From Daytona To Kentucky With The Kez

 

 

Brad Keselowski literally survives to win the Quaker State 400.

The last two weeks of the 2016 Winston Cup season have seen one of the races of the year and the most bizarre finish of the year.   Sandwiched amid the two Cup races were also one of the most exciting Busch-Xfinity Series races of the year and the Truck Series' first test of Kentucky Speedway's new asphalt.  

The Firecracker 250 and 400 weekend was far and away more competitive than the BGN and Cup portions of February Speedweeks.   Aric Almirola's spectacular win in the Firecracker 250 was overshadowed by controversy over NASCAR's timing of yellows and the issue of not racing to the line remains the most foolish and needless controversy NASCAR has.    It put a damper on a statement win by Almirola, driving a Fred Biagi Ford two years after his Firecracker 400 win in Richard Petty's #43.   The win was followed by a superb storm to the front in Richard Petty's car in the 400, an effort wiped out by the two lines shaft-drafting him out of the top-15 near the end, and the result was a disappointing 15th.

Aric Almirola's win at the Firecracker 250 was followed by a stout effort in the 400 and another superb effort - derailed by gas - in the Kentucky 400

The common demoninator above everything else is Brad Keselowski won both races; his sidedraft fight with Kyle Busch in the final 30 laps was the highlight of the season so far.   When people advocate that drivers prove themselves in different forms of racing I'm not sure they meant winning the way Keselowski had to win it - by running out of gas yet sipping enough residue to hold off Carl Edwards.  

Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards had not squared off against each other for a number of years until Kentucky, but less than ten years ago the two became blood enemies as seen in the 2010 Gateway 250.


Brad Keselowski has now become the odds-on favorite for the title, and his title chances are one of numerous subplots from the last two weeks.

The Firecracker 400 was the best Cup racing of the year so far, with the final 30 laps seeing an epic sidedraft war for the lead.


** Kentucky saw its first racing with new asphalt and predictions the surface would be one groove proved only partly accurate.   The Trucks hit first and the trickiness of the surface was apparent right away, yet the longer the race went the wider  albeit slightly - the surface seemed to get; there was also a striking draft effect for the leaders, as the first-place Truck could never get any gap on the others.

It was another win by William Byron as his career continues to advance faster than a lot of people expected. 

It was the Cup 400-miler that was considered the real test, and with very low downforce the cars endured a bizarre event as multiple crashes led to eleven yellows, and with so many restarts the lead changed twice in Turn One on seemingly all of them.   There were also several incidents where cars passed by taking air off the lead car and aero-shoving him out of the groove.   But the downside was the high incidence of air-off-the-spoiler crashing, and while the telecast noted air-off-the-car passing the race also saw aeropush, most glaringly when Martin Truex caught the top two and suddenly couldn't close up to pass.   The inevitable result of low downforce remains aeropush and it will always get worse.

The biggest upshot of the high number of crashes is that it wound up making for the bizarre fuel duel at the finish.

The issue of Kentucky's asphalt overall looks more promising than some may have felt - with more racing the groove will widen out, as it seemed to do so in One and Two more than on the other side in this season's 400.


** Keselowski, Edwards, and Almirola were the primary focus of the race, between Keselowski going for the win, Edwards doing likewise, and Almirola was easily the best Ford other than Keselowski - with a 4th-place effort on the final lap derailed by gas.    The effort by Ford overall began to show real progress in the Firecracker and while Kentucky wasn't as fulfilling in terms of competitive depth there remained evidence that Ford's NASCAR program is finally getting out of being dead last.  

Petty's guys showed they're capable of winning and the Roush fleet finally has become worth taking seriously again after being irrelevant for several years now.   The most bizarre resurgence has been Greg Biffle, while Trevor Bayne has come back from career death with stout finishes the last two weeks.   Ford needs them to win so they stop being only about Penske's guys.


** Toyota has definitely suffered from NASCAR's underside aero changes.   Not that they're uncompetitive, but the Toyotas no longer have the firepower they had the first third of the season.   The upshot of that is Martin Truex appeared to be the strongest car (leading 48 laps) at the end and it didn't become a win. 


