The 2001 Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500 was the fourth stock car race of the 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup Series.

On the final lap, Harvick won his first Winston Cup Series race from Gordon by .006 seconds in his third start.

[3] The standard track at Atlanta Motor Speedway is a four-turn quad-oval that is 1.54 miles (2.48 km) long.

[8] During the first practice session, Jarrett was fastest, placing ahead of Jimmy Spencer in second and Gordon in third.

Jeremy Mayfield, Dave Blaney, Jimmy Spencer, Rusty Wallace and Michael Waltrip rounded out the top ten qualifiers.

[9] The race, the fourth out of a total of thirty-six in the season, began at 1 p.m. EST and was televised live in the United States on FOX.

To begin pre-race ceremonies, at 1 p.m EST, Phil Brannon, the Atlanta Motor Speedway Chaplain, gave the invocation.

Then, Moby in the Morning, from local radio station WKHX-FM performed the national anthem, and television personality Willard Scott gave the command for drivers to start their engines.

During the same lap, the grandstands fell silent and spectators held up a three-finger salute in the memory of Dale Earnhardt—who was killed in an accident during the Daytona 500 three weeks previously; and 7,000 balloons were released into the air.