(CLEVELAND, OH) The 2017 ASRS Xfinity Series will kick off one week earlier than expected as Atlanta Motor Speedway will open the season January 3rd, 2017.

The 1.54 mile quad oval hosted the Xfinity Series in 2016, as a capacity crowd watched Robby Baskins steer his #46 Camaro to victory.

Atlanta fills a gap in the schedule, as Charlotte Motor Speedway was the lone quad oval on the 2017 schedule prior to the opening round being set for Atlanta.

“There were discussions about taking this event to Texas for 2017 and alternating between Texas and Atlanta each year, so the schedule wasn’t over loaded with all three of the quad oval tracks, but Atlanta has proven itself a worthy host and we expect great racing once again in 2017” said Jim Foose.  “This is the earliest start that I think we have ever had at ASRS, but our drivers asked for more races in the Xfinity Series and for the occasional longer race, so we added the 200 lap race at Bristol and bumped a few of the 1.5 mile tracks to 150 mile races”.

Other date alignments made to the 2017 schedule include pushing the Daytona race to February 14th, it was scheduled for February 7th, and moving the Las Vegas event that was originally scheduled for February 28th to February 7th.  Chicagoland has switched dates with Kansas, moving Chicagoland to the season finale.