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After charging through the top 10 during the final 10 laps of Tuesday's AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta, Tony Stewart was very adamant about the surface of Atlanta Motor Speedway.
"I will say this: If Ed Clark decides to repave this racetrack, I'll personally shoot him myself," Stewart said.
This may be the first time a track president other than Eddie Gossage who has been mentioned in the same context as a gun.
"This place is so racy, so much fun," Stewart said. "Like Jimmie said, you could -- here more so than anywhere we go to, you actually have to take care of your tires and budget them for your run. And that's what makes it fun here because guys overdrive run their cars, run too hard on the front and then they fall off the last half."
Repaving and Atlanta have been mentioned in the same sentence because of the pending repave projects at Kansas and Michigan. But if (and ultimately when) a repave is going to happen, it will be interesting to see if Atlanta will be able to keep the same banking and track structure or if it will move to progressive banking like other 1.5 milers. (Las Vegas and Homestead are progressively banked, while Kansas will be.)
And we're going to side with Stewart here: hopefully Atlanta doesn't change until it absolutely has to, as it consistently provides some of the best intermediate track racing around.
As if we need any confirmation after Tuesday.