The talk throughout the Sprint Cup Series garage over the weekend has centered around the struggle to find grip on the 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway. One of the most abrasive racing surfaces on the circuit, Atlanta wears out tires and tests teams' abilities to find the perfect setup and handling that will get the job done.

During Saturday's final practice, teams worked diligently to find the right combination that would make the most of the tricky situation. While Carl Edwards and Kasey Kahne posted the fastest times of the session, a number of teams were happy with the progress they made heading into Sunday's event.

"I think we got it better the second practice," Donnie Wingo, crew chief on Jamie McMurray's No. 26 Ford Fusion told HardcoreRaceFans.com. "It's like when it's too loose we change but then we get it too tight, so it's hard to find a happy medium there. That's the biggest things we're fighting right now.

"The biggest thing is you're trying to get both ends to slide the same," Wingo added. "We can get the rear sliding too much or the front sliding too much, we just haven't found a happy medium yet, but I think we've got some good ideas to look at tonight and make changes for tomorrow."

"The tire is really, really, really down on grip," Clint Bowyer explained. "I think we'll be fine. We worked on a few things and juggled with the setup, but I think we locked in on something there at the end and showed some promise."

Despite having the option of running multiple grooves around the 1.5-mile track, Bowyer explained by changing your line you would only make matters more complicated for the crew and make the team's job that much more difficult.

"If you change you're line," Bowyer pointed out, "you're chasing line and car, and you can't really give them an honest effort on what you're doing. You've just got to keep digging, keep working on it, keep trying things and keep changing, changing, changing and hopefully you'll lock on to something and I think we did. I'm exited and ready to go."

"We got the car working on old tires, we never put stickers on like a lot of the guys," Daytona 500 winning crew chief Drew Blickensderfer explained to HardcoreRaceFans.com. "Tires fall off so bad here that after 10-12 laps you're really struggling to find grip."

For owner/driver Robby Gordon, the challenge presented by the racing surface is a double-edged sword. Frustrating on one hand, Gordon also understands racing is not supposed to be easy all of the time.

"I've got to be honest, I don't like it, but I like it at the same time because it makes everyone driver their cars," Gordon explained. "I'm pretty good with where we're at. The track is very challenging and the tire package they have for this track is very challenging. It reminds me of the old Rockingham Speedway or Darlington where the tires fall off a second a lap in five laps. That part of it is challenging, but it's the same for everybody. It's not how far you can drive it in, it's how long you can be wide open after you start rotating the middle of the corner."

There have been various debates throughout much of this race weekend about whether the Atlanta Motor Speedway needs to be repaved in order to save tires and help the cars handle better. Surprisingly, despite the challenge and the frustration the track presents teams and drivers, the overall consensus has been to leave it alone.

"I like it the way it is. It works well," Blickensderfer said of the racing surface. "It gives it a lot of new elements. You can go from the top to the bottom the way it is. It makes for better racing since it isn't [newly] paved."

"I think when you get a track like this you get good racing," Wingo added. "When you have fall-off you're going to have better racing. You've got two or three grooves you can run, so paving it is not necessarily going to fix it because then you'll have a track like everywhere else where everybody is fighting for the bottom while now guys can run top to bottom."

There is no doubt the Atlanta Motor Speedway presents a unique challenge to teams and drivers. Nobody ever said racing was supposed to be easy and as the track ages the surface continues to make these teams work harder on managing their equipment, finding the perfect setup and doing whatever it takes to be there in the end - and that's what racing is all about.