What a Great NASCAR Race at Phoenix, I Can Not Believe it is Going to be REPAVED!!!

Many of the comments from the drivers over the races at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) on the weekend was how bumpy the track was, and how difficult it was to drive. The turns at PIR make the cars tight through the corner, and the cars tend to get loose coming off the corner, and these conditions caused some tire wear. All of this combined to make for some great racing. Some of the best racing we tend to see is when the cars are hard to drive due to the track conditions and tire wear. There always seems to be beating and banging and inevitably some wrecks due to these conditions. Unfortunately these conditions have lead to many of the drivers who were predicted to be contenders this year way back in the points. It is doubtful that anyone would predict that Jeff Burton, Joey Logano, Greg Biffle, Jamie McMurray, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer would all be 20th on back in points two races into the season. Unlike last year when finishing dead last was worth seventeen percent of 1st place points, this year dead last is worth two percent of 1st place, and therefore gaining in the standings is going to be much harder to do. Count on it taking a few races before guys like McMurray, Biffle, Logano and Burton can fight there way up to the top 15 in points. It should be interesting to see the type of racing that we are going to see in the fall when we return to PIR during the chase as PIR had the bulldozers on the track within hours of the conclusion of the race preparing for a repave and reconfiguration of the track.

That's right, PIR will have a new surface and configuration when NASCAR returns in the fall during the chase. It really is too bad, I think that the track probably would have withstood a few more years with the current pavement and lead to some very exciting racing. The track promoters are saying however, that the new configuration will lead to a lot of side by side racing right away as they are instituting progressive banking at the track. This means that the outer lane of the track will be banked about one degree steeper than the inside lane which will allow the car on the outside a little better grip through the corners, meaning the car on the outside should be as fast as the car on the inside taking the shorter way around the track.  The configuration of the track will also change as they will push the 'dog leg' up the track about 100' which will shorten the radius of the dogleg. In the past drivers have been able to make a late entrance to the dogleg turn which allows them to have a straight shot into turn 3 from the centre of the dog leg. By moving the dogleg back the track it will force the drivers to turn more going down the back stretch of the track and is supposed to make the track more difficult to drive. It will be interesting to see what type of tire compound Goodyear brings to PIR in the fall, hopefully it will be one that gives up easily. We'll know more once Goodyear conducts a tire test there in the fall. I hope that we don't see a tire similar to what we saw on the new pavement at Daytona this year. The tire at Daytona was so durable that handling at the track wasn't an issue and teams hardly had to change tires all weekend long. The common refrain was that the tires had so much grip it was incredible. It seems to me that the less grip a tire has, the harder the cars are to drive and the more exciting the racing is. So here's hoping that the repave and reconfiguration works out and that Goodyear brings a tire that gives up throughout a run and that the 2nd last race of the season is just as exciting as the 2nd race was.

This weekend NASCAR goes to Las Vegas, home of the Brothers Busch. Kyle has a great record at Las Vegas, so look for him to have another dominating weekend. Kurt's record is a little more spotty, though he has been running well this year, and he tends to have some decent success on the intermediate tracks. When picking your fantasy teams this weekend, the usual suspects on the intermediate tracks are the guys to pick, but don't forget about some of the new guys. This year so far has been full of surprises, I look for a couple of guys to have top ten runs that maybe nobody has been looking at so far. Good luck and viva Las Vegas!

Doesn't Matter What You Thought of the Shootout, the 500 Race is Going to be DIFFERENT!!!

After the Goodyear tire test in December at the newly paved Daytona track, teams discovered that two cars running in tandem were running 20 miles an hour faster than single cars. However, they discovered another problem. They could only run two cars in tandem for a lap or two before having to break the two car draft because the rear car wasn't getting enough air into the engine to cool it. Since the tire test, teams have been focusing on how to get more air into the car that is doing the pushing in the 2 car draft. The theory had been that the longer 2 cars could stay locked up, the further ahead of the field they can get, and if possible, swtich positions to prevent overheating without losing the lead, and in the end battle it out with only a couple other cars for the win. After the Shootout practice, NASCAR forced teams to remove the extra cooling hoses to limit the amount of laps teams could run in tandem. Unfortunately the engineers did such a good job of setting the cars up so that the engine could remain cool that it didn't matter they didn't have the extra hoses. Once cars got locked up in the Budwieser Shootout on Saturday night, they were running 8, 10 and 12 laps hooked up without overheating. The strategy worked out well for Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray & winner Kurt Busch, as the 4 cars did break away from the rest of the field and were left to settle things exactly how they had intended. (Controversial penalty to Denny Hamlin not withstanding). Personally, I do not care for this method of racing, I believe that a driver should not need to depend on another car pushing them to be able to be competitve. I feel I have reason to be optomistic however looking forward to the racing in the 500 itself, and here is why.

First and foremost, the racing on saturday occurred at night with little rubber on the track and with very cool temperatures. Almost ideal conditions for speed. However, as a result of the speeds acheived during the race due to the 2 car draft, NASCAR has instituted a new rules package mandating the diamater of the water hoses hooked to the cars radiators be kept to a specified limit, and the installation of a pressure relief valve that will trip at 230 degrees of water temperature. In the shootout and practices, cars were running their water temperatures right up to 280 degrees before backing out of the two car draft. These changes will make for an entirely different twin 150 races as the air temperatures are forecast to be much warmer on Thursday afternoon. This means that the cars will not be able to lock up for much more than 2 laps before the water temperature starts to climb. Once the water temperature in the engine hits 230 degrees, the pressure valve opens up and the water that is keeping the engine cool starts blowing out of the motor. If you lose too much water you'll cook the engine and blow up. This will keep the cars from breaking away and having a 4 car breakaway battle it out for the win like we saw Saturday night. Further, there is no rain forecast for the next week and plenty of activity on the track. We've got practice for the 150's on Wednesday, the 150's themselves on Thursday. Friday and Saturday will see practice and racing for the Camping World Truck Series, Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series. This is going to work the surface of the track much more than it has been, and also add a whole lot of rubber to the tracks surface.
What this means for Sunday's 500 race is that with an afternoon race under sunny and warm conditions, there will be a lot more heat in the track than we've seen up to that point, and there will also be a lot more rubber. Heat & rubber make for slick conditions, which is going to make drafting that much more precarious.

So not only will cars not be able to run in tandem for as many laps as what we have seen so far, but the cars are also going to be much more difficult to control because conditions are going to be much slicker than what we have seen to date. And all of this is assuming that NASCAR is not going to make any further changes after the 150 races. (A change to the restrictor plates is still a possibility). So although the cars are likely still to use the two car draft to race for the win, it should be a different race than what we saw Saturday night, with the potential for a few more cars to be in the mix when it comes down to the end. It may not be perfect, but I'm hopful it will be better.