Now run under the banner of the Labor Day Classic 500, the 2010 name change for the annual fall race at Atlanta Motor Speedway more accurately reflects a the 2009 re-scheduling which of the race, the second in its existence. Prior to this most recent juggling of the calendar, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race was always run nearer the end of the NASCAR season, in either October or November, and has been one of the ten races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, from since the Chase's very beginning in 2004.
Given the realignment for the 2009 race, titled the Pep Boys Auto 500 at the time, NASCAR returned its Labor Day weekend Sprint Cup race to the southern states for the first time since the 2003 Southern 500. As additional terms of the realignment agreement with Auto Club Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, Talladega's fall race was moved to the old Atlanta race weekend, and Fontana will get a race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, moving into Talladega's previous date. Last, as was also the case with the Labor Day weekend races previously run at Fontana, the race was to be run at night, marking the first regularly scheduled Sprint Cup night race in the history of Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The 1992 race, then called the Hooters 500, not only marked the last race for "The King" Richard Petty, but, coincidentally, was also the very first outing for Jeff Gordon. With six drivers still in the running for what was then known as the Winston Cup Championship, that race is widely regarded as one of the greatest NASCAR races of all time, as Alan Kulwicki, who finished second in the race, barely beat out race winner Bill Elliott by leading one more lap in the race, resulting in Kulwicki winning the NASCAR Winston Cup title by only ten points, a record-low differential at the time.
