By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – To save or not to save, that is the question.
Entering Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, the stage lengths for the 188-lap event have been shifted around in an effort to get away from the fuel mileage racing that has taken hold on the superspeedways in the Next Gen era.
Instead of being run in a 60-60-68 format with the final stage being the longest, Sunday’s race will feature a 98-lap first stage with dual stages of 45 laps each to finish things out. The thinking being that drivers and teams will be able to run the shorter stages without having to save fuel, leading to more of the flat out racing that is expected on superspeedways.
But how exactly this will all play out in real world conditions when the green flag drops remains to be seen, with teams mapping out a number of contingencies for their strategy to be able to adapt on the fly as the race plays out.
“I’m sure everyone’s going to think of it differently. That’s how it always happens when they have these new things that come up. Every group thinks of ways differently, and so yeah, I’d be curious to see what everyone does,” said three-time Talladega winner Ryan Blaney.
“We have multiple plans just like everybody else, and you kind of, if it goes well, maybe your plan works. If not, you might have to audible at some point. So yeah, that’ll be the exciting side. You just hope you picked the right end of it. I know we put a lot of work into it though, so hopefully, but every team has, so hopefully we paid it right.”
Kyle Larson added that fuel saving will still be a part of things, but maybe not to the extreme that we have seen it in the past, adding that he was glad that NASCAR is trying things to remedy the problem.
“I don’t know. I mean, I won’t say it’ll be status quo because it’s not,” said Larson. “It’s different stage lengths, but I still think there’s going to be some bits of fuel savings, maybe not max saving we have seen in the past, but you could also see a caution come out at an awkward point in the first stage, and then it’d be more max saving than other races.
“So yeah, we’ll see. But I applaud them for trying to make a change to help it a little bit and we’ll see how it goes.”
Blaney also threw in his kudos to NASCAR for making an effort, with Sunday’s changes likely only the starting point down the road to getting superspeedway racing back in a better position.
“I think they had to try something for sure, and we’ll see how this one goes,” said Blaney. “And if not, the next step is the race car. I feel like there’s avenues we can go to that are inexpensive to get this racing to look a little bit different, to race a little bit differently and not have fuel saving as much of an emphasis on the race and through the stages. So yeah, we’ll see.
“At least they’re trying something, right? I mean, I applaud ’em for that, but we’ll see how it goes and then go from there.”
Denny Hamlin, who has been one of the most outspoken about the state of superspeedway racing also noted that it will be entirely circumstantial depending on the way the cautions fall, making strategy a moving target.
Add in the aerodynamic inefficiencies of the Next Gen car and the fuel mileage strategy may be something we just have to live with for the time being.
“I think that we just don’t know,” said Hamlin. “All it takes is one caution that falls on lap, let’s call it five, that completely puts you in a different way you’re going to race the first stage. And so, if it goes green you could see a splitting strategy. Some people are going to one stop it, some people are going to two stop it. But I think no matter what, you’re going to have to save fuel to do both.
“Anytime passing is difficult, which it is here because of the two by two, three by three with no space between the cars, track position’s the king. The only way to get the track position is to be on pit road less than the others. And the only way to do that is to take less fuel. And so, it’s a problem that just will not be fixed until there’s space between the cars.”
Hamlin continued, noting that Sunday’s fix is largely a band-aid until real, meaningful changes can be made to the cars, which likely won’t come until next season.
“I think they’re trying everything they can to ‘fix the racing’ if it needs fixing,” said Hamlin. “They can’t change; they just don’t have enough time to change cars right now. I think you heard ’em say with preseason testing next year at Daytona, it’s something that they hope to address is to continue to work on the superspeedway package.
“And so, they’re just trying to do their best that they can this weekend to make the show as good as they could possibly can for the fans.”
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