Elliott, of course, is a hero in his native Georgia, where he earned the nickname “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” for some of his exploits in the 1980s, which including winning a Sprint Cup championship and the old “Winston Million.”

Just as they did last year, the Wood Brothers are only running a partial Sprint Cup schedule. But in each of the races they run, Elliott’s iconic No. 21 Ford Fusion will powered by the new FR9 Ford engine.

The FR9′s main claim to fame is not additional horsepower — these days, NASCAR keeps teams in such a tight mechanical box that no manufacturer can get a meaningful horsepower advantage. But what it does have is a lower center of gravity and an improved cooling system, both of which should contribute to better handling on the track.

  

All the other Fords at Atlanta — four cars each from Roush Fenway Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports, plus three more from Front Row Motorsports with Yates Racing and one from Latitude 43 Motorsports — will be powered by the old Ford engine, code-named “452.”

Sunday’s race will mark only the second event for the FR9 at a non-restrictor plate track. David Ragan ran it successfully in 2009′s season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

By the second half of 2010, the plan is for all the Ford teams to use the new engine. But for now, it’s just the Wood Brothers, who will use it in every race this season. And that arrangement seems to please everyone involved.

“With us running a limited schedule, in the unlikely event something goes wrong, it doesn’t kill us in the points because we’re not really worried about points,” said Len Wood, co-owner of the Wood Brothers team.

For Ford, having the Wood Brothers willing to run the new engine gives the automaker critically needed real-world testing. “They can run them on the endurance dyno all they want, but until you put that thing on the race track under the real deal with tear offs flying around and getting on your grille and heating it up more than you want, or with pit stops where it gets over-revved here or there, it’s never the real deal until you’re really out there,” said Wood.

It also gives Ford the luxury of a gradual engine roll-out schedule — and the other teams the ability to spread out the cost involved.

“There are a couple of reasons for the slow rollout. The first reason is you’ve got to get your race package complete,” said David Simon, a Ford engineer who worked closely with Doug Yates to develop the new engine. “You can’t go out there with an engine that isn’t fully developed, not at this level.”

Speed Tv Contributed to this report