Going to three (or even two) days of a NASCAR race weekend is a stretch for me in terms of family logistical goodwill, so my first opportunity to exercise my season tickets was to attend my second Cup race at EchoPark Speedway. Having never attended one when it was called Atlanta Motor Speedway, the new name is not as hard for me to say as it is for old timers, but I can tell you my affection for the place is just as strong as theirs.

I only regret that I was unable to see the Truck Series and O’Reilly races on Saturday in person, because it was some of the best NASCAR racing I’ve ever watched live. Fortunately, I sent Ray with the tickets, and he brought along four newcomers to NASCAR. Lives were changed.

I had only two lives to change with a first Cup race, and one of them bailed on me (my eldest child). Fortunately, the always-game younger one, aged five, agreed to come along and dropped right into the spirit.

Stock car racing is enhanced by having somebody to pull for, and in my house, 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace is that guy. My dad’s from Mobile (where Bubba’s from), my mom’s from Chicago (where 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan was a basketball player of some renown) and went to college in North Carolina (where Michael Jordan’s from [she went to Duke, but whatever]), we’re from Atlanta (where we value both diversity and stock car racing), Bubba is an awesome racing dad like me… and so on.

Bubba is our guy, and I was representing. My section booed him during driver intros, so I stood up and waved my hat around and whooped as loudly as I could. My daughter joined me.

As the major player — and victor — in the historic antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR that was settled mid-trial last year, 23XI could be considered the definitive team of the 2026 season. They come into the year having secured the most meaningful financial concessions from France family ownership to teams in the sport’s history, which — crucially — involved the restoration of 23XI’s cars to chartered status. These huge off-track wins have to be backed up on track, though. That’s what really matters.

So naturally, Tyler Reddick — having gone winless last year — walked out and won the Daytona 500. Bubba finished 10th, and even 23XI’s designated “other guy,” Riley Herbst, finished P8, having secured the victory for Reddick in somewhat bumbling fashion. That sent 23XI to Atlanta leading the standings.

And speaking of standings, the settlement is arguably not even the biggest news going into this NASCAR season. Maybe the lawsuit was a catalyst, maybe it was just the constellation of a bummer period in NASCAR, the beginnings of an IndyCar resurgence, and the eclipsing of American racing by Formula 1, but over the past year, NASCAR has set about returning to its roots with some wildly popular changes.

The era of win-and-you’re-in Playoffs with a single-elimination championship round is over. The 10-race Chase is back, with the top 16 drivers in points after 26 races eligible for the championship. It’s a best-of-both-worlds arrangement that acknowledges that the notional “casual fan” who considers stock car racing interchangeable with ball sports does not exist — something everyone but NASCAR executives over the past couple decades has felt was screamingly obvious. Even worse, at least some years, the system has resulted in champions that were manifestly not the best driver of the best car for the best team. That’s over now. As the folksy marketing campaign with which NASCAR launched this season would say, Hell Yeah™.

Now NASCAR can just be NASCAR, and I really hope it will. One more change it would need to make would be getting rid of NASCAR Overtime, a rule that stupidly insists that a race can go on infinitely for wreck after wreck until someone survives, rather than ever — Heaven forfend — finish under caution. A wreck with three to go robbed me of the chance to watch Bubba Wallace win with my daughter at her first NASCAR race. That would still have been an amazing finish. Instead, the finish the fans got was a 10-minute red flag followed by a lottery. That’s not “free racing” or “getting what we paid for.” That’s staying way too late at the track and freezing our asses off while robbing a deserving winner.

At least the official winner was also deserving. The 45 not only ran up front all day but lost an entire fender and recovered. Going back to back for the first two races is a pretty amazing storyline for Tyler Reddick and 23XI. But here’s the most NASCAR-being-NASCAR-again thing about it: Despite his frustrating near misses in both races, Bubba is still second in the points, and — as it did in the glory days — that actually matters now.

