Fan's Eye View ~ Getting Racy: Has The Cookie Cutter Boredom Been Solved?
3/10/2014
Jim Fitzgerald
With the racing action at Las Vegas Motor Speedway completed this past weekend, not only did Brad Keselowski win and probably earn a spot in the Chase, we got a glimpse of the future of racing on the so-called “cookie cutter” tracks. Those tracks of one and a half miles in length, and how to improve the racing on them has been a hot topic of discussion for more than a few seasons. The calls were coming in through social media and other avenues claiming the racing has becoming mundane. NASCAR heard the complaints of the fans and after taking into consideration the results of some testing, instituted a new aero package for the cars for all tracks less than two and a half miles in length.
After a late post season test at Charlotte in December of last year, NASCAR put a package together designed to improve the racing product on the mile and a half tracks. This package included the removal of the minimum ride height requirement, as well as an eight inch spoiler on the rear of the car, and the squaring off of the leading edge of the front splitter and side skirts, which had been rounded previously. These adjustments were designed and put into place to increase the side by side racing that race fans seem to love, as well as create more opportunities for green flag passing.
NASCAR’s vice president of innovation and racing development, Gene Stefanyshyn had this to say about the new package last Thursday: “There’s a bit of a learning curve. I think the Harvick team, the No. 4 car, they've got it figured out already, and some of the other guys are struggling. The package we put together is going to be used on all the tracks except the superspeedways, so at Phoenix we began to see a glimpse, but obviously since that’s only a mile track, the speeds are a lot lower. They could probably only harvest maybe 30 to 40 percent of the capability of the package, so really this (Las Vegas) will be the first race where we get to see they can fully exploit the aerodynamic and chassis changes.”
Now that the race in Vegas has been completed, fans everywhere may be asking the question of whether the racing was actually any better. For fans everywhere, that is most assuredly a personal judgment. But it should not be a quick one, and neither should the assumption be that any drivers who had a solid run at Las Vegas will automatically be the top candidates to win the remaining races on the mile and a half tracks. There will definitely be some teams that “get this” right off the bat, and then there will be others that will take more time to really grasp what the changes in the package mean in regards to the handling and the speed of the race car. The result may be a driver and team who “got it” really owning the intermediate tracks for the first few races. Then, however, that dominant driver and team will come back to the rest of the field as more and more teams begin to understand how the changes will affect the cars. The teams that have it understood the best right now will undoubtedly be in a better position earlier in the season than those who are not as prepared.
Fear not, however, if your favorites are one of the “not getting it now” teams, and don’t gloat if the team you love the most beats the tires off of the rest of the field for the first few races on the intermediate tracks. These folks are professionals, and rest assured that things will even out as they should, and the cream will rise to the top, as it usually does.
The Sprint Cup Championship could, however, hang in the balance.