“It feels like you get a concussion every lap basically if you hit them, so yeah, not much fun.”
The them Martin Truex Jr. referred to on Saturday afternoon were the turtles on the reconfigured frontstretch chicane at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
“I’m glad someone said it,” said Kyle Busch. “It is.”
There were some parallels drawn to Watkins Glen, where NASCAR needed to replace curbing with rumble strips due to the concussive impacts every lap.
“Here, I think it’s a sharper, faster hit,” Busch said Saturday. “But it’s one versus the old Bus Stop at Watkins Glen would be three of them going through there, you know what I mean. It’s more violent here.”
The initial response from some fans was that the turtles were placed there to discourage drivers from cutting the corner, even remotely, but Austin Cindric said there was speed to be found in making a painful decision.
“My lower back’s having fun today,” Cindric said sarcastically after qualifying. “Yeah, it’s, there but there is lap time in hurting yourself. It’s just how these cars are and how the track is. I’ll take lap time any day.”
When asked about it, Tyler Reddick said, “there is nothing new there.”
No matter what configuration NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports throws at them, if it means speed, drivers will hit the curbing at their own peril.
“It’s rough but you have to do it,” said Michael McDowell. “I mean, you don’t have a choice. You could go around them, but it’s just slow.
“… You definitely feel it, it’s not smooth, but I don’t feel like it feels like a concussion. But we have our mouthpiece data, so I’m sure we’ll look at that and see what it looks like.”
Whatever that data showed overnight was enough for the decision makers to replace the 4.0″ turtles with a 1.5″ curb.
NASCAR will still actively seek to prevent drivers from course cutting and issued the following reminders:
- Vehicles must run on the full course at all times.
- Going straight at the chicane(s) may result in a stop-and-go penalty.
- In the closing laps of the race, if there is not enough time to assess a pass-through penalty, a post-race time penalty of 30 seconds will be assessed to the vehicle’s total time.
For all practical purposes, cutting the course will be determined based on all four tires coming off the racing surface.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.