There are more elements of modern NASCAR that are still finding their way back home, but I think they’re getting there. The cars are the main thing.

The era of NASCAR Cup cars resembling the cars fans drove to the track was over before NASCAR’s heyday, but the cars in the most popular eras still enabled stock car racing as it had been known. You still brought the most badass machine you could possibly sneak past tech, and they still drove like big ol’ American cars; you wheeled them like a maniac, and when — not if — you found yourself sideways, you could catch them.

The gen 7 Cup car is a modern race car. It’s a tightly regulated, almost entirely spec design. It is painstakingly precise. It is power-starved, and it is extremely aerodynamically sensitive. If you lose it at a track like the new high-banked configuration of Atlanta, it’s gone, and half the field is probably coming with you.

Some drivers (Kyle Busch comes to mind) have floundered in the transition. Others don’t know any different, which has its own effects on stock car racing, especially for those with no connection whatsoever to mechanical responsibility for the car they drive. Gone are the days of drivers keeping their sanity on track because they’d have to fix their car if they wrecked it. Even though this car costs astronomically more to fix, that’s not the careless young driver’s problem. Combine that with the win-and-you’re-in championship model that obtained through last year, and you can see how NASCAR may have developed a reputation for pretty stupid racing.

Well, don’t look now, but even prior to the championship changes, last year showed signs of NASCAR — not to mention Goodyear — getting this car dialed in for the various kinds of race tracks on the calendar. The uniformity and precision has enabled NASCAR to tune the car and the competition to each other, and they’re starting to gel. Maybe over the next couple years they can start opening up engines, aero, and other systems to some regulated forms of tinkering that brings that spirit back without losing the benefits of this cleaned up (and, don’t forget, much safer) style of car.

No, NASCAR is not back yet. But it’s heading back.

What of the NASCAR that’s here now?

Atlanta is one of the major sore spots for people who have been hurt by NASCAR’s wayward 21st century. Its original configuration produced too many legendary races to count. In 2021, it was redesigned and reprofiled with steeper banking, taking it from a bread-and-butter intermediate track to a sort of mini-superspeedway despite being way shorter and narrower than the places where they usually do this sort of draft-dependent pack racing. It was seen as a crowning example of the made-for-TV stupidity that defined that era of NASCAR competition, except this time they had literally bulldozed a sacred race track to impose it.

And look, it did suck at first. It managed to be terrifying and boring at the same time. Last year, though, I enjoyed the spring race, and as I was gearing up to make the summer race my first in-person NASCAR event, I was still hearing the same old chatter about how bad “new Atlanta” is, and it did not rhyme with what I had seen that spring. Then I went to what was, ironically, the first race with the place called EchoPark Speedway, and it blew me away. I was glued to every lap. It was the first time I had been to a race where I could see absolutely everything happening on track and didn’t even need to look at the tower, let alone my phone, which didn’t work anyway, and I could not have cared less.

So this year, when the Saturday doubleheader was a double-banger, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I only hoped the Cup race could uphold the standard set the day before.

What we got was not an all-timer like the O’Reilly race was, or a master class like the truck race was, but instead we got what I think goes for a normal NASCAR race these days, and you know what? It was fun as hell. There was racing throughout the pack the whole time. There were a ton of leaders. There was teamwork and treachery. Were there idiotic moves and big, frustrating wrecks? Yes, there were. Welcome to NASCAR. Did they ruin the event? No, they did not. They did make it worse, but that is, as I said, the fault of NASCAR Overtime. Even with the overtime finish, Reddick’s win was still spectacular. And thanks to the configuration of EchoPark Speedway, it was never difficult to follow how it was playing out.

A few themes — aside from 23XI — have emerged over the first two races that I’m excited for this season.

Trackhouse is showing up. All three of their cars ran great in Atlanta, including Shane van Gisbergen, about whom I think everybody can now stop saying that he needs to “learn how to race on ovals.” This weekend at Circuit of the Americas should be a treat; even if no one else comes to play, SVG and Connor Zilisch will keep each other busy.

