we've kind of righted that ship, we've really woke up so to speak and saw what we were doing wrong. We don't know everything yet, but we saw a lot of what we were doing wrong. Michigan is a perfect example. I had a 28th-place car at Michigan in the first race and that's one of my best race tracks with four wins, and that was so devastating for us. We finished 20th, but literally had a 28th-place car and we go back there we had a 10th-place car -- a solid 10th-place car, maybe a little better than that. So that's a huge swing. We can't celebrate yet because we weren't leading the race and leading laps, but that's a huge celebration within the organization that we kind of turned the corner and are going in the right direction. That's all I care about is getting the trajectory going better not worse, then we'll win races and we'll lead laps. But it's just gonna take a little bit of time."
Q) HAS PENSKE'S SUCCESS ADDED TO THE FRUSTRTION?
Biffle: "It's done both. It's added to the frustration, but at the same time it's given us the confidence that these cars are capable of that. And Penske has helped us a ton. Penske has allowed us to compare our cars to their cars some, which has shed some light in some areas that maybe we needed to work, and they're only gonna share so many things with us through our alliance with Ford, and we appreciate the help we've gotten from them. We're looking at their cars more than the competition trying to figure out how to make cars the same because we have the same type of car. We'll get there. Unfortunately, this season has felt frustrating for us. Now Carl is a helluva a driver and he's put himself in position and won some races, but he'll admit too that we're not certainly where we need to be - competitive enough -- but we're getting there
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