Undoubtedly in the midst of reform: Emory Healthcare 500.

Before the downsizing: Atlanta Motor Speedway, Hampton, Ga.

First-time callers: Of the current top 12 in Sprint Cup points, five – Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer – have never won at this track.

Far-fetched: Even winning this race won’t do much good for those outside the top 12. It will probably require a poor performance by Bowyer. At this point, Chase position is more likely to be lost than won.

The interesting, the ironic and the wacky:

            Fireball Roberts won the pole and race after this track opened as Atlanta International Raceway in August 1960. Once a “true oval,” the track was reconfigured in a manner similar to Charlotte and Texas and remeasured from 1.522 to 1.54 miles in 1997.

            Dale Earnhardt won more Atlanta races (9) than any other driver.

            Morgan Shepherd won here at age 51. That was in 1993.

Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick won their first races at AMS.

Informative, humorous or quotable in some other sense:

“I wish we raced in Atlanta maybe every other week, or three times a month. … To me, it’s sad that we’re not going to run here twice (in 2011).” – Carl Edwards

“We have a way of forgetting the way history really was. … I think we tend to forget that even the great race teams go through struggles.” – Jeff Burton.

“If I sat down and planned it, we would win every Chase race and I would win the championship. But plans don’t quite work like that.” – Kyle Busch