Spire is showing up. Carson Hocevar is a terrorist, but he’s getting his own results, you can’t deny that. And his new teammate, Daniel Suárez, is right behind him in points. Leaving Trackhouse for Spire may end up being a case of failing upwards for Suárez.

Gibbs, Hendrick, and Penske cars were all fighting at the front, of course, but they did not have an easy time of it. The Big Three have company now.

But most of all, I just think the NASCAR mood is a lot lighter than it was even last summer. Everybody I encountered at the track was happy. Even the people who booed Bubba thought it was awesome when I stood up for my guy. We were all goofing around the whole time, as it should be. NASCAR being NASCAR includes us, too, and I’m here for it.

There will be talk about whether the 2026 Rolex 24 at Daytona was a “good race.” This is the sort of thing motorsports fans spend their time between races arguing about, and I do understand it. We are all here to process the lived reality of motor racing into its eternal form as lore, and since human beings can’t simply fathom all of eternity, that job requires filtering mechanisms like ranking and rating. We need to know whether this year’s Rolex is one we need to recommend to other students of the sport — whether it’s one to spend more time on after the fact. Plus, that’s just the psychology of racing — winners and losers — applied to racing itself.

As a motor race, I would rank 2026 behind 2025 — the other one for which I was present — as well as 2024 and 2023, the others I’ve watched in full. I would rate it a solid B; there wasn’t as much action as the Rolex has recently displayed, but nor was there as much stupidity (outside of LMP2). And yes, there was the matter of that 6.5-hour caution that, one could argue, deprived us of a quarter of the race. Would I recommend watching the 2026 Rolex all the way through in real time? Absolutely not.

But none of that bears on whether this race was good in the sense that matters: Was this race a good event? Was it good that this race happened the way it did? In order to answer that, there is so much more to incorporate than can be gleaned from timing and scoring.

And when I answer “yes,” I need you to empathize with me here as I strain to find a way to communicate how emphatically I mean it. I am often accused of being prone to exaggeration, and I don’t deny it, but it’s hard to find better ways to express how deeply I feel the things that ignite my furious passion than to just smother you in superlatives. And so, knowing that about me, understand that when someone asks me how Daytona was this year, I have to hold myself back from saying something like, “It was as powerfully good and important as any motorsports event I could possibly imagine.”

Why would I say this about a B-grade race that was only the fourth-best (out of four) Daytona 24 I have watched? Because I find that the better a race event is, the less the on-track quality can drag it down. The race can lift a great event up, to be sure, and given that this was a 24-hour, four-class race with a maxed out grid that had close racing at the front of each class to the very end, I’d say this race did that. But those five days in Daytona were some of the happiest I’ve spent doing anything, and it couldn’t possibly matter less to me that the race itself wasn’t among the greatest of all time.

First of all, there are many races during the Rolex gathering, and the other ones were all great. Both MX-5 Cup races were incredible. The four-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race was tense in both classes. The historics… well, I don’t really pay attention to the racing in that series, but seeing all those legendary IMSA cars flying around Daytona was breathtaking. This trip would have been worth it to me as a race fan if there hadn’t been a 24-hour race at all.

But there was, and the bewildering array of cars, teams, and drivers from around the world made the “World Center of Racing” sign presiding over it all absolutely true. The fireworks at 10:00 p.m. during the Rolex 24 are the New Year’s celebration of the racing world. And more people watched it than ever before.

People talk about the amazing access at IMSA races, and they’re right. Honestly, I can’t believe how painfully NASCAR is shooting itself in the foot by not having exactly the same levels of access and length of event as its wholly owned sports car subsidiary does. But you have to see it to believe it; I’ve never felt more Part of Something than I do at the Rolex. I learned last year that I can simply plan ahead to meet the racing figures of my choice, and then it will happen exactly as planned.

