On Thursday, NASCAR announced a tweak in the pit road speed limit for this weekend's NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series events at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The 1.54-mile oval will have TWO different speed limit zones on pit road during green flag conditions.
Sections 1 and 2 of pit road, which are located in Turns 3 and 4 of the track, will have the pit road speed limit set at 90 mph. Sections 3 through 18 of pit road will have a set pit road speed limit of 45 mph.
Under yellow flag conditions, the pit road speed limit will be set at 45 mph for the full length of pit road.
In the spring, pit road entrance at Atlanta Motor Speedway was moved to the entrance of Turn 3 in an effort to reduce the chances of a big crash as cars attempted to slow for the pit road entrance.
With AMS being reconfigured into a superspeedway, large drafting packs made pit road entrance troublesome on the dog-legged frontstretch.
The reason for the change this weekend, which will see two different speed limits used on pit road at Atlanta was that cars were falling multiple laps down while making green flag pit stops in the March race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
For that race weekend, pit road speed limit was set at 45 mph for the entire length of pit road.
By increasing the pit road speed limit in sections 1 and 2, NASCAR hopes to decrease the chances of teams losing laps while on pit road this weekend.
NASCAR also tacked an extra minute onto the Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP) for this weekend. As a result, NASCAR Cup Series teams will have eight minutes to repair damage on their vehicles, while NASCAR Xfinity Series teams will have seven minutes to make repairs.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco Uniforms 250 at Atlanta is set for Saturday night at 8:00 PM ET on USA Network. The NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Atlanta will take place on Sunday at 7:00 PM ET on USA Network.
PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast for both the NASCAR Xfinity and Cup Series races this weekend.
Photo Credit: Sean Gardner, Getty Images
