INSIGHT: No practice? No problem

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | May 22, 2020 3:07 PM

When NBA star Allen Iverson said the word “practice” 22 times in a press conference rant 18 years ago this month, the jargon of sports fans changed forever.

One part of Iverson’s statements to stand out from that day was, “we talking about practice.” The phrase has been used on t-shirts and as a punch line.

“Practice” is now getting a similar kind of treatment in NASCAR. While no driver has gone on a rant or used the Iverson line, practice, or the lack thereof, has been a talking point as NASCAR returns from an unexpected 10-week break due to COVID-19, and with a revised May and June schedule that does not include any on-track practice sessions.

“Let’s race,” said Joey Logano this week. “We’re racers, that’s what we do. We’re race car drivers, not practice car drivers.”

NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series teams seemed unfazed by the lack of practice ahead of their events at Darlington Raceway. The Cup Series ran two races – Sunday and Wednesday – while the Xfinity Series group finally got on track Thursday. Every driver jumped back behind the wheel cold turkey, aside from some iRacing or simulator time.

“It doesn’t hurt my feelings,” said Brad Keselowski of one-day shows without practice. “I think some of your major events it probably makes sense, but I think this way is good. Of course, we’re a little biased because we’re experienced. If we were rookies, we would be calling BS. I think you should be rewarded for experience, but I also think you should be rewarded for hard work.

“I’m all for not having all these practices. I can’t figure out why some tracks we used to go, to we would practice at 9 a.m. That never made a lot of sense to me. I think this cuts costs down and puts emphasis on drivers that are experienced and professionals, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing overall. I feel a little bit differently about the lower-tier series. Those guys definitely need some practice. For us, I think we’re showing it can work.”

Back in March at Phoenix, Cup Series teams had two Friday practice sessions ahead of Saturday qualifying. The race ran Sunday, which made it a typical three-day race weekend. The same schedule occurred at Las Vegas and Auto Club Speedway.

Other times, there have been more practices than teams know what to do with. For instance, last year in Fontana, there were three practice sessions plus qualifying. February in Daytona usually includes up to four practice sessions – plus the Duel qualifying races – leading into the Daytona 500.

Clint Bowyer believes this week has proven that “we really don’t need practice anymore in our sport. I don’t know if not having practice or qualifying changed anything in the outcome of these races in Darlington.”
Count Bowyer among those who’d be happy to do away with practice sessions for good. Image by Kinrade/Motorsport Images

Not having practice – or qualifying for that matter as teams only get that option for the Coca-Cola 600 – isn’t something Denny Hamlin sees becoming the norm. When racing gets back to its regular routine, he expects practice sessions to be a part of the schedule. However, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver did acknowledge that maybe everyone is getting a lesson in how there is no need to be at the track three days a week.

And NASCAR has cut down on activity over the last year, going to what is known as a condensed weekend. Under that format, Cup Series teams only get on track either Friday for two practices and qualifying ahead of a Saturday race, or Saturday with practices and qualifying for Sunday races.

Practice? Talking about the lack of practice left Chase Elliott admitting that he found the two Darlington races exciting.

“It’s added an element that I think NASCAR has been missing for a long time,” he said. “I think we’re learning as an industry, and I think the fans are also learning too, that we don’t need to practice for three days before a Sunday event and we can still put on a really good show. I hope as time goes on, we can race more and practice less. Maximize the time that the teams are at the racetrack, and, with that being said, we can put on a full day of activities and events, and still maximize the fans’ time at the racetrack with the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series.

“I think we can have just as much racing for the people there, whenever they can come back and watch, as what we’ve had in the past. We’re just maximizing the time that the teams and drivers are there when we go. I hope we can learn from this, and I think NASCAR has been in a unique situation with this situation to try different things, and that being one of them. So I’m looking forward to seeing how things change as time goes, and I hope it does a little bit because I think this has been a really nice learning experience, and I think it’s been a home run so far.”

