For the time being, this is what everyone has with Texas Motor Speedway and the hope is that it could age into something better.
This is a track that was both repaved and reconfigured in 2017 and the racing product has suffered tremendously as a result.
“This track, it’s been tough to have good racing,” says Martin Truex Jr. “It’s just single file and track position means everything. If you have an issue and get back in the field, it’s hard to make that back up.”
A combination of a fresh repave, and a new layout that drivers warned would not be conducive to good racing, encouraged Speedway Motorsports officials to apply a track compound to hasten the natural widening out of the groove.
So much PJ1 was applied, and in a location that drivers said was too low, that it permanently stained the track. It is so stained that track officials haven’t added additional layers in years. Even the second year NextGen car, which has produced its most compelling races on intermediate tracks, hasn’t been able to replicate that distinction in Fort Worth.
As a result, the track now hosts just one NASCAR weekend a year, and everyone is just kind of hoping that age does it wonders in the same way it has Kansas Speedway over the past decade.
RFK Racing veteran Chris Buescher says Texas is still just a two-lane race track, which is an important distinction because this car is so aerodynamically sensitive that it needs multiple grooves to provide drivers the clean air needed to complete passes.
“Turn 1 and 2 is extremely wide when you are talking in terms of pure asphalt but there is no banking change up the hill so essentially you have four or five lanes of race track that are completely unusable,” Buescher said. “We are limited to two lanes around Texas Motor Speedway right now and this is only because of the introduction of the PJ1.”
His idea is to add progressive banking to the high side, but he also concedes that as an expensive endeavor and it’s not his money to spend.
“If it is going to be as wide as it is, you have to have some incentive to try to use those outermost lanes,” Buescher said. “The amount of distance that you would add trying to go up there at Texas, there has to be a significant amount of banking to make that happen.”
The reason, even if the surface starts to age and get wider, the top side is still the longest way around the track.
Thus, the recent decision to grind the top groove in Turns 1 and 2 to soften the bumps, is something Tyler Reddick says he strongly opposed.
“The second lane will have a different grip level,” Reddick said. “If they’re not going to apply resin to the race track, the top lane is just crap and it will almost be like a resurface. It will need taking rubber to get better and it won’t take rubber if it’s been resurfaced.”
This was implemented because there were a tremendous amount of tire failures in the playoff race last fall, leading to Goodyear bringing a different right-side combination to the track this year, something else Reddick viewed as unnecessary.
“I have an odd opinion on it: I think the teams just have to do a better job,” Reddick said. “We saw a lot of tire failures last year at Texas and I think that was a byproduct of the playoffs, teams and drivers being aggressive.
“They have to play with that fine line and there were failures. I don’t think this was a track issue. We’ve seen the IndyCar guys want it to be less rough too so if it will help everyone, do it but don’t do it because a bunch of teams complained about missing the setup last year.”
There are some talks that the race could be moved to the spring and Christopher Bell is up to do something different.
“I’d be up for anything,” Bell said. “If there was any track on the schedule that needed adjusting, it would be Texas. I think everyone would agree with that. I think going from 500 miles to 400 was a huge step in the right direction, I liked that.
“Trying to get away from 100 degree races would be good for fans but I would be up for anything … except another superspeedway. We don’t need Atlanta 2.0.”
He is, of course, referencing the recent reconfiguration of Atlanta Motor Speedway into a higher banked drafting track that more closely resembles Daytona and Talladega.
Kyle Busch doesn’t want that either.
“All of us drivers would highly, highly, highly not want it to be reconfigured again into an Atlanta-style race track, but I hear rumblings of that’s where it’s heading,” Busch said. “So that wouldn’t be fun.”
RFK driver and co-owner Brad Keselowski says he has a tempered optimism for Texas as it begins to age alongside what Goodyear is trying to provide to teams.
“I think the mile and a half races we’ve had with this car as a whole have been really compelling,” Keselowski said. “It’s been some of the best racing we’ve had. Whether that was intentional or unintentional, that’s the reality.
“I’m excited to see how the track does race tomorrow with these cars. There’s a trade off with this car, short run speed versus long run speed, the more aggressive you are with the tires, the faster you are on the short run. It either slows down more on the long run or it blows the tire out.
“With Goodyear have done more to hopefully fix the blowout side, I think you’ll just see guys lose the handling over the long run and be even more aggressive. Overall, with this car and the way you set it up, it creates comers and goers and when you have that, it makes for great racing — be it here at Texas or any other intermediate track.
“That’s a long-winded way of saying I’m encouraged by what I see and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Then there are those in the Ross Chastain camp, who feels largely indifferent and will just race with no gripes on whatever version of the track is given to them or the version that continues to age.
“I have no opinions,” Chastain said. “I’m not in the track promotion business. I’m not in the track ownership business. I don’t own race teams, I don’t own race tracks. I just drive the cars. I stay in my lane. I stay in my seat.
“The France family, the Smith family, NASCAR, SMI, they’ll give us good places to race. I trust that.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.