** In 2015 Chevrolet fell behind Toyota and Chevy's fall from grace continued at both Daytona and Kentucky, even with the resurgence of Stewart-Haas Racing in its final season as a Chevrolet team.   Jimmie Johnson's Kentucky crash best symbolized Chevy's fall from grace while Tony Stewart's sudden rise to the front cannot be looked at sympathetically by Chevrolet given SHR's pending switch to Ford next season.

The race also displayed a striking trend with Kevin Harvick - he led handily (128 laps) and still couldn't cash in on anything, ending in ninth.  
 Lost in the shuffle was RCR, which saw Ryan Newman come home third in the fuel duel - the kind of strategy that damned him in Rusty Wallace and others' eyes in his second season in Cup - and got some good effort from Paul Menard and Austin Dillon, though neither was around at the end. 


And it adds to NASCAR's first sojourn to Loudon, New Hampshire of 2016.

NASCAR's Rules Debates Go On At Kentucky And Beyond

The Quaker State 400 at Kentucky saw NASCAR's renewal of the 5 And 5 Rule make its 2015 debut, and this low downforce package will return at the Southern 500 at Darlington. Several drivers were waxing enthusiastic about the racing at Kentucky and NASCAR was pleased as well. Some of the racing at Kentucky was indeed good.

The epic Erik Jones-Kasey Kahne sidedraft battle in May 2015 at Charlotte posted here is meant to illustrate the continuing rules exploration that the sport is undergoing as NASCAR will debut a high downforce package later this season, with the Pure Michigan 400 seeing a 9-inch spoiler with wicker, a two-inch airdam clearance, and 43-inch radiator pan, changes expected to increase drag on the cars and which appear influenced not only by racing as shown in the above-posted Truck race - where the Trucks make more downforce than the cars and have put on numerous spirited battles for first on  intermediate tracks - but also by the high-downforce package Indycar used at Fontana which made for more drag and with the resultant draft exploded to an Indycar-record 80 lead changes among 14 drivers.

The dynamic of low downforce vs. high downforce has been a running one forever, and the 5 And 5 Rule's return at Kentucky is worth exploring given the history of NASCAR's war against downforce - it has not been a positive history.   The 5 And 5 Rule debuted in October 1993 at Charlotte and Atlanta and was intended to cut speeds by making drivers lift for the corners more; it didn't happen, instead the leaders became all but unpassable, and the rule was dropped after 1993.

It was brought back for the entirety of 1998 for the same reason, and also on the theory that reducing downforce would neutralize aeropush that was becoming a burgeoning problem for racing.   Again, it didn't happen - the 1998 season saw a very competitive race at the 600 at Charlotte but overall passing was made harder.   John Darby took over the NASCAR garage and in 2004 the 5&5 Rule was brought back again; during Darby's reign NASCAR saw downforce cuts, numerous sway bar changes, and in the end the racing never became that good outside of the plate tracks.

Kentucky certainly saw some good racing, but given the history of the 5 And 5 Rule I can't be that optimistic that it will work.   For Darlington a softer tire is slated to be used,  but we've seen that before as well, and it misses the larger point about tires - the best races we've seen away from the plate tracks have been where the drivers seemed better able to lean on the tires the way they could on bias-ply tires - and we continue to see examples of such with bias-shod racecars in the K&N Series and the Modifieds; in the last few seasons we've seen four-abreast for the front at Iowa Speedway with the K&N cars that looked like old-school Michigan International Speedway.

Softer tires sound like a good idea but it's not necessarily better to need to get four tires on stops; we've certainly seen good racing where some drivers did not get fresh tires, and economically it is better to see what the late Bob Newton said during 1989 Speedweeks - "Someday teams will see they don't need ten sets of tires to win the Daytona 500."  

The continuing rules exploration campaign is not new to NASCAR, but what it shows of late is that NASCAR actually seems to be better understanding of the minutae of what the racing is doing compared to the recent past, and we certainly want better racing - not every race can reach 80 lead changes or even 40, but it isn't unreasonable to want 40-plus lead change races on tracks that history has shown are more than suited to see it.