Drivers and Teams Step into the Unknown with New Daytona Cup Aero Package

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – “I think this weekend has potential to be absolute f****** chaos.”

Denny Hamlin made the proclamation on his Actions Detrimental podcast earlier this week with a new aerodynamic package at play for Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, summing up the feeling of the unknown that is pervasive throughout the garage area this weekend.

With the struggles of the Next Gen car on superspeedways like Daytona and Talladega, NASCAR rolled out a number of changes to the car in hopes of turning back the clock to the superspeedway racing of old.

To start, the rear spoiler has been lowered from seven inches to four, matching the same spoiler height used on intermediate tracks to cut down on drag. Horsepower has also been lowered from 510 to 465 to balance out the lower drag numbers.

But the kicker is that teams and drivers will not have any on-track time prior to Saturday night’s race, throwing them right into the deep end of the pool when the green flag drops. From there it’s either sink or swim.

“We’re going to be quarter throttle just because we don’t know what the package is going to do rather than saving fuel. I don’t know,” Bubba Wallace joked, giving a nod to the fuel mileage racing that has been pervasive on superspeedway in the Next Gen era.

Joey Logano, a perennial contender on superspeedways and the 2015 Daytona 500 champion, noted that he expects everyone to be minding their P’s and Q’s in the opening laps.

“I think everyone’s going to be probably giving each other a little bit of space the first lap just to try to figure out what’s going on,” said Logano. “And then I think there’s going to be drivers that are just going to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to make moves and learn what works, what doesn’t work, what my car can and can’t do, what I need to go to work on.’

“You’re going to have to try to get as much data as you possibly can the first run so you can dial it in. I assume there’s going to be cars that are just out to lunch, I think. To think that the whole field’s going to hit it on their balance — wishful thinking.

“I think there’s going to be cars that are like, ‘Please get me to a caution. I’m hanging on, probably lose the pack.’ The draft will look much different from the first stage to the second stage, even the third stages. After the crew chiefs have a moment to work on them, I think the draft will evolve quite a bit.”

Chase Briscoe added that it would be typical superspeedway racing, perhaps escalated a bit with the unknowns of the package, which could just create more carnage.

“I mean, truthfully, I feel like for myself at least, there’s always that anxiety [around superspeedway racing]. When you wake up [Saturday] morning, there’s a good chance you’re going to crash,” said Briscoe.

“The package might just expedite that, I guess, a little bit. But yeah, I don’t know. I mean, it definitely sounds like it’s going to be way more work for us in the car. And I don’t know, I could see it being absolutely out of control and I could see it being very similar to what we have.

“So, it’s like, who knows what we’re really going to be like [Saturday] night, but I think regardless of the package, we will find a way to probably crash some cars.”

Without practice, Logano noted that everyone will be in the same boat trying to figure out the nuances of this new package, which makes it more fun in his eyes.

“If there was practice and everyone’s going to be able to work on their stuff and then there’s no separation in the field, you don’t have just these big crazy moments out there where everyone’s just lost,” said Logano.

“It’s kind of cool that everyone’s a little bit lost. In this day and age in motorsports, there’s not very many times where we all feel like we don’t know what we’re doing. And this is one of those very moments where like, and that’s a little bit different and it’s a little bit fun.”

Logano’s Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney, who won the summer Daytona race a year ago, echoed Logano’s comments about being excited about the unknown heading into Saturday night.

“I’m really excited to see what happens. And in our sport, it’s over science sometimes,” said Blaney. “There’s just so much technology out there, there’s so much information and data you can just keep pouring into these things. And we watch data till we’re blue in the face and it’s nice to kind of go into things with a little bit of unknowns.

“That stuff’s fun. And how do people approach it and go about that as a driver? It challenges you a lot to figure it out quickly and quicker than others and working through these problems if you have any on kind of a new issue. So yeah, this stuff’s fun. I’m honestly really looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be great and we’ll see who can do it better than others.”

But still, drivers and teams will certainly have more questions than answers when the green flag drops, which they hope to have answered with each passing lap as Logano explained.

“How much has everyone balanced it? I don’t know. And then how much actual grip do you lose once it’s balanced back out and how big of a hole do you need to just make it through the corner?

“Does it look like more of Atlanta where everyone’s looking for clean air in the corners and draft? I don’t know. Does it look like there’s a freight train and then you have some leapfrogging stuff going on? I don’t know. Is it stacking to turn three anymore? Maybe.

“There’s a lot of things that I’ve thought about. What’s the pushing look like? I mean, you know that’s going to be worse, but how hard is it to actually get to the back bumper of someone? It’s going to be harder. How much is that? I don’t know. But I would assume when someone pushes you with a couple hundred pounds less downforce on the rear of the thing, it ain’t going to be pretty.”

“So, we’ll have to be more careful for sure.”

But Wallace issued a warning that without practice, Saturday’s race has a chance of turning into a circus, something the drivers will have to be mindful of as they feel out this package as the race evolves.

“I really hope it’s not a debacle because it’s going to look really bad that we didn’t get practice with something so drastic if it is a debacle,” Wallace said.

“If we all just go in and crash lap one because we can’t drive these things. We don’t know what it’s going to drive like…So, I hope it goes well for that sake. It’s going to be a long press coverage if not.”

“I mean, part of me is there’s not going to be really much of a difference,” Wallace added. “The other part is hoping that there isn’t a massive difference and it doesn’t cause calamity, like I said earlier, because it’s going to be, well, if we would have gotten practice, we would have known this.”