This access and connection is not limited to the easy breezy moments. Dramatic things happen every day of a long race event like this. When one of my favorite cars — the 13 Autosport GTD Corvette — caught fire as Ben Green pulled it into the pit box at the end of night practice, we rushed to the garage area and — staying well out of the way, of course — got to be there with the team to express our sympathy and make sure everyone was okay (they were).

On a lighter note, the Rolex is such a who’s-who of racing that somebody is bound to know somebody, and that will get you into all kinds of adventures. In our case, the known somebody (known by Ginny and Dave) was Susan Jary of CSJ Motorsports who gladly took us on a tour of the McLaren parts hauler.

IMSA really rolls out the red carpet for fans, too, and it’s not just in the exclusive areas. I did not expect, for example, to get a chance to stick my head inside of the Porsche 963 RSP and see the cup holder for myself.

This year, there was also the small matter of it being the Valkyrie’s Daytona debut.

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But more than anything else, the greatest thing about the Rolex is being surrounded by that many people who love racing just as much as you do, whether they have a hard card or not. We come from all over and experience the Rolex 24 in radically different ways, but we’re all the same. We’re racers. We may feel isolated sometimes in our day-to-day lives, but whether we’re in the hundreds of thousands at the track or the millions more watching online, we’re all together in Daytona at the end of January.

Nighttime at Daytona is the most singularly magical thing about the place, and we can’t talk about it this year without talking about the fog. The race was under caution for poor visibility for six hours and 33 minutes — 121 laps — the longest in the history of the 24 Hours of Daytona. I happened to be filming the high banks at NASCAR turn 3 just before the caution was thrown, and you can see how iffy the conditions were.

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These weren’t the only foggy conditions of the weekend, so we wondered what was different about the overnight gloom, and we learned that it’s really a simple, binary call. Can every flag stand see its neighbors in either direction well enough to communicate visually? If yes, we stay green. If not, we go yellow and stay that way until the corner workers can all see one another again. The fog got too thick to see from one corner to another around 12:45 a.m., and it didn’t clear up enough to go green until 7:19.

I understand why people watching at home may have been bummed out by this, although if you were in the Western Hemisphere, I hope you took the opportunity to go to bed. Luke and I did not, however. We stayed up the whole time and wandered around a race track under conditions we had never imagined.

Real Daytona hours, who up

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— Jon 🛞 (@jon.turningfortune.com) January 25, 2026 at 12:32 AM

This fog was historic. I’m sure we’ll have more to say about it in future posts. But what I want to say to you now is that I loved every second of it. I loved the people we met and walked around with during it. I loved the amusing scenes of competitors struggling to keep their heads in the game behind the pit boxes. I loved sneaking around the track while anyone who cared was asleep. And I loved, loved, loved watching and hearing the cars going around. How often do you get hours to listen to your favorite race car motors motoring quietly enough to listen with your bare ears? I can still hear them now.

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I suppose that two Rolexes in a row makes it a tradition. Luke and I went into last year’s Rolex wondering what it would be like to create some racing traditions together. Now we know. It’s the best thing ever.

We went into the 2025 racing season believing maybe we could make a real project out of this. We thought we would build a website. We even had a name for it. Well, we’ve entered the 2026 racing season now, and it’s all real. Daytona has left its mark on us, and we’ve left our mark on it.

The grand finale of my first season going racing was right here at home. It actually solved a great lifelong mystery of mine. One of the few non-NASCAR racing memes to penetrate my childhood bubble was a gravelly-voiced radio ad talking about something called “Petit Le Mans” that played constantly in the summertime on 99X, the alt rock radio station to which I listened exclusively. I had no idea what it meant. I didn’t even know it had anything to do with auto racing. But it impressed itself upon my preteen mind as something I needed to figure out someday.

It turns out to be one of the greatest sports car races in the world, and since it takes place at my home track, I had to be there for the whole thing to cap off my 2025 racing season. Naturally, I got there before the haulers were even parked. Luckily, after a little while, a sizable contingent of the Bluesky racing squad came in for it, so it was a party every day.

