Tracks Still Attacking The Wrong Problem

Texas Motor Speedway was repaved last year and its first race on new pavement
was the IRL’s Alamo 300 in early October. The new pavement didn’t affect the
racing in the least, as the IRL put on one of the sport’s greatest races ever
ending in a three-wide finish won by Sam Hornish. Of late Hornish has become
quite adept at such finishes, pulling it off again, this time over Jacques
Lazier, at Fontana.

The NASCAR boys, however, are more reluctant to take to Texas’ new pavement. Dale
Jarrett is the point man right now in voicing concerns, saying, "I know
in the interests of all the other forms of racing, things had to be done, but
this is not going to make for a better race for us, because it will be back to a
one-groove track….Why would you want to go up high when the bottom is the
fastest way around and there’s so much grip?"

While Texas beckons the first week of April, farther north New Hampshire
Int’l Speedway is also at work. Bob Bahre has begun laying down another lane on
the bottom of the turns and adding a "tapered apron" on the inside.
The hope is to add a second groove and thus allow easier passing.

Robby
Gordon, the most recent winner there, asks why they would do such and
recommends putting the groove closer to the wall – never mind that such can’t
realistically be done. And Jeff Burton contends that in its present
configuration there can never be a second groove.

Burton is wrong. There is a second groove at Loudon and the Modifieds
routinely run it. Grand National North has also run a second groove at Loudon
and there was one for the Trucks several times. Adding a tapered apron may help
out.

Burton is also wrong when he asserts, "But I’ve always contended – and
still would – that you don’t have to have side-by-side racing to have great
racing. There’s something to be said for it to be hard to pass – that makes for
great racing, too."

I’m always puzzled that people who ought to know better can make such stupid
claims as Burton does here. There is NOTHING to be said for it to be hard to
pass. And side by side racing is ESSENTIAL to the sport, because that is what
competition is about.

NHIS has long been vilified for lackluster racing. The puzzle is that there
is actually more honest to goodness position passing there than at Bristol, a
track universally loved, and the Loudon track has much more room to race than
the identically-configured Martinsville track. So the criticisms of the track
lack merit.

And the contrast between the NASCAR boys at Texas and the IRL is also
striking – Jarrett claims there will be no second groove on the new pavement,
and the IRL ran the second groove all race long and even started working a third
groove in up high. We see an identical contrast between the fendered classes and
the Modifieds at NHIS.

What it points to yet again is the perennially wrong-headed approach to
examining the issue of competitive ability in racetracks – looking at the
racetracks themselves. In the mid-90s there was a repaving binge in NASCAR as
Rockingham, Charlotte, and other tracks got new layers of pavement. One of the
last tracks to get new pavement was Pocono in 1996. Before the ’96 Pocono 500
there was concern the new asphalt would narrow the groove in the corners – but
when the race began the opposite occurred and the battle for the lead was very
good for most of the race.

Atlanta in its first eighteen months in quad-oval configuration was abysmal
as a racetrack; from November 1999 on it has become one of the better tracks for
racing in the sport. And yet the identically-configured Texas track has never
been competitive for stock cars and the Charlotte Motor Speedway has struggled
in recent years with lackluster races, most notably the embarrassing National
500 of last year.

There are of course numerous reasons why tracks have trouble with competitive
events, but the root cause is always the same – the racecars. The IRL puts on
classic races at Texas; NASCAR can’t. The Modifieds put on exciting races at
NHIS; the fendered classes usually can’t.

It comes down to the nature of NASCAR’s big-league machinery – overpowered,
under-gripped, under-staggered, and aero-clean. The IRL cars draft well at Texas
and Fontana; NASCAR cars have no draft to work with; instead what little air is
displaced wipes out down force on cars entirely dependent on air instead of raw
drag for grip. The Modifieds draft well at NHIS, stick to the corners superbly,
are not overpowered for the track (they run restrictor plates at NHIS), and race
wheel to wheel; fendered cars don’t stick at all, air plagued with aero-push,
have far too much horsepower, and get strung out about the track.

The pattern is the same at other tracks – Fontana’s IRL race was infinitely
superior competition to anything seen so far there in NASCAR; IRL’s coming
Michigan 400 will likely be even better, and will of course outshine NASCAR in
terms of passing; it is rumored that Pocono will get an IRL date in 2003, and if
the draft kicks in there for the IRL the racing will be superior to NASCAR at
yet another NASCAR track.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no reason why NASCAR can’t also see
tremendous competition at such tracks – time was that Charlotte, Michigan, and
Pocono rivaled Daytona and Talladega for per-race average number of lead
changes. Get the cars where they can suck up to each other and pass without
air-induced handling interference, get them to where they’re not abusing the
right front every lap, get them to where they stay stable in clean air or dirty,
get them where dirty air makes them run faster, and NASCAR can see far better
racing than most of what it presently sees.

The rivalry between NASCAR, CART, and IRL should be who can see the most lead
changes – CART saw 73 last year at Fontana, NASCAR holds the record at 75 in
1984, and IRL can certainly post similar numbers. Now that will be a helluva
season. And such improvement in competition doesn’t come from changing the
racetracks.