What's Wrong With NASCAR Driver Opposition To Draft Duct Racecar Package

Note: originally published June 2, it has been updated on June 4:

Jeff Gluck spoke to Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, and Christopher Bell about NASCAR's restrictor plate-draft duct package used at the All Star Race and All Star Open and they expressed "concerns" about greater use of this package.  Their concerns can be summarized thusly - the cars were "easy to drive" and "you want them to be more difficult to drive."

It's an old argument against this kind of racing and it's deeply flawed.   Kaz Grala offered a great perspective -  "We're all just biased because we like to have more control in our hands."   It's an insight into the narrowness of focus by so many drivers. The larger issue - define "more control in our hands."   It is simple fact that the races with the most horsepower and highest level of throttle response, braking, and acceleration have seen the lowest incidence of passing.

The argument made here brings to mind how Carl Edwards forever pushed for lower downforce, and as Gluck notes, his opinion has now been discredited by the racing at Charlotte and Indianapolis.


Matt Weaver of Autoweek expanded the argument before Pocono in a silly missive claiming the sport's identity is "on the line" with expanded use of the plate-draft duct package. He rehashes driver quotes while ignoring the gross hypocrisy showcased in Kyle Busch's post-Pocono "Can't f--king pass!" radio rant during the Pocono 400.

"In a true sporting environment the best teams win.......I think that advocating for the 'All Star package' threatens the very idea of motorsports as a concept."

No, Matt Weaver, it doesn't.   Contrary to Christopher Bell, racing is not about pushing the limit of the tire, it's about pushing your car into the lead and retaking the lead when challenged for it.   Making this package more common to the sport doesn't sacrifice "sporting integrity" - which Weaver doesn't credibly define or seem to understand.   "Does it really want to make over half its races just short of a random number generator?  These are supposed to be the best stock car drivers in the world, not the luckiest or most fortunate."   Yet Weaver cannot cite examples to buttress this argument.

The reality that making the cars underpowered and overgripped relative to everything else and making the draft more important is what increases passing now seems to be sinking into the sport more and more; reading the scuttlebutt the consensus seems clear this package will be integrated into the sport more and more, perhaps beginning at Indianapolis in September with the Xfinity series already running it there and elsewhere.

That some drivers still oppose the concept stems from their own myopia about "having control."   Cars difficult to drive is not the same as difficult to race, and in the two races to date run with the restrictor plate-draft duct package - 2017 Lillys Xfinity 250 at Indianapolis and now the All Star Race B and A-mains - the racing saw prolific passing and drafting, which by any objective competition measure is more, not less, difficult.

The further argument made is that restrictor plate draft/pack racing produces "random results," as though a driver against his will is thrown into the lead by the draft.   Such a scenario of course does not exist, which makes the argument foolish.

In the finish of the decade David Ragan won the 2013 Winston 500 - some think this somehow illegitimate because he hasn't followed up with another win, but that's irrelevant.   The reality as shown here is HE made the moves to win, HE earned the win, there is nothing remotely "random" about it.   That loudmouthed Carl Edwards got outdrafted by Ragan makes it all the more delicious


The bottom line remains the argument against this restrictor plate-draft duct package doesn't work - NASCAR wasted some twenty years fighting against downforce and nowhere did the concept ever succeed - not in 1998, not in  the John Darby era running the garage, not with the ill-advised car Of Tomorrow concept.   What NASCAR would have seen if it had figured out the restrictor plate-draft duct package in 1997 is easy to imagine - far more lead changes and far better racing.

And the argument seems to betray a myopia of history, for what transpired in the two plate-draft duct races run to date was as old-school as one can find -

The racing with the plate-draft duct package brings back the true old-school of NASCAR - the power within what the track and cars can handle and the draft being more important.   This is what built racing in general and NASCAR in particular - and bringing the draft to the other superspeedways is a necessity and thus an opportunity.

UPDATE:  The Pocono Green 250 debuted the package at Pocono and it turned into the most graphic runaway win in a while.   Kyle Busch annihilated the field, breaking the draft with little difficulty, though he had to execute a highside pass into the lead in the Tunnel Turn.   A penalty at the end of Stage One put Busch in the back and the battle for Stage Two was a close chase until on the final lap Paul Menard challenged for the lead and the battle became an eye-popping two-abreast sidedraft war all the way around, including all the way through the Tunnel Turn, something we haven't seen since Mike Wallace and Tim Steele raced all the way through the Tunnel on some three separate laps in the 1995 ARCA Syracuse 150.   

Busch's runaway was curiously seen in some circles as a failure of the package when in reality it showed how well engineered his car was - one also recalls Busch dominating the Pocono Truck 150 (the closest approximation of this package) in 2017 before crashing out at the start of the third stage.  Things got curiouser and curiouser when Busch's #18 flunked postrace - reportedly with an illegally raked left front fender.

A key angle is mentioned in Chase Elliott's postrace comment that the package works better as the cars get wide open, which they struggled to get at Pocono but which we expect the teams to iron out the more they work on the cars with this package.  

2018 Freedom 100 Indianapolis

Is it possible to have forty lead changes in a forty-lap race? Colton Herta and a pack of hungry drafters say Yes.

Boffo And Bollox As The Brickyard Raises Kahne

In the history of the Brickyard 400 this may rank as the most preposterously exciting moment of all


The competitive excitement of the 2017 racing season just rose several notches as Indianapolis Motor Speedway, under fire for dismal stock car racing over the years, answered back with the wildest weekend outside of the 500 perhaps ever seen - certainly the most exciting to date. 