This was my first time seeing Road Atlanta packed with people, and it was an absolute blast. To begin with, one of my favorite race cars of all time was there, and not just for show; it turned laps!

End-of-season vibes were high, and many antics ensued. I got to hang out with James Hinchcliffe for a bit in the fan zone as part of a Pfaff Motorsports sponsor do. We were treated to a (foot) race between Pfaff’s dinosaur intern, Brachiobrian, and a sporting young man.

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We got to see our beloved Mazda MX-5 Cup’s season come down to the wire at one of the greatest tracks I could imagine them racing at.

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Race 1 was a damn shame for Tyler Gonzalez, who was caught up in funny business and wrecked out of championship contention. He got another car out for race 2, but I found his totaled ride in the paddock later, waiting to be put out to pasture.

I had various end-of-year missions to accomplish, such as getting my Eversley hat signed by Ryan Eversley and getting a grid shot with him, co-driver Celso Neto, and the Precision Racing LA squad on the Michelin Pilot Challenge grid.

We also found Nolan Siegel a little farther up the grid, and his team were good sports about letting us isolate him like probably everyone else at the race wanted to.

Naturally, Road Atlanta was a flattering venue for that series as well:

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Before the season ended, I had to bid au revoir to my beloved AWA Corvette, with whom I spent an inordinate amount of time.

I had a mission within that mission, though, which was to meet AWA’s legendary engineer, Jeff Braun (father of Colin, who was somehow even busier that weekend), who is a host of one of my favorite podcasts ever, It’s Not the Car. I talked to the whole AWA team at once at one point, and no one knew where he was. I came back very early on the morning of the race and loomed for many minutes, and the mission was accomplished.

Jeff gave me a ton of time and explained how the only goal for Petit was to beat the #70 Inception Racing Ferrari, which would secure AWA its second Bob Akin Award spot in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They would go on to do so, but not in the most delightful of circumstances; the #70 was involved in a horrible head-on crash on lap 1 of the 10-hour race. Fortunately, everyone was okay.

The WeatherTech paddock was an incredible place prior to the race. One of the most moving events was the ceremony marking the last race (for now?) of the Lamborghini SC63 prototype, where the whole team came out to sign the car and pose for pictures. It’s sad to lose a car from this amazing generation of prototypes, and the #63 had a great last race, too, finishing P4.

Not to be outdone in pomp and circumstance (though they were outdone in the race), Wayne Taylor Racing lined up in this very formal military-style formation.

Of course, it was the other Cadillac that won, and it was clearly the best all year. The #31 had just won at Indianapolis, and when I spoke to Jack Aitken before the finale, he called his shot. “Back to back, baby!” He was right.

I did make sure to tag the Acuras before they rolled out to the grid. Both cars raced with Turning Fortune affiliation.

The unambiguous star of the weekend for me, though, was the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-LMH, which really is every bit as amazing as people say. It was cool enough standing still:

But — and I know everyone says this, but — you really have to hear it to believe it.

The pre-race grid ceremonies were absolutely packed and accompanied by live musicians. I cannot overstate how ready Georgia was to see 10 hours of sports car racing.

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And that we certainly did.

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In a way, this race had the most riding on it for me, other than my first ever. Growing up in Atlanta in the 1990s, NASCAR was the epitome and symbol of what motor racing was. Culturally off limits to me, barely penetrating my Blue Tribe defense shields, I nevertheless managed to know who Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon were, what they did for a living, and what their cars looked like.

By the summer of 2025, despite already following Formula 1 fanatically and even learning about (and falling in love with) IndyCar — and even having watched the entire 2025 NASCAR season up to that point! — it still felt forbidden to me. Only by going to my legendary hometown track would I be able to know once and for all whether I belonged in the tribe of American auto racing.

