Wednesday, January 28, 2004

AMS touts speed in new slogan

Ask a race fan what the fastest track in NASCAR is, and they’ ll pause. Then they’ll throw out a couple of tracks ... Talladega and Daytona, usually.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise ­ but often does ­ that Atlanta Motor Speedway is the fastest track on the circuit. In fact, Atlanta Motor Speedway is the fastest mile-and-a-half NASCAR track in the world.

And to help race fans remember that, Atlanta Motor Speedway is rolling out a new advertising campaign beginning this week that will feature the raceway’s new slogan: “Real Racing. Real Fast.”

“We spent this fall and winter reviewing fan research that our new advertising agency, the Tombras Group, had done, and we found that many fans didn’t realize we were the fastest track in NASCAR,” Atlanta Motor Speedway President and General Manager Ed Clark said. “You can bet that we’ll use this slogan at every opportunity until race fans are saying it in their sleep.”

Atlanta Motor Speedway has held the distinction of being the fastest mile-and-a-half track in NASCAR since its reconfiguration during the summer of 1997.

During the first qualifying event following reconstruction, Geoffrey Bodine blazed a lap around the smooth, wide lanes of Atlanta’s new quad-oval raceway in just 28.074 seconds, or 197.478 mph.

Since then, speeds have slowed down slightly ­ in the 193-194 mph range ­ but are still faster than other 1.5-mile NASCAR tracks. In addition to being ultra-fast, the track has widened into a three-groove race track, producing two fantastic side-by-side photo finishes in the past few years.

And that’s what AMS means by “Real Racing. Real Fast.”

“We have some of the best racing, at the highest speeds, that you can see in all of NASCAR,” Clark said. “You can bet we’ll be telling the world about it.”

To kick off the new advertising campaign, a television spot featuring NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte will debut this week. The spot will be a takeoff on the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, featuring Labonte as a student learning about the physics of speed in Atlanta. Radio and print advertisements will also debut in coming weeks, all featuring the new “Real Racing. Real Fast.” theme.

“You have the sensation of speed at Atlanta more than any other track,” said Labonte, who has six wins at Atlanta, more than any other active driver. “You really get a feeling of how fast it is because it has enough banking to lean on. The spot really plays on that; each track has a characteristic of it own, and for Atlanta it is definitely the speed.”

Back to the Top of the PageBack to the Sports Home Page