NASCAR’s Latest Attempt At Improving Its On-Track Product Debuts This Weekend

NASCAR will return to the desert outside of Phoenix this weekend for the first time since November of last year. Joey Logano would win the race and his second NASCAR Cup series title.

But there were only three leaders among the field who led more than one lap in that last race; Chase Briscoe who led 11, Ryan Blaney who led 109, and race winner Logano who led the most laps on the day 187 of the 312 total.

That didn’t mean the race was boring, not by a long shot. But the racing that day was less than ideal.

NASCAR is constantly searching for ways to improve its on-track product and in perhaps an indication of that, for this trip there will be a new short track package making its debut in the Cup series.

The new package includes a 2-inch spoiler (down from the current 4-inch), the removal of three diffuser strakes and engine panel strakes, which officials said will lead to a 30% reduction in downforce. All the changes were tested during an organizational test at Phoenix in January.

The new package will be used at tracks where rain tires area allowed: the Charlotte Roval, Chicago Street Course, Circuit of the Americas, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, Martinsville, New Hampshire, North Wilkesboro, Phoenix, Richmond, Sonoma, Watkins Glen and of course, Phoenix. For the short ovals, rain tires are also new for this season and will be used only in damp conditions.

While Sunday’s race won’t determine a champion, there will still be a race winner. That race winner will be eligible for NASCAR’s Playoffs, and ultimately could return here in November among the final four who will race for the NASCAR Cup series season title.

Of course, with this new package comes a new set of unknowns. And those unknowns include the driver’s who have little clue what the cars will race like.

“I guess we’ll find out,” driver Corey LaJoie said, adding with a chuckle. “I don’t have a doctorate in aerodynamics like a lot of the guys that actually pull the trigger on these things; I don’t claim to be smarter than the people who have degrees in that sort of thing.

“I think we do have a lot of a lot of guys with high school diplomas like me that drive race cars and make a lot of money. Sometimes they think they know more than the doctors and aerodynamicists. So I guess we’ll really see who’s right.”

NASCAR did share the information with the teams from January’s test, and unlike most other weekends in the post-covid NASCAR world, NASCAR has made Phoenix Raceway an ‘extended practice’ weekend. A 50-minute practice has been added, scheduled for Friday.

“That 50-minute practice is going to be crucial,” driver and Arizona native Michael McDowell said. “I don’t want to say you take your best guess, but you take the numbers that are presented to you, and you try to account for everything and hopefully you hit the balance right.

“The good thing is we do have that practice and probably more importantly than just the practice is the ability to work on it after practice. What I mean by that is on a typical weekend the cars are impounded – your springs, shocks, geometry, settings are pretty much set – but on Friday night after practice we’ll be able to change springs and suspension things to really maximize everything we can for Saturday.

“I’m looking forward to getting behind the wheel with the new package and kind of figuring out what it’s going to take to make that work.”

That short practice, however, might not be enough.

“I don’t know if you’re really going to get out there in a group and set up a simulated race or anything like that,” driver Kyle Busch said. “We’re all just going to do our normal practice where we roll out together, we spread out a little bit and we go. I don’t think we’ll really get a chance to foresee what our cars will be like in traffic until we line up for the race and go.

“As far as practice goes, just trying to get a feel for what the pace is going to be, what the feel is, is it going to be way slower or is the car going to have a lot less grip, all that sort. That’s kind of the biggest thing you’ll set up for.”

The great unknown, even with the practice session will remain Sunday’s race.

“It should make dirty air racing a bit better,” LaJoie said. “I don’t know if it’s going to have the opposite effect of where you’re so reliant on the clean air because you have so little down force; If it’s going to make a bigger improvement for the guy out front since he has clean air versus somebody behind you that doesn’t have it. That’s the stuff I don’t know.

“It’s going to make the cars a little bit harder to drive.”

And making the cars harder to drive in traffic is NASCAR’s goal.

“I think that’s what we’re hopeful for is harder cars to drive,” driver Chris Buescher said. “More movement that will probably come at the expense of some corner speed, mid-corner speed, which is fine. Straightaway speeds will come back up, so I feel like the idea is to try and make the racing better.”

With the increased ability to pass, where you start might not be as important as before. The advantage of starting out front in clean air could be lessened, but the qualifying session on Saturday will still be significant.

“I think for this particular race with everybody not knowing a lot about the package is going to probably open things up a little bit, just because we don’t know all of the intricate details of what it takes to make the car go fast quite yet,” Kevin Harvick, who leads all active drivers here with 9 wins, said. “That won’t take long. Obviously, we know a lot more about the car than what we did before, but still different and I think that opens the window up for probably more passing.

“I still think you’re going to have issues in traffic, so qualifying will be important, but I think the door is open to be able to hit the setup right and be able to pass better than what we have in the past. “

If the changes work and the product on the track improves, then the new package will be considered a success. If not, don’t be surprised if NASCAR decides to try different things to ensure its on-track product is a good as it can be, by making the cars harder to drive.

“Because the cars handle good, they have a lot of traction,” LaJoie said. “And I think the cars now are heavier. So, the horsepower to weight ratio is less and it has more tire touching the ground making more grip. That’s just going to make the cars heavier, lazier, have more traction. I think there’s some things NASCARs working on in terms of tires and hopefully they’re looking at some horsepower options, but that’s a lot of red tape cut through.

“It’s always a balance and I’m glad I don’t have NASCAR’s job to try to figure that out. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be the same for everybody and you got to go figure out how to make your piece of metal go faster in the next guys.”

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