I came prepared, bringing two equally curious childhood friends, Rob and Joe. Joe had apparently been into racing for years and just never thought any of the old crew wanted to know about it. Joe brought a friend of his, Ben, who had gotten into racing more recently and was just starting to branch out from F1. I had met him earlier that month when he and Joe came over to my house to watch a couple hours of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After this Cup race, I’d say I have a proper local racing squad.

To my surprise, delight, and relief, the crowd at Atlanta Motor Speedw— uh, I guess I mean eCHoPArk SPeEDwAY was as diverse as it was massive. There were many people meeting the description of who I would expect to attend a NASCAR race, but they were pleasant and welcoming. The age range was also much wider than I was expecting, though, the gender mix seemed even, and even the skin colors and nationalities — and even possibly sexualities!? — on display were remarkably varied. In short, it seemed an accurate sample of Atlanta, providing another reminder of why I moved back home. And to cap it off, two guys I’ve known since we were three came with me to the race.

As for what NASCAR racing is like in person, it is one of the few things I can imagine surviving this much hype and mystique around it for my nearly 40 years of life. If automobiles please you, the appeal is instantly obvious. There’s nothing like the roar and the thunder of the cars, and on a medium-length steeply banked track like this, you can watch and hear them all the way around the lap.

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The race was great. A pretty big wreck took out a lot of fast cars at the front, so we got to see some different guys try to seize the opportunity, and they raced through the pack and all the way to the end.

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I must admit, Chase Elliott’s unspectacular (though high-scoring) season and his seemingly indifferent personality had not really interested me in this first NASCAR season I followed, though I was aware of his reputation. That changed at this race. Running a funky livery drawn by 11-year-old Rhealynn Mills — a pediatric cancer patient in Atlanta — in support of Elliott’s foundation, our local boy got him his first win in a year, and everybody loved it.

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I am so grateful to have an IndyCar race event of this caliber within such a short drive from Atlanta. IndyCar has always struggled as a series to make events other than the 500 seem worthwhile, and these days only Indy and maybe Long Beach have that status guaranteed. IndyCar regulars may not live far enough south to realize it, but Barber belongs on that list. I hope to make this straight-shot drive every year if possible. (You go right past ’Dega on the way, so I should probably start making plans for that, too.)

You know from TV that Barber is quirky and full of weird art, and that the facility is at least interesting, but what you don’t know until you go there is that it is one of the most lovely motorsports venues imaginable. “Park” really is the best term for it. Our crew found delightful forested seats along the back straight that were in shade all day, and I think the best verb to describe what we did all day was bask.

My dad and cousin came along, first motor races for both of them. I don’t think they were quite sold on motorsports overall, but they certainly had a good time, and that was surely due in large part to the incredible facility.

I would spend a day there with nothing on track. That would give me a chance to visit the enormous museum, which was clearly not happening while an IndyCar race was on.

The event was crowded — which is great — but the capacity was there easily. The paddock was open and accessible, too, and drivers were around. I got to flash my Team Australia jersey at Will Power, and he blessed me with a big smile and a thumbs up.

This was my first time seeing Indy cars in person, and even having watched the GTP class on the high banks at Daytona, this was another level of speed and agility.

This was the race at which it became clear that Álex Palou was going to absolutely dominate the season, and he looked great doing it in a one-off special HRC livery that somehow still didn’t silence the “hOnDA iS gONnA leAvE iNdYcAR” people. This was also a weekend when Dennis Hauger made the IndyNXT field look silly, and it would surprise no one to learn at the end of the season that he would be moving up to the big leagues for 2026.

I did not pay much attention to the racing at this race, to be honest. It was far more significant to me that this was the first time my wife allowed me to bring my children to the race track. They came directly from soccer, and they elected to stay in uniform the whole time. They also got to test out their new earmuffs, which they picked out for the occasion according to their personal fashion senses.

As they are bored by watching racing even on television, where the action is followed from turn to turn, I knew the entertainment value for them was not on track. I made sure they got a quick sense of just how fast race cars are — which is easy to do at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta — and then we headed for the garage area. Not only would this allow them to really see stuff and meet people, it would also provide shade, as it was quite warm, and we wouldn’t last long in the sun.

