What number of Cup Collection drivers had been consulted in Speedway Motorsports’ plans for Atlanta Motor Speedway? And who’re they?
These are truthful inquiries to ask within the wake of the corporate’s announcement that Atlanta could be repaved and reconfigured after Sunday’s Cup Collection race on the observe. The banking on the observe goes to be raised from 24 levels to twenty-eight levels within the corners and the observe goes to be narrowed from 55 toes to 40 toes within the turns.
Speedway Motorsports and NASCAR made it clear within the announcement revealing the modifications that the tweaks had been designed to provide nearer and extra aggressive racing. And neither occasion was shy in proclaiming that the modifications had been going to work.
The brashness was noteworthy in any context. And particularly so provided that the brand new Cup Collection automobile NASCAR is introducing in 2022 hasn’t been examined in any race-like capability but and groups have not began constructing it on any vital scale.
All NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports needed to level to was an iRacing video of the purported new Cup Collection automobiles on the observe. Whereas NASCAR actually needs to advertise iRacing, the online game simulation does not have an correct tire put on mannequin. Tires put on otherwise on iRacing than they do in actual life. And iRacing races usually look nothing like precise races do.
Utilizing a online game to tease actuality is a harmful train in expectation setting. Particularly when the tease options racing drastically completely different from the one seen now at a observe that is practically universally cherished by opponents.
Speedway Motorsports additionally appeared to notice that drivers weren’t consulted for its Atlanta challenge. Vice chairman Steve Swift famous Tuesday that what drivers need in a observe is not usually what followers need.
“I say this I form of jest, when a driver is completely satisfied about our race observe, normally the followers aren’t,” Speedway Motorsports senior vice-president for operations and improvement Stephen Swift mentioned. “We wish to be certain that what we’re creating is what the followers wish to see.”
— Jenna Fryer (@JennaFryer) July 6, 2021
That remark was instantly shot down — and shot down effectively — by Denny Hamlin.
With all due respect. This identical group has reconfigured Texas, Kentucky, Bristol with 0 driver enter. A type of misplaced a race, different one we don’t race anymore and final one we put dust over it. However hey, what do the drivers know 🙄 https://t.co/IRCfVeK79d
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) July 7, 2021
Texas’ reconfiguration challenge has not come near producing the specified outcomes. The observe has been compelled to place traction compound within the corners to make it remotely usable for inventory automobiles. And that traction compound has negatively affected the standard of IndyCar racing on the observe.
Kentucky was reconfigured within the 2010s and promptly misplaced its spot on the 2021 NASCAR schedule. And Bristol has been redone a number of occasions since progressive banking was added to the observe within the 2000s in an try to duplicate the racing of the Nineties on the observe.
Kyle Larson added to what Hamlin mentioned on Wednesday. He mentioned that he wasn’t consulted on the Atlanta challenge — he led many of the laps on the observe within the spring — and brazenly questioned if the modifications had been being made to advertise extra crashing.
Kyle Larson wonders about narrowing Atlanta 15 toes within the turns as a part of the reconfiguration being executed after the race this weekend the place it is going to be 52 toes on the entrance stretch, 42 toes on the backstretch and 40 toes within the turns: pic.twitter.com/wLfuMSkH0O
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) July 6, 2021
Larson additionally mentioned that he believed Speedway Motorsports and Atlanta wished to provide drafting on the observe like followers see at Talladega and Daytona. Including banking to the observe would enable drivers to go quicker within the corners — and be off the gasoline even much less — and the video launched by NASCAR and iRacing did not dispute Larson’s concept. The automobiles had been extraordinarily shut collectively in that video, although it is notable that there wasn’t a single move featured in that video both.
Does NASCAR need the automobiles to easily be nearer collectively at any expense?
On Wednesday’s NBC Motormouths present, Speedway Motorsports president Marcus Smith mentioned that “on a regular basis” his firm is speaking to drivers about produce higher racing. He did not title any drivers, nonetheless. And Atlanta’s launch made no point out of driver session whereas particularly mentioning work with engineers and iRacing.
“We positively talked to drivers, we’re speaking to engineers,” Smith mentioned.
If Smith and Speedway Motorsports did speak to drivers, it seems they weren’t named Hamlin or Larson. And that is a tad curious. In any case, one’s now an proprietor within the Cup Collection and the opposite is the winningest driver in 2021 and appears set to be close to the highest of NASCAR for the subsequent decade. Oh, they’re additionally the highest two drivers within the factors standings too.
Elevated collaboration and enter from drivers had been as soon as a spotlight of NASCAR because it moved on from the Brian France period after his DWI and drug possession arrest in 2018. The Cup Collection’ driver council appeared to have actual sway within the sanctioning physique and it wasn’t laborious to see how NASCAR and drivers had been pushing ahead in the identical path.
That imaginative and prescient is almost not possible to see now. Quite a few drivers have not precisely been supportive of NASCAR’s resolution so as to add downforce and reduce horsepower at larger tracks however these sentiments do not appear to have derailed the sanctioning physique’s push for flat-out racing at 1.5-mile tracks one bit. And drivers do not seem like an enormous half — or any half in any respect — of the redesign course of at a driver-favorite observe like Atlanta both.
If NASCAR and its tracks are boxing drivers out of those huge choices, that is an enormous disgrace. And it may have some vital long-term penalties.
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