The return of the NASCAR Cup Series at Bowman Gray Stadium for the preseason Busch Clash on February 1-2 will actually begin at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Construction has already begun, using components that made up the temporary track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum the past three years.
With the tight confines of an event at the football stadium/quarter-mile short track hybrid, but one that is also close to home for the industry, NASCAR has opted to conduct pre-race technical inspection at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
There, the cars will be checked, boxed with a tamper-proof seal in the haulers and loaded up on Thursday, January 30 before unloading on Friday, January 31.
“We take a massive footprint with our haulers, with all our technical equipment as well as the NASCAR series support haulers that are required, so certainly we had to look at it a little differently on what we’re going to do for inspections and how we’re going to do it,” said Cup Series director Brad Moran. “Our good friends from Charlotte Motor Speedway worked with us, so we appreciate (track executives) Marcus Smith and Steve Swift putting the facility up for our use. It’s all pre-wired and it’s ready to go, obviously. We go there twice a year, and what we’re going to do is something a little different than what we do on a normal event.”
As for post-race, inspection that Sunday night will be done with scales and shock equipment, but not the Optical Scanning Station usually utilized. The OSS would be operational at the NASCAR Research and Development facility in Concord, should any team need to pull out a backup due to damaged sustain on Saturday in the preliminary events.
NASCAR has yet to finalize a format but it will look similar to the Los Angeles Coliseum Clash.
“From a competition standpoint, we’re getting close,” Moran said about making the format final. “We’ve almost got everything buttoned up. We’re waiting on just a couple other items to check a few boxes, but we’re getting real close to having this whole plan put together and ready to go.”
Don’t expect any pit stops either, just like the LA Coliseum event.
“It is limited equipment, and the teams prefer it that way,” Moran says. “There are no real pit stops unless you have a problem, right? I don’t think anyone would go down there and give up all their track position unless they have a problem, so the tire situation would be the same as L.A. So if they had a flat, they’re only allowed to change the one tire for one tire until the break, and that’s when the full tires and adjustments get done during that break. That’ll probably look similar to L.A.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
