NASCAR drivers often flip race stages to gain track position, but now NASCAR is flipping the stages in races.
NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer John Probst announced on this week’s Hauler Talk podcast that the Cup Series is updating stage lengths at Talladega and Daytona to address the recent scourge of fuel saving during races during the seventh generation Cup Series car era, which has been unpopular with fans and drivers alike.
Teams have discovered that saving fuel during a stage allows them to take shorter mid-stage pit stops and pass other cars in the pits, which is often the easiest way to move forward on drafting tracks. During this year’s Daytona 500, the cars at the front of the pack were seen running at near-half-throttle for extended periods and running at speeds around 20 mph off the fastest lap of the race.
“Listen, we talk to our fans every week,” John Probst, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer, said on the “Hauler Talk” podcast. “So we hear what they’re saying. There’s certainly a lot of feedback from the fans that don’t always like to see some of the three-wide fuel saving that happens mostly at Talladega and Daytona.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AMERICAN CARS AND RACING YOUTUBE CHANNEL
The solution that will first be tried at the upcoming Jack’s Links 500 at Talladega on April 26 will be to make the first stage the longest and the last two stages short enough to finish on one tank of fuel at full throttle. The new stage lengths haven’t yet been determined, but they were previously 60/60/68 at Talladega and a first stage close to 100 laps is likely. If it goes well, the system will be used in the regular season finale at Daytona and the post-season Talladega race.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE AMERICAN CARS AND RACING NEWSLETTER FOR THE LATEST NASCAR UPDATES
“It could be interesting in that first stage, if there’s some teams that try to do it on one stop versus some that try to do it on two,” Probst said. “We think that if there are some that do it on two, they may drag the group that would try to do it on one stop. So it’s got some potential for some pretty interesting strategies.”
NASCAR is also reviving the Preseason Thunder test session at Daytona next January 30-31, when it will test other updates to the race packages, including different power levels and aerodynamic profiles.
