Once a race track undergoes a reconfiguration or repave, NASCAR teams are usually invited to take part in a scheduled test of their equipment so they can learn how to adapt their car to the track changes well before competing in a race. But not always, especially when there’s a shortage of time and at Texas Motor Speedway, they know all about a time crunch.
The Speedway just completed a repave and reconfiguration of their 1.5-mile track in Fort Worth – a process that began earlier this year in January. The project includes a four-degree banking reduction in turns one and two to 20 degrees, with a 20-foot widening of the race surface to 80 feet, in the same part of the track, to create more opportunities for passing.
The concept is a great idea, but the shortage of time has left teams with no chance to test and prepare their cars for the XFINITY and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ races at Texas this weekend. Scheduled practice sessions will give most teams a speedy turnaround time to adapt to the great unknown they face at Texas.
The competitive advantage may go to those teams with the luxury of racing simulators, offering some limited advance data for them to work with – but the unknown is still worrisome for Kurt Busch.
“I think the trend in NASCAR is to keep all of us on our toes as much as possible, it seems like.” says Busch. “Practice sessions here and there, moving things to the next day as a result of weather. To head into Texas with no formal tire test, no official track mapping, let ’er rip. This is new territory for our sport. I think it shows how much we’re having to adapt on the fly. Is it a good thing? A bad thing? It doesn’t matter. It’s what it is, and it’s unique, the way we’re headed in there to go 215 mph with no track time.”
Busch’s younger brother Kyle Busch agrees, there’s definitely reason for concern heading into this weekend.
“…It’s going to be a whole new repave,” says Kyle Busch after finishing second at Martinsville. “To me those are the absolute worst racetracks we can ever go to. I hate repaves. But it’s a part of our schedule, it’s a part of our sport. Five years from now, six years from now, it’s going to be great. I’m looking forward to that aspect of it
“I don’t necessarily look forward to repaves, but we got one coming up, so got to do what we know. There’s really no homework to do. You can’t even watch last year’s races, you can’t look at anything besides the (Chris) Buescher YouTube video and just see what the place looks like so you don’t go in there blind. That’s about it.”
Denny Hamlin also shared his perspective of the Texas track of unknowns and raises the yellow flag on the challenge drivers will face.
“Texas is going to be interesting,” says Hamlin. “It’s hard to say what that track is going to be like. I know they tried some different asphalt on there, ones that will hopefully wear tires, but I’ve never seen a new pavement wear tires before.
“It’s going to be a racetrack that will be different than any mile‑and‑a‑half that we run at. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s ‑‑ I just hope the groove widens out to where we can race there side-by-side. That will be the challenge, and that’s always the challenge with new paved racetracks is side‑by‑side racing.”
Cup Series’ Martinsville Speedway winner, Brad Keselowski is bringing momentum on his side to Texas and sums up the situation best.
“It’ll be a bit of a wild card, of course, with the new asphalt. I don’t know if anyone knows what to expect.”
NASCAR XFINITY Series teams will race the My Bariatric Solutions 300 on Saturday, April 8th at 1:30 pm ET and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 on Sunday, April 9th also at 1:30 pm ET.