This plan paid off handsomely. They got to meet their first race car drivers, and — to my complete astonishment — they were allowed to sit in a contemporary Porsche Sprint Cup car.

We did not last very long, as expected, but the day was not without on-track thrills. The highlight was a multi-class historic NASCAR race with Cup, Busch (and maybe Nationwide) Series, and Trucks all on track together. I have no idea who won.

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Don’t get me wrong, I was interested to see what present-day Trans Am was like, but the reason I jumped on this opportunity to go to a race by myself was to experience Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta for the first time as soon as possible.

I had watched the opening Trans Am weekend at Sebring, and it was a bit of a shit show, particularly the TA2 race, but I had liked the cars, I was intrigued by Andy Lally’s installation as president of the series, and, frankly, I was already pretty sure I was constitutionally incapable of having a bad time at a race track.

Attendance felt sparse — having only the absurdly packed 2025 Daytona 24 for comparison — but I actually quite enjoyed that. I could hear the cars from everywhere, get into any area that interested me, and when I wanted to meet somebody on the grid, I walked right up to them, and they gladly gave me a few minutes of their time.

I came prepared with a 2002 Indy 500 ticket I’d bought on eBay to get Paul Tracy to sign “I won.” I didn’t know how walking up to him and proposing that would go over, but he and the people around him found it hilarious. He was there demoing an Australian Innovation Race Cars machine in the Trans AM XGT class for a few races, and the car was indeed pretty sweet. Another notable figure on the grid was young NASCAR prospect Brent Crews, who put his #70 Camaro on pole in the top TA class with a 1:16.683, a new track record.

Near the end of the grid walk, I found President Lally and got him to sign my program. “I almost wrote my number on there,” he laughed. “I don’t have a number anymore!”

As one would expect, the Trans Am race was fast and loud and rumbly. Not the most competitively satisfying race I’ve ever watched, but among the most sensorily satisfying.

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The weekend was a great, pure showcase of race cars qua race cars. I got to see inside of various ones in various ways.

On a technical note, this was the debut of the Toyota Camry body in the TA2 class. It’s the same car with a different shell on it, of course, but it was indeed very nice looking.

The great surprise (to me) of the weekend was getting to see a genuine Rusty Wallace Miller Genuine Draft #2 race on track in a short but incredible historic NASCAR race.

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Other historic categories were awesomely diverse, and I got my first taste of open-wheel racing, too.

International GT raced, too, which allowed me to feel like an old head in sports cars already.

The racing highlight, for me, was the TA2 race. It was, shall we say, dramatic. I had met the entire field the day before and collected their autographs on an event poster, so this race meant a great deal to me from front to rear. I’ve become intensely interested in the category since, given its role in teaching NASCAR aspirants the art of racing stock cars on road courses, as well as its incredible popularity in Australia and New Zealand. I’m going to keep a close watch on TA2.

The most valuable intel gathered over this SpeedTour weekend is where I like to watch from at Road Atlanta. There are many amazing spots, but it’s hard to argue with the turn 10A-B complex.

This was the first motor race I attended in person. Honestly, I was nervous beforehand. I didn’t know if I would feel comfortable there. I didn’t know if I would be able to handle the noise. I didn’t know if I would be able to follow the action and enjoy it as much as I could at home.

The answer to all of those is: I would.

This is the first installment in a format I am calling race notes. It does not even attempt to cover everything that happened at the race meeting. For a 24-hour sports car race, there are probably stories I will still be writing new posts about years from now. Race Notes are the most minimal posts I will write about races I attend in person, just to mark particularly poignant, memorable things. I will add to them over time, too, as I continue to process photos, uncover crumpled napkins I wrote on, or learn new things about the races after the fact.

Turning Fortune launched in January 2026, just before Luke and I set off for the next Rolex. But since I still have the opportunity to write Race Notes for every race I go to in my life, I’m going back to the beginning.