By Jeff Glucker
NASCAR at Daytona is something you may be used to seeing. But the NASCAR Xfinity series running on the Daytona road course? That’s a new one. And guess what? It was pretty awesome.
The NASCAR YouTube channel put together a lengthy highlight video from the race. There was a lot of anticipation on the action right from the onset, as Turn 1 can immediately lead to trouble. This is where the onslaught of drivers, still racing tightly, barrel into the left-hander fighting for early position. The race was filled with awesome on-track battles showing some drivers diving more deeply into corners, dropping tires onto wet grass, and all getting up on the oval to show they can still absolutely rip down that back section.
I hope NASCAR adds more road course events to the calendar. My dream that NASCAR will begin to look more like Australia’s V8 Supercars seems more plausible with events like the one held at the Daytona Road course. These drivers can drive. And it comes out more clearly when they’re fighting in both high-speed and low-speed corners.
Read more about it over at Jalopnik.
NASCAR hasn’t been on my watchlist for years now but I might have watched this if I hadn’t been so afraid someone would find another noose in their garage.
That turned out (thankfully) not to be a racial threat and just an unfortunate coincidence it seems and I think NASCARS show of support to that driver and its banning of the Confederate flag have only raised it in my estimation in recent times. (I say this as someone whose childhood was spent watching re-runs of Dukes of Hazzard on Irelands national broadcaster in simpler times)
Not trying to get political, I’m not from the US, nor live there, but being nice to people shouldn’t really be a partisan or political thing, just’ y’know decent?
Nascars on road courses are much more watchable IMO.
With new tech regs coming for V8 Supercars, there is a chance that they might become more like Nascar.
Mind you oval racing as part of the series is unlikely; this photo was taken 5 years ago and I don’t think there has been any work done on it since. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d160769683891c2ab4191006f82e34662b55a4618ef2e486cf672791c6184c3.jpg
Looks like you need to get Dale Jr in there to do a history of the course for iRacing.
Could be an interesting candidate I suppose, first track of its type built outside North America, (24° banking), ran in both directions to cater for lhd and rhd cars, plus an outside road course.
An oval track complete with extensive use of drought-tolerant carbon absorption devices? My, they ARE far ahead aren’t they?
Apparently the banking contains a lot of old tyres too – the guy who owned the track had a chain of tyre stores.
All three races on the road course were pretty good this year. The Cup Series finally let the cars use the full 750 horsepower which showed up when they hit the proper oval. They have been throttling those engines back all year back to darned near Xfinity levels. You had your road course ringers putting in a good show this weekend as well. Andy Lally almost pulled off a win. Mother nature was finally not going to get in the way with rain but of course did with lightning. It was a fun watch.
That’s a crowded race, with an insane amount of stoppages, and a lot of missed turns. It’s entertaining, but it feels a bit…directed? Has nothing on the late 90s BTCC three-wheelin’ corners, even more tire smoke, and hyper aggressive position fights.
Damn, those old man artefacts. Sorry!
Have you watched BTCC in recent times? It’s not far of its 90s glory in my view, I just keep forgetting to catch the races when they’re on.
I feel like I don’t have the time. Hanging out here too much. 😀 In all seriousness, we have no TV and watching this stuff online, I would feel I need to do something else, too.
Given the collapse of the Aussie car industry and V8 supercars no longer really being related to road cars, making the two series closer together would make a lot of sense. I think Nascar is often seen as a natural carrer move from V8 supercars, so bringing the Aussie series closer in spec and having more road courses in Nascar would benefit both I think. V8 supercars would be a good feeder series and improve the international popularity of NASCAR at a time when its domestic popularity is fading.
I do wish that they would make another concession to modern design and allow these guys to spec big carbon brakes and low profile tires. The 15″ wheels and necessarily small brakes do amazing for what they are, but it seems like such an artificial limiting factor. These cars are relatively heavy, so it would make a big difference.