The 250 produced the most competitive racing while the 400 saw the most eye-popping challenge - and the highest incidence of crashing since NASCAR debuted here in 1994



The Brickyard 250 for the Xfinity cars showcased some of the best racing anywhere this season and showed the big picture for the sport, but the takeaway of the weekend was in the 400.    It began as a Kyle Busch runaway with only Martin Truex offering anything resembling resistance, leading eight laps to Busch's 87.    That all got shot to pieces following Ricky Stenhouse's hard hit - on the next restart Truex took out Kyle Busch and himself when he broke loose in One - a crash mildly reminiscent of Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond at Pocono in 1982.  

Pocono analogies abounded later.   Following the Busch-Truex melee the race ran green with Trevor Bayne seemingly in the fuel catbird seat - until with eleven to go what we thought was the biggest crash of the weekend erupted involving Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, and Erik Jones, who has wrecked the last two races now.   On the next restart Jimmie Johnson - seemingly blowing up - challenged Kasey Kahne and Brad Keselowski.   Just when it seemed Keselowski had them cleared the Hendrick cars stayed nose to nose and still got a gigantic sidedraft, to where the leaders were three abreast through Turn Three - an impossible scenario it appeared for a split second they would pull off - it was Tim Richmond stuffing it three abreast on Geoff Bodine and Neil Bonnett in the Tunnel Turn at Pocono in 1986 all over again.  

It all added up to a day personified by competitive ferocity, a bad rules package on Sunday doubly exposed as such by the racing on Saturday, dubious TV timing (why not start just after 12 PM area time?), some questionable officiating - I'm not sure there should have been a second GWC restart - and yet another eye-popping upset winner in a season that's been strikingly replete with them. 

The win comes in a dismal season for Kahne and amid Rumor Control Central speculation that he is on the way out; it is unclear whether this win will help that much, for he's led just thirty-one laps and has only three top-fives and one additional top-ten.   Kahne's struggles, though, now mirror a run of mediocrity and worse by Jimmie Johnson since winning the Mason-Dixon 400 - just two top-tens in that span for Johnson.

Johnson's recent slippage comes as Chase Elliott has posted five top-tens in that same span but has gagged twice in the last four races; overall Elliott has been maddeningly inconsistent - he has led just twenty-eight laps since leading 106 at Phoenix; he's posted six top-fives and four other top-tens this season but nowhere has he shown that he truly knows how to win; in his two seasons he's been streaky, with top-tens galore for weeks followed by lengthy stretches where he doesn't finish well. 

Showing greater consistency has been Brad Keselowski, the runner-up at Indianapolis being his fourth such this season amid Atlanta and Martinsville wins and four other top-fives so far this season.   While Keselowski remains on a run, Penske teammate Joey Logano stopped recent bleeding by finishing a largely-unnoticed fourth, only his third top-ten since the penalized Richmond win.

Their strong effort comes amid Ford comment about addressing aerodynamic inadequacy; whatever their recent struggles Ford did showcase depth taking four of the top eight spots and six of the top thirteen.   The run that stood out was Aric Almirola, two races into his return to Richard Petty's #43 from his back-breaking layup after Kansas, involved in a late crash, and charging to finish a respectable thirteenth.   The chaos for Stewart-Haas' team makes Danica Patrick's eleventh all the more eye-opening.   Of the five Chevrolets in the top twelve Chris Buescher and AJ Allmendinger's 9-10 finish for Brad Daugherty's team impresses even more than Kasey Kahne's win.

Completely unnoticed were Matt Kenseth in fifth and Daniel Suarez in seventh, showcasing Toyota's strength but also the inadequacy of its competitive depth after Busch. Truex, and Erik Jones crashed out.  

The Lillys Diabetes 250 at Indianapolis showcased terrific racing and finally showcased the answer to NASCAR's competition headaches spanning some seventeen or more years 


A number of fans, and some writers, have suggested NASCAR needs to cancel racing at the Brickyard and switch instead to the rinky-dink bullring at Indianapolis Raceway Park.   That IRP looks curiously dilapidated even on television gets overlooked; that people overrate its racing has also been ignored.   IRP is a very good facility for short track open wheelers - USAC's short trackers put on great battles there and have done so forever - while the Busch/Xfinity Series and Trucks have also seen some spirited battles but nothing approaching superspeedways for competitive depth. 

Top-heavy sedan bodies on radial tires with little to no downforce and horsepower 50-plus percent higher than 500 - the short tracks in NASCAR have seen the same struggles - aeropush, inability to make the cars handle better, etc. - that the superovals have seen.   No short track in the world can overcome when the cars simply are not designed for passing.  

The Xfinity Series' 2017 running thus refutes the argument for switching to IRP and also finally answers the question of why NASCAR has had so much problem with passing.   Running restrictor plates, returning the larger spoiler, and also debuting drag ducts - scoops in the nose that channel air entering the nose out the front wheelwells, thus blasting open a bigger draft - the Xfinity cars hit the balance of horsepower and drafting effect that creates passing, and it showed especially when Kyle Busch and Joey Logano swapped the lead some three times in one lap  - curiously instead of old-school crossover passing down low, they did it backward with crossover passing up high - and Justin Allgaier not only challenged Kyle Busch, he fought him like someone no longer afraid of the presumptive dictator of the Xfinity Series seemingly whenever he runs there.   Blowing his ill-advised short-pit bid before the end of the second segment of the 250 was a head-shaker for Allgaier, and it left it up to William Byron to slay the Busch dragon.  