 

Has NASCAR stumbled upon a better formula for racing?

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | June 2, 2020 11:02 AM

Twice in less than a week, Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski has expressed the sentiment that NASCAR has hit gold with its current racing format.

There have been five Cup Series races run in the last 15 days. Across all three of its series, NASCAR has held nine races in 16 days. There have been rain delays and postponements, overtime attempts and tempers, a bounty collected, carnage at Bristol, and yes, some snoozers too. All of that has been on the track, but to Keselowski’s point, which he first offered after the May 28 race at Charlotte, it has been everything surrounding the events that have been a success.

“The limited practice, show up and race, and the time window that benefits both the east and west coast,” said Keselowski. “No qualifying. Inversion from the week before is really good, because it mixes the field up and creates some good storylines there. I think it’s fair. It’s compelling, and it’s a time where quite frankly, the sports world, even if it wasn’t for COVID, midweek races in the summer, when you’re generally not having a lot of competition, is in a time period where everybody is hungry for content.

“I think they’ve got gold here. COVID or not, I hope we keep this for years to come. I think this is a great little format that’s good for the sport and good for the fans and good for everybody all around, so kudos to them.”
After winning at Bristol on Sunday, Keselowski reiterated his point when asked why there have been so many drivers making mistakes recently. Without a chance to practice or work on the cars, Keselowski believes the format lends itself to errors, and that isn’t a bad thing.

“These are great formats,” he said. “We’ve seen some of the best racing we’ve ever seen in NASCAR accordingly. I’m not just saying that because I’m in victory lane. I think a lot of people would say this was a tremendous race, and I hope they enjoyed it.”

Declaring the last two weeks to have been some of the best racing ever might be a stretch, but there have been plenty of highlights. Darlington, with its tire falloff, was a treat considering Goodyear builds such durable tires that it’s rare to have a race where the tires fell off as quickly as they did, thereby forcing drivers and teams to manage their allotted sets.

The short track package led to a phenomenal race at Bristol. Drivers were all over the track, using the bumper, making mistakes, and there were battles throughout the field. With 17 caution flags, it was like the “Bristol of old” where chaos wasn’t hard to find.
The short track package helped deliver an action-packed race at Bristol. Image by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

After being forced to pause for 10 weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, NASCAR officials were put in the position of needing to change its routine to return. It has led to trying different things, like the inverts and random draws, and there are no practices or qualifying because it seemed a better idea of getting teams in and out of a facility in one day.

Campers and track promoters will likely disagree, but the slimmed-down weekend has been pleasurable. Only marking the calendar with race day, leaving the rest of the week to fill with news and telling stories, has made these two weeks, for as action-packed as they have been, feel lighter and more productive.

And practice? Cup Series drivers have proven it’s unneeded. Even after 10 weeks away, they jumped back in at Darlington and had no problem sending their cars off into the first corner. Less is more when it comes to track time ahead of qualifying. Considering that teams put so much emphasis on their engineers and simulators, on-track practice is likely to lead teams in the wrong direction then make them better. Or they spend time – with so many practice sessions available – trying something, only to go back to their original setup.

It’s easy to sit here as a spectator, someone with no ties to a race team or with any financial ties to what happens on the track, and opine about how it’s a waste of time and resources. The inverts and random draws have created storylines for drivers to start where they likely wouldn’t have qualified, but when all is said and done, the best teams are still at the top of the finishing order.

“There are some things that we’ll look at both this year and the off-season,” said NASCAR President Steve Phelps last week. “Typically, we practice three times. Do we need to practice three times? I don’t know. That is something we, as an industry, will determine.

“Having cars on racetracks, is that something that’s important with respect to a practice? Or isn’t it? Or frankly, do you have a better show when you don’t practice? And those are some of the things we need to look at. But do I think at some point this year we’re going to have a schedule that looks more like it did when we left Phoenix? I think the answer is