NASCAR and Goodyear are set to take another major swing at improving the racing product on short tracks next season with a significant test session at Phoenix Raceway on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On the docket is a variety of tire compounds, aerodynamic adjustments and measures intended to eliminate shifting without simultaneously further hurting the ability of drivers to drive off the corners. It’s the latest chapter in a two-year-long challenge with this car on its shortest and flattest tracks.
Here are the participants:
- Christopher Bell (No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota)
- Ryan Blaney (No. 12 Team Penske Ford)
- Chris Buescher (No. 17 RFK Ford)
- Erik Jones (No. 43 LEGACY Motor Club Toyota)
- Corey LaJoie (No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet)
- Kyle Larson (No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet)
Speaking to Sportsnaut on Sunday morning before the Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, Jones said this is going to be an important week toward shaping what the Cup Series will look like next year.
“There is a handful of some underbody stuff we’re trying and the splitter stuff they tried at Richmond, a lot of stuff to work through.
“But I do think Phoenix is more representative than Richmond because it’s more mechanically grip-limited, and Phoenix has definitely been aero-limited with this car. So, working through that and the shifting stuff. They want to try to lock out some gears. I don’t know if that’s the answer.
“It’s still a five-speed but there will be some different ratios in there so I don’t know, it will be interesting to see. I don’t know that we’re going to land on a total fix, but I think it’s going to be a step in the right direction.”
Also in Pensacola the past week, but not participating in the test was William Byron and Carson Hocevar, who are both invested parties in watching how everything transpires. Both drivers spend a lot of their free time racing Super Late Models on grassroots short tracks across the country and have pretty strong convictions that it’s the model version of the discipline.
“But these cars are just so different,” Byron said. “The cars have a little bit less reliability but usually in a good way with how the brakes and tires give up, the power-to-weight ratio, and those are things we just can’t get into these Cup cars but I do still feel like we can make strides this week.”
All three Cup Series drivers who were in Pensacola this week are adamant that simply having a tire compound with fall off isn’t the answer because in nearly identical cars with drivers having access to data that allows them to see the driving lines, brake and throttle traces, everyone just falls off at the same rate.
Hocevar says the key is finding a way to get teams off strategies and to create the much sought-after comers and goers.
“I think Goodyear and the tires can get us 50 percent of the way there,” Jones said. “That would be optimistic from a tire standpoint.
“All of us doing the test at Phoenix sat down with Goodyear the week of the finale and we all talked about how they need to go really aggressive. I know they were happy with the outcome at Martinsville adding more tread depth so I think directionally there is room to gain and grow with tire.
“And it’s hard for them, too, because this car is evolving as we learn more and we get more aggressive because we originally had issues with left rear failures and now we’re seeing more right rear failures so we’re moving their goal posts too.”
What is not going to be tried this week is a horsepower increase, the one thing all the drivers say would cure most every ailment with the NextGen car on short tracks, but NASCAR president Steve Phelps last week echoed the same sentiment the sanctioning body has had for half a decade.
“I don’t think the answer is more horsepower because more horsepower is expensive,” Phelps told NBC. “If you ask a driver what’s going to solve it, they’re always going to say ‘Give me more horsepower.’ It’s a thing. I’m not a driver, but I’ve listened to enough drivers and that’s their solution. So the question is, ‘is that really what it is?’ I don’t know. I think there’s some gearing things that we’re looking at as well. Some shifting things.”
Drivers and team owners are largely in agreement that they wish it would be tried just to have the data point, but NASCAR is resolute.
Nevertheless, Jones said NASCAR and the drivers are communicating well through this process and largely have since the debut of the NextGen car. The winter of testing as NASCAR transitioned from the Gen6 to the NextGen was fraught with tension.
NASCAR wanted to run something similar to the 550HP package used in the previous generation of cars. Still, drivers and teams pushed back hard and convinced the sanctioning body to implement a second test at Charlotte that resulted in the current 670HP number used across the board.
Jones said the level of urgency with the test this week at Phoenix is similar in a lot of ways.
“Yeah, it’s similar down that line,” Jones said. “Goodyear is going to bring an aggressive tire to see how it’s going to be because they recognize fall off is a big thing for us, right?
“The big thing is that we don’t want heat related falloff, we need true higher fall. It can’t be heat fall off where we all slow down at the same rate.
“We need to be challenged to save tires, slip the right rear in the corner every lap. There needs to be a penalty for being that aggressive in the corner and that’s not the case right now. We’ve hammered that home to them so we’ll see what they bring to this test.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.