It is this kind of competition package and resulting balance of drafting effect and horsepower that NASCAR has maddeningly been missing for nearly twenty seasons - certainly NASCAR would have saved itself a lot of headaches if this package had been figured out for 2001 onward.   One wonders who thought of the idea of drag ducts, for while the concept of making the draft more effective has been a no-brainer for decades, how it's being done is truly eye-popping and clearly works.  

As for no-brainers integrating this package into Cup and the Trucks - and for that matter the rest of NASCAR's series - and for all tracks qualifies as the ultimate no-brainer, because it works, period.

BTW three abreast all the way through Three and Four at Indianapolis Motor Speedway........?


And it offers a compelling lead-in to Pocono as there now is a series of scores to settle as July reaches its conclusion.

Are Restrictor Plates Returning To NASCAR Tracks?

According to NBC Sports NASCAR will run restrictor plates on the Xfinity cars at Indianapolis, this following an encouraging test session at the Brickyard in 2016. The report became fact as NASCAR made the announcement on March 23. Drivers Ryan Reed and Blake Koch expand on the package here. The most intriguing angle is the use of drag ducts, where air blasts into the nose and out the front wheelwells; the IMS test indicated they work.

As one who has studied the history of racing may expect the restrictor plate controversy has raged from 1988 onward with drivers predictably speaking against the restrictor plate, yet in the nearly thirty years since the restrictor plate was re-introduced to NASCAR the case against it has been thoroughly discredited by three decades of actual racing. And alternatives are always presented - Dale Jarrett claiming "open the aerodynamics some....let them have the horsepower trying to do it."

Yet in the history of racing those is search of examples where having more horsepower or adding horsepower opened up passing will fail to find any.

MRN call of the 1971 Yankee 400, a restrictor plate race.

NASCAR first mandated restrictor plates in August 1970 until late-September 1971 when it went to carburetor sleeves - in July 1973 NASCAR returned to running restrictor plates and in March 1974 the Southeastern 500 at Bristol was the last race to run them until 1988.   Michigan in 1971 saw two competitive races with the plate, such as the Yankee 400.   NASCAR nearly mandated the plate for 1979 when several tracks were repaved and speeds shot up markedly as a result - analyst Greg Maness adds that the Chevrolet Laguna S-3 was hit with the plate for 1978 and this is part of why that successful marque was dropped after 1977.

 
"Some people were saying they would not be able to pass...."  So noted Ned Jarrett two laps into the 1988 Daytona 500, the first to run restrictor plates since 1974.  

While not as competitive as the Daytona 500, that year's Firecracker 400 and Diehard 500 saw eye-popping finishes.

Ned Jarrett repeatedly mocked the opinion that the restrictor plate impeded ability to pass in his racecasts at Daytona and Talladega - because the racing itself disproved the view against it. 

People who cite the 2000 New Hampshire 300 as a case against restrictor plates ignore how in the radial tire era stock cars have long struggled to pass there and everywhere - when the Modifieds race at New Hampshire they have run restrictor plates since the track opened - with no impediment to passing at all.  

It also ignores how the longer the drivers ran with this plate package the more used to it they became and the more aggressive they started to get in the racing.   Restrictor plate usage far beyond just this one race would certainly have seen drivers figure out passing in such a horsepower box.


The notion - advanced by many, not just Dale Jarrett - that adding horsepower will increase passing not only is not supported by any realworld evidence, it is further discredited by Indycar's absurd push-to-pass button, which adds short bursts of extra horsepower akin to nitrous oxide usage - it has been in Indycars for several years with zero discernable increase in incidence of passing.  It was bulkier racecar bodies, air-displacement wings - and the combination present in the modern-day Wheldon-12 racecar - with no particular increase in horsepower that opened up passing (the use of air-displacement by Indycars  also brings to mind NASCAR's successful roof blade package, curiously never used in race conditions on smaller tracks despite several test sessions with this package at Charlotte).


The blunt reality is Dale Jarrett is wrong.   NASCAR has needed to expand restrictor plate usage for two decades.   The New Hampshire experiment should not have ended in that one race and the pending use of restrictor plates at Indianapolis should not be limited to that one race - or that one weekend - either.   The fact is NASCAR has too much horsepower by over 250 and has had such for one and a half generations.  

The Camping World Trucks have run small engine spacers - which serve the same effect as the restrictor plate - for a number of years and they have seen excellent racing.


Balancing the horsepower, tire, downforce, and drafting effect is how Indycar has exploded the last quarter-century in competitive racing and how NASCAR can reach that same end.   Restrictor plates have worked - period - so NASCAR should mandate them not just for Indianapolis, but beyond.

NASCAR is shooting for racing like this (from Indy Lights in 2016 and 2013) for the Brickyard and elsewhere - with racecars that are underpowered.

Burning Busch At Indianapolis

The late melee on a restart at the Brickyard 400 was the only memorable moment from a weekend a lot of people didn't particularly want to witness and which few want to remember - and that's yet another sign that NASCAR has not made anything better in racing.

Kyle Busch was burning hot at Indianapolis and the victory lane at the Brickyard had to be renamed Canaan the way Busch was burning. Almost from pole day onward the outcome of the weekend was eminently predictable, and it showed in 149 laps led on Sunday with NO challenge at any point - and it showed in a discouragingly small crowd, despite a reported 35% increase in ticket sales this year - a report I'm not sure is all that accurate.

Busch's monopoly of the Brickyard was such that even the other Toyotas looked mediocre (especially on restarts where the outside car was often dead meat) even though they for the most part outclassed everyone else as well.  It also made some creditable runs by others look utterly irrelevant - because in a real sense they were.   Jimmie Johnson salvaged third place and Jeff Gordon finished quite well given he hasn't raced all year, this while subbing for Earnhardt Jr., out recovering from concussion symptoms he reported before the race were starting to get better - certainly a positive sign, though we suspect he won't return until Michigan, an easier track to start over on than Watkins Glen or Bristol. 

Tony Stewart's final Brickyard 400 was at times strikingly good, at times tellingly bad, and ended respectably, while the rest of his outfit for the most part did decently - except of course for Danica Patrick, involved in another wreck.

The seemingly power-less RCR Chevys ran decent, as Austin Dillon and Paul Menard were 9-10 at the end.   The Fords had nothing to cheer for despite Joey Logano's top-ten, a respectable 11th for Ricky Stenhouse, and an eye-opening 13th for Chris Buescher.   The eye-popping stat that Penske has yet to win a Brickyard 400 stayed intact even as the Penske duo led 21 laps. 

It was stunning that Toyota didn't win the manufacturer crown in 2015; if they lose it this year it will be an even uglier shock, because Toyota has it all and overall Ford has jumped ahead of Chevrolet in true muscle.    Those bemoaning the dominance of Toyota have it backward - the sport has long needed a competitive correction from the semi-monopoly of Chevrolet.   Ford's six manufacturer titles in the 1992-2002 period have been gathering cobwebs galore and seeing Chevrolet knocked down a few pegs is a corrective the sport needs. 


*****


Kyle Busch's monopolization of the Brickyard has been absolute the last two seasons, sweeping both the Xfinity 250 and the 400 in two straight seasons.   And they've come despite radically different downforce packages.

Kyle Busch's last-lap pass in the 2015 Brickyard 250 is some of the kind of racing NASCAR was looking for then, and is still looking for now - the balance sheet remains they had the right idea with high downforce in 2015, what they overlooked is what is key there


The number of people in varied forums (not just fans but such writers as Matt Weaver at RACER ) advocating the Xfinity series race be moved back to Indianapolis Raceway Park - and oddly Matt Kenseth expressed a view in that range on his Twitter account as well - shows anew how much a lot of people misguidedly hate the big ovals, whose history remains replete with high-quality racing - such comments also seem to ignore the state of disrepair that IRP now resides within, as evidenced during the track's ARCA race during Brickyard weekend.   Certainly IRP deserves better than that.

If anything, what should be considered is adding a 200-miler for the Truck Series at the Brickyard, especially with the competitive renaissance the series has undergone the last five years.  

Adding the Trucks to the Brickyard would likely do what they've done everywhere else they've raced - put on a battle for the lead that illustrates why the low downforce package is not working.   The lesser horsepower, higher downforce, and far more forgiving tire of the Trucks remains a striking contrast and one that keeps being illustrated in better racing.    It also showcases why NASCAR and Goodyear need to stop kidding themselves on the tire - they got it right at Dover, they need to get it right at Pocono etc. 

It is curious that unlike previous broadcast media forums this season, the IMS Radio call didn't promote low downforce but instead offered a factual analysis of the package - and in so doing illustrated its weakness; it's been a long while since any NASCAR media discussed the "beach ball" effect the cars are now generating.   It's also a telling comment on the state of NASCAR media in general.

So the Cup series kisses the Bricks and whips eastbound to Pocono, a race that is usually strikingly different from June - and one hopes it is such in many positive ways.

NASCAR Headaches Entering The Brickyard

Alex Bowman's antics at New Hampshire were some of the headaches hitting the sport as it prepares for Indianapolis


NASCAR now hits what had once been one of its marque dates - I say once because the luster of the Brickyard 400 disappeared well over a decade ago with the overall luster of the sport in decline by that point as well - and that only some 45,000 tickets at New Hampshire were sold was an unusually forceful indication of loss of popularity for one of the sport's better markets, rural New England.

The New Hampshire 301 caught more attention than usual days earlier when Dale Earnhardt Jr. pulled out due to concussion effects, the result of several crashes with the Firecracker 400 the most notable.   Alex Bowman filled in both on Saturday and Sunday and his Xfinity series set-to with RCR appeared to carry over into the Sunday race as he looked tentative but nonetheless picked his way into the top ten - an effort that went asunder with Chase Elliott.

That Chase Elliott has been wrecking more frequently in recent races is a little disturbing - he has flat-out fallen off the map since the Michigan 400 with nothing higher than 21st - and is illustrative of the slump of Hendrick Motorsports.   Jimmie Johnson was the highest running Hendrick car at New Hampshire at the end - in a mediocre 12th, this for a team without a top ten since the 600.

The embarrassing part for Chevrolet is its lameduck team, Stewart-Haas Racing, has exploded.   Kevin Harvick was 4th at Loudon and sharply critical of his team afterward for "(making) mistake after mistake...."  Tony Stewart finished second, continuing a stunning renaissance, and Kurt Busch ran strong but got shunted late and finished 22nd.   Even Danica Patrick's finish was surprisingly good after being out to lunch pretty much from Lap One on.

For Chevrolet the success of a lameduck team going to Ford next year makes the faltering of Hendrick and the sleepwalking of RCR all the more painful.   RCR's #31 of Ryan Newman, though, has been sneaking up on everyone with three top-tens the last four races

Make no mistake - Toyota is the marque to beat as Kyle Busch and Martin Truex led 258 laps between them and Matt Kenseth basically stole the win after Truex's transmission gagged on him near the end.  

Now starting to flex some competitive depth is Ford in recent races.   Brad Keselowski's two-race win streak ended badly in 15th while Joey Logano rallied from mid-race struggle to third at Loudon.  The Roush renaissance continues as Ricky Stenhouse posted his second top-ten in three races and Greg Biffle grabbed his third in a row.   The Richard Petty team has started to make legitimate progress the last three weeks as well; it hasn't produced the finishes indicative of how strong the #43 has been the last three races, which is the galling part.   Specific to Loudon was that the car needed ten or more laps to truly get going, with a late shunt from Austin Dillon ruining a top-ten bid.


*****


So entering the Brickyard the first big story will be whether Junior runs - I'm baffled Hendrick Motorsports seems to be holding hope he will, with the signing of Jeff Gordon for a one-race comeback also an eye-opener - that Hendrick signed Gordon from retirement may be suggestive of what they really think of Alex Bowman or another possible young driver.

The next big story will be how well the JGR and Barney Vissar Toyotas do.   Truex oddly has just two top-tens since blowing everyone in the weeds at the 600 and despite leading 189 laps the last six races.   The JGR cars have been good the last five runnings, but one who's been subpar is Carl Edwards, who won the pole last year but finished only 13th, matching his best finish there the last five years.  

The Ford fleet will of course be led by His Captaincy, but Brad Keselowski has never lit anything aflame at the Brickyard, posting three top tens but just one since switching to Ford.   Joey Logano looks to be on point for Penske there.  

I'm not terribly confident in Chevrolet right now given the mediocrity permeating that brand outside of Stewart-Haas.  

So it goes, all the way to Speedway, IN.

Indianapolis Once Again Highlights Boffo Racing Weekend

The 100th Indianapolis 500


The 100th Indianapolis 500 showcased what makes Indianapolis The Greatest Spectacle In Racing and was the highlight of another boffo Memorial Day weekend of racing.   The full joy of the racing weekend was well spread among varied venues.

Friday night short tracking kicked things off in many areas and for one of the nation's most famous bullrings Friday Night was a trio of eye-popping showdowns.   Stafford Motor Speedway in CT saw a three-wide photo finish in SK Lights - Joey Ferrigno appeared to have won but a lengthy review of the finish showed Daniel Wesson was the winner.   It's been a very long time any race saw a finish so reminiscent of Tim Richmond over Ricky Rudd and Geoff Bodine at Pocono in 1986.    The SK Mods were won by Woody Pitkat over Keith Rocco, then Pitkat stole the win in the Late Model race after Tom Fearn got sent to the rear after taking out leader Tom Butler.   Fearn still stormed to finish second.

The Hisense 300 on Saturday began as a good race, turned into a Kyle Larson-Joey Logano showdown, then exploded to the biggest upset of the weekend until the Indianapolis 500


The Hisense 300 almost topped the weekend as Denny Hamlin stole what looked like a certain Kyle Larson-Joey Logano showdown, and it also suggested another JGR runaway for the Charlotte weekend despite Penske Racing's 1-2 finish in the All-Star Race.


But it was Indianapolis that seized the headlines from the amazing Freedom 100 to Alexander Rossi's stunning upset on fumes, becoming the first Indy rookie since 2001 to win the 500 and the first true Indycar rookie to win the 500 in far longer than that.  The win gave Michael Andretti a car owner win he had to share with Curb Motorsports; it doesn't matter that Andretti and Curb share the win, because the win is what matters.

It was also a 1-2 finish for Michael's organization, and among the semi-surprises was the depth of Ed Carpenter's team,  as Josef Newgarden finished tbird and J.R. Hildebrand sixth.   Sam Schmidt's team had a boffo month of May even though James Hinchcliffe could only finish seventh.   

For Andretti, though, the big frustration came when his cars driven by Townsend Bell and Ryan Hunter-Reay, who may have been the strongest of all, crashed on pit road in a shunt past halfway with Helio Castroneves; this left them crowding the leaders trying to get back on the lead lap and may have helped Rossi put enough gap to withstand running out of gas.   It was also a fitting development for a mediocre May for Penske.

You think Penske at Indianapolis, you also think AJ Foyt and Takuma Sato's promising day ended whacking the wall off Four; teammates Alex Tagliani and Jack Hawksworth didn't wind up with finishes to write home about even though Tags led eleven laps.


*****


The Indianapolis 500 saw 54 lead changes among eleven drivers, and it once again presented a graphic contrast with NASCAR and the World 600.   NASCAR has made 2016 a virtual year-long referendum on low downforce aerodynamics and the contrast of the 600 with Indianapolis - low downforce, too much power, and a curiously unresponsive tire after encouraging races at Dover and in the All-Star Race vs. Indy's super downforce, ample tire, and relative underpower making the draft everything and passing almost unstoppable - made the referendum turn against NASCAR yet again.

Not that aero packages were relevant to anything at Charlotte this time - the way Martin Truex beat the field into submission it didn't matter what downforce anyone was generating.   It did come, though, after a set of tweaks to fans and chassis "skew" before the All-Star Race and postrace chatter suggested it hurt JGR more than anyone else.  

Truex's win was the most lopsided on a big track since Kyle Petty mopped the American 500 at Rockingham in 1992 leading 484 laps and easily crushed Jim Paschal's 600 record of 335 laps led in 1967, a race where Paschal's three-lap lead was killed by a crash yet he still won easily.   It was also the first win in the 600 for a one-car team since, irony of ironies, his team godfather Joe Gibbs Racing won the 600 with Bobby Labonte in 1995 - one of the most competitive 600s ever, another irony of ironies after the lead only changed nine times in this 2016 600. 

Now we see if Truex can turn this massacre into a sustained victory rampage as NASCAR hits Pocono, site of Truex's previous win.  

That fifteen cars finished on the lead lap is the one eye-popper of this race; the blunt reality is almost no one outside of Truex can feel good about this 600 because basically Truex was alone out there and everyone else was just a bystander.   There's been talk that the Roush guys are slowly getting better - they may be slowly getting better except everyone else is getting father away.   It was basically Penske and no one else for Ford.

It also wasn't much for Kyle Larson after superb efforts at Dover and in Charlotte preliminaries - his last-lap crash in the Hisense 300 got his 600 weekend off to what proved to be the worst possible start, as he never really got anything going for the 600.  

So it went.   The rest of the field need to put this to bed and hope Pocono can offer someone else the upset or quasi-upset surge the 600 provided for Truex.

2016 Freedom 100 Indianapolis

Indianapolis has hosted Indy Lights for several seasons now as the Friday preliminary to the 500, and in its short history the Freedom 100 has become a must-see race.   2016's running became another eye-popper of a race with the lead a heated fight all day and a photo finish.

One Hand Clapping For Brickyard Busch

It was one hand clapping at the end.

Kyle Busch seized the Brickyard 400 on a restart with 11 to go and seized his fourth win in the last five races, a surge of success reminiscent of his 2008 binge of victories in his debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing.   The 22nd running of the Brickyard 400 and also the Saturday Brickyard 250 offered Kyle Busch two for the price of one and also served as the first race weekend for NASCAR's higher downforce package.  

Looking at some of the subplots of the 2015 Brickyard 400 -



A discouraging first weekend for the high downforce package - Drivers were unhappy with how their cars raced in the Brickyard with a nine-inch spoiler, wider radiator pan, and lower airdam clearance.   The hope was this package would increase drag and thus create a drafting effect to create more passing.    The result for both races was an extreme disappointment.   Cars could suck up on other cars noticeably better than in years past, but the draft never kicked in to any worthwhile effect outside of Kyle Busch's retro-1970s finish in the 250 with Ryan Blaney, stalking him in the final laps then gunning him down on the backstretch.  

The lack of passing is certainly discouraging, though some silver linings did show up - not only did the draft make an actual appearance at the Brickyard, albeit to grossly insufficient effect, what was striking was how often drivers complained that they were loose behind other cars, a 180 from the aeropush era's cliché about "my car pushed bad in traffic."  

Some unfavorably compared the package to the low downforce package at Kentucky where passing did increase.   Kentucky got lucky to some extent there and while passing shot up from last year's incidence, in the end it was not that much greater than the previous high that track produced.   And the fact remains that history has shown us how this retro-5&5 Rule Package failed long-term in 1998 and also in the mid-2000s decade when John Darby took over the garage and cut downforce after 2003.  

The caveat in all this has remained tires.   Drivers wanted a softer tire for Kentucky and presumably will get one for Darlington when the Retro-5&5 Package returns.   The issue, though, isn't softer tires as much as bias ply-type tires, tires that are more forgiving than radials have usually been.   That Goodyear won't build bias ply NASCAR tires is true enough - "They don't sell (bias plies) to the public," MRN's Dave Moody notes - but it can build tires the drivers can lean on hard and race hard with, because at times we have seen cases where Goodyear brought tires the drivers could indeed lean hard on - this was evident in the Erik Jones-Kasey Kahne sidedraft epic in the Truck 200 at Charlotte in May.  So there's no reason they can't come up with a radial that races like bias plies - a tire that's forgiving and the drivers can lean hard on.

That NASCAR will run different downforce packages for different tracks from now on seems evident now; a high downforce "draft" package should work on tracks like Indianapolis and Michigan where a Retro-5&5 Package seems to work at places like Kentucky and Darlington; getting the right tires remains a part of the varied packages.


Kevin Harvick becomes NASCAR's Aaron Rodgers again -  Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers puts up gaudy volume stats and touchdowns, but in the clutch he's been mediocre at best, still unable to win a game where he has to stage any kind of significant comeback and just 2-4 in the playoffs the last four seasons; he has especially come up small against the Seahawks.   Kevin Harvick has developed a reputation similar to Rodgers - he leads the most laps race after race yet never cashes in with it.   He came up short again at the Brickyard, finishing third.    It has been a consistent pattern of Harvick; if NASCAR increased the bonus for most laps led by a significant amount - it should, BTW - Harvick would be a lot closer to the championship than he presently is. 


Toyota's one-man show - True, three JGR Toyotas finished in the top-ten and so did the increasingly woebegone Michael Waltrip outfit as Clint Bowyer grabbed a top-ten, this while David Ragan showed some respectable form during the day.   But it remains Kyle Busch's show, and the difference he makes is graphic considering Toyota got nothing out of his substitutes and has basically gotten nothing out of anyone else now that he's back.  


Hendrick Killers - Kyle Busch's surge has done something astonishing - Hendrick Motorsports had a lousy day at the Brickyard and haven't been all that hot since winning the Firecracker; ironic that Dale Junior brought out a late yellow while Jeff Gordon, the last entrant in the 1994 Brickyard 400 still racing, crashed out, leading to a media joke about how his NASCAR debut was in Richard Petty's final race and The King went out in a blaze.


Forget Ford - Penske had a good day despite struggle with Brad Keselowski's outfit, and once again that was it as far as Ford goes.   Aric Almirola had an encouraging effort but crashed, while his MIA teammate Sam Hornish Jr. had a better-than-expected finish, but that was it for Ford; Petty's team still had a better day than the Roush-Fenway mess lowlighted by Trevor Bayne bringing out the last yellow.  


There was a Ryan Newman sighting - The stealth Newman finished 11th, the best for the RCR bunch.   Austin Dillon's forgettable foray to Cup continued getting worse with a pit speeding penalty he never recovered from.  



So it goes with the Brickyard behind us and Pocono ahead.

Indianapolis/Charlotte Post-Mortems

And so Memorial Day motorsports blast off and leave plenty of subplots to contemplate as the Indianapolis 500 exploded to one of its most exciting finishes while the World 600 saw a late challenge for Jimmie Johnson but in the end it was a challenge Johnson wasn't going to lose.

Ryan Hunter-Reay is one of those drivers who has been largely overlooked as far as Mainstream Media attention - such as it is nowadays - toward Indycar racing goes.   He nonetheless has been around for over ten years and has put together quite a number of wins from his days in the old CART series, winning with Stefan Johansson in Australia and also with the old Herdez team leading wire to wire at Milwaukee.   Signing on with Rahal-Letterman's team, he won at Watkins Glen before that team dissolved.  Michael Andretti's Indycar team now sought his services and Hunter-Reay has assembled a nice collection of victory trophies -  Milwaukee and the Birmingham road course have been almost his personal playground in Indycars.

Hunter-Reay's Indianapolis win will stand out, not only for being Indianapolis but for how hard he had to fight.  The last 43 laps were a drafting slugfest and the lead changed ten times in that span; the lead changed twice on Lap 199 alone, and nothing was going to stop him.


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Amid Hunter-Reay's spectacular day there were many subplots - none bigger than Ed Carpenter's spectacular run and then coming to near-blows with James Hinchcliffe on a Lap 175 restart where Carpenter got sandwiched and an unplanned attempt to race three abreast through Turn One went south quickly.   Though he's won twice and led 207 laps in Indycar racing, Carpenter has never really established himself as something other than Tony George's stepson, this even though he's continued showing he's for real as a racer.  

The big challenger to Hunter-Reay late was Helio Castroneves, now on a quest to win Indianapolis four times; he damn near pulled it off in Penske's retro-Johnny Rutherford Pennzoil paint scheme.   Between them Penske and Michael Andretti swept the top six finishing spots, while Ed Carpenter's team salvaged a tenth place by J.R. Hildebrand.

Curiously having an abysmal day was Ganassi Racing, who entered three cars and lost two of them to wrecks while lameduck 500 champ Tony Kanaan was nowhere other than 26th at the end.

The other big subplot was that Indycar's third-year racecar for some reason has been at its raciest at the 500.   For three straight 500s the draft has been the dominant characteristic of the racing and of this racecar, and the ferocity of the passing showed it.   It is odd that this car hasn't quite had the same effect at Pocono and other high-speed tracks where the draft should be everything - for Indycars as well as NASCAR.

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Disappointing was the lack of pre-race buzz, even with the connection between the 500 and the World 600.   Kurt Busch had entered the 500 in one of Michael Andretti's cars hoping to make the 500-600 double, the first such attempt by anyone in years.   Busch finished a quiet but nonetheless impressive sixth in the 500 before flying to Charlotte for the 600, and ran better than I suspect a lot of railbirds would have expected - yet in the end he lost power and finished 40th, and raised the question of whether the double was truly worth it.

Busch's effort took a back seat to teammate Kevin Harvick, who led 100 laps and tried to run down Jimmie Johnson at the end.   This is starting to become a pattern, as Harvick was the strongest yet a Hendrick car beat him at Kansas.  The rest of Stewart-Haas' effort was more mixed; Tony finished 13th - his first finish higher than 20th in a month - while 39th and 40th were the domain of Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick.  Little Miss Danica again earned media coverage beyond her talent level after a surprisingly good qualifying effort - but again once the race started she began to lose grip and then got waylaid in a crash.  

While Chip Ganassi didn't have anything to be proud of at The Brickyard he salvaged something in Bruton's Backyard via Jamie McMurray's fifth, coming after his All-Star Race win.   McMurray continues to be one of those guys who gets lost in the media shuffle yet will not go away on the track. 

Speaking of guys who won't go away, Brian Vickers continues to get into solid finishes, and lately has looked better than teammate Clint Bowyer, while another who won't go away even though he hasn't done much lately is Trevor Bayne, 20th in the 600 in the Wood Brothers #21 and now proud recipient of a full-time Roush Ford ride for 2015; an angle to watch is whether this is a fourth Roush car or a replacement for one of his established drivers, this amid burgeoning rumors of a split with Carl Edwards and also scuttlebutt that Ricky Stenhouse may not last the season - certainly he's making no case for himself on the racetrack.

A Ford that IS making a case for itself on the racetrack yet again is Richard Petty's #43, as Aric Almirola refuses to go away and continues to become a contender under Trent Owens.   11th is actually disappointing given Almirola clawed into contention and had to overcome stalling the car on a late stop.  


So with that, Indycar continues on while NASCAR heads to Dover for a date with Bristol on steroids.

Racing's Bang-Up Mother's Day Weekend

It was a bang-up Mother's Day weekend in racing and thus is accelerated the motorsports Mecca that is the month of May.    Some takes on the varied racing efforts seen this weekend -


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Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all - The first Grand Prix of Indianapolis added a new wrinkle to Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also showed some nastiness as Sebastian Saavedra won the pole, then gagged entirely on the start and got creamed by Carlos Munoz, driving one of Michael Andretti's cars,  and Mikhail Aleshin in Sam Schmidt's car.   

And that was just the first wreck - later on Scott Dixon and Will Power renewed Penske vs. Ganassi acquaintances in Turn Three, then in Turn Seven Michael Andretti and A.J. Foyt's teams said a rude Hello between Franck Montagny's #26 and Mike Plowman's #41, and finally Juan Montoya, unable to find a jet dryer to destroy, instead encountered Graham Rahal.

With nine road course cars (out of a 25-car field) thus dispatched, an interesting subplot involving rivalries may have been added to the 500 in two weeks.   Certainly Sam Schmidt and company got something big out of the GP - Simon Pagenaud won it, completing a nice sweep as Sam's Indy Lights driver Luiz Razia led wire-to-wire in the Indy Lights portion of the day.



The contrast of Trucks and Cup at Kansas continued - Last season the Truck 250 at Kansas proved to be a very exciting affair and 2014's running also had very memorable racing.   Kyle Busch won the Truck 250 after battling Brad Keselowski's two Ford trucks most of the night and battle is the operative word here - Busch and Joey Logano got into several nice sidedrafting bouts for first, illustrating again the striking and downright baffling contrast of the Trucks and the Cup cars here and elsewhere - the ability of the Trucks to have the draft mean something where it still hasn't for the Cup cars.  




Some Truck shout-outs - Jeb Burton's season hasn't been much, but he got a solid sixth with Duke Thorson, his second top-ten in three starts and his season now looking optimistic after all.   Also looking great was Taylor Malsam, making his season debut in Steve Turner's Chevrolet and finishing fifth.

While she doesn't get the publicity of Danica Patrick, Jennifer Jo Cobb has posted some decent efforts in anonymity, including a respectable 13th at Kansas.




Chevrolet bounces back - and so does Hendrick - Jeff Gordon got a huge pitstop late and got an ugly handling issue for Kevin Harvick at the end to grab his first win of the season.   Harvick nonetheless led 119 laps and showed anew he's for real for the whole season.   It was point for a huge bounce back for Chevrolet as the bowties took six of the top nine spots while Ford grabbed three top tens and Toyota was largely MIA - only Matt Kenseth in 10th wound up with anything.   It was also another big night for Hendrick as all four Hendrick cars were in the top nine.  

Given he's the focus every week, it should be noted Dale Junior's fifth was an especially solid bounce back after a dismal effort at Talladega, and it's his fourth top-seven finish in his last six outings.  

It was a more mixed bag for Stewart-Haas as Tony and Kurt Busch had another forgettable night while the shocker of the night was Danica Patrick's seventh.     

Continuing to fall back are the RCR Chevrolets, with Ryan Newman salvaging 11th as his season continues to be unimpressive while Paul Menard had a Menard-esque night a lap down and Austin Dillon keeps losing the rookie race to Kyle Larson.




Richard Petty's team on the rise - Though he lost seventh at the end to Danica Patrick, Aric Almirola was very solid all night en route to eighth in Petty's #43.   His third top-ten of the year, it also gave Petty's organization its fifth top-ten (three of them top-fives) between Almirola and Marcos Ambrose.   The nit to pick is the Petty cars need to go for the lead harder, especially in the restrictor plate races; overall, though, it's no longer implausible to expect a win for The King.




Pal Joey - If you thought there might be a chance Joey Logano could slide a bit down the Penske totem pole, it's getting more and more obvious that won't happen after leading 63 laps at Kansas on top of his great sidedraft fight with Kyle Busch in the Truck 250 the night before, and steadily showing he's for real after all - and I doubt anyone had that in the office pool the previous five seasons watching him.    One has to see if Brad Keselowski can get anything going again with a mediocre 13th at Kansas and the wound still raw from his Ernie Irvan imitation at Talladega.



Speaking of which.......... - Keselowski was asked about that Talladega gaffe before the Kansas race and he answered, "I wasn't ready to give up."   One has mixed feelings here - racing insane when six laps down is not smart and we all saw what resulted.   Yet Keselowski's go-for-the-win approach is fundamentally the right one - especially in contrast to Junior quitting on the win in that same Talladega race.



And so the month of May marches toward Ten Days Of Bruton Smith at Charlotte as well as an Indianapolis 500 where the competitive expectations have now hit 68 lead changes based on 2013's running.