Atlanta Motor Speedway is far and away one of my most loved tracks.  I loved watching the Labonte brothers both race there in the 90's, watching Dale Earnhardt dominate, and Bill Elliott revel in the warmth and love of his hometown crowd.

This year, however, the stories have been flying.  Bobby Labonte was released from his Yates/HOF Racing ride, in favor of Erik Darnell, in a move not approved by HOF Racing. TRG immediately jumped on Labonte's availability and replace David Gilliland with the younger Labonte.  In a hugely surprising move, Gilliland has now replaced the injured Bill Elliott, bringing the driver merry-go-round full circle. 

By the way, Bill cracked three ribs riding his dirt bike.  Carl Edwards, on the other hand, broke his foot playing frisbee.  'nough said.

This weekend, Ryan Newman has a chance to take over the top spot in qualifying, a record he currently shares with Buddy Baker.  And Bobby Labonte, now that he is in the race, has a chance to tie Dale Sr's wins at 7.  Bobby has won here 6 times, and no one else in the field is even close to that record. Carl and Jimmie each have 3, and there are a whole slew of drivers with 2 wins.  But, those are stats.  They may help you pick your fantasy driving team for the race, but they don't tell you the story of Hot-lanta.

The track has had its share of new stories unrelated to racing, and some weather stories that have affected the racing.  In 1993, a blizzard went through Georgia, putting snow where snow is rarely seen, including on the track.  Now this isn't the few little flakes we've seen in recent years, resulting in a Kurt Busch snow angel, this was a full blown blizzard, and the day the race was to run, there was over a foot on the track. 

In 2005, it was a hurricane and tornado that caused the damage.  Hurricane Cindy was petering out, but as is usual in the wake of a hurricane, tornadoes developed and one of these hit the Atlanta Motor Speedway dead on.  The result was a toppled Scoring tower and two grandstands damaged to the point on no repair.

Through it all, Hot-lanta has remained a TV crowd favorite, if not a "must see" venue for the locals.  Traffic in and out of the track is said to be horrendous, at times taking as long to navigate as it takes to run a full Sprint Cup Race.  That is said to have improved this year, and the SIRIUS crowd today was talking about the officers of the law mostly hanging out in the "donut shops" instead of laying a heavy hand on the fans trying to get to the track.

In any case, after a week off from Cup racing, this fan cannot wait for Sunday night.  It's about time racing got back to the south for Labor Day weekend.  The end to summer is upon us, and it just never seemed "right" playing train at California.

Not only do we get Cup racing on a Sunday night, but we get Truck and Nationwide, both on Saturday night, so depending on your location and availability, you can watch racing two nights in a row, should the mood strike you.

The Trucks are in Iowa for some Saturday night racing, on a little .8 mile oval.  Racing gets underway there at 9:30pm ET Saturday and Speed, as usual, will cover the race live.

The Nationwide cars race in Atlanta along with the Big Boys, and ESPN2 is carrying that race, starting at 6:30pm ET.

My picks?  Well, I will get booed, I'm sure, but I honestly think Dale Jr and Lance have gotten things figured out.   Junior has won here before and he can win again.  My dark horse?  Same as almost everyone's, I'm sure - Bobby Labonte!!!!

Have a great holiday weekend everyone, and we'll see you here Sunday night for some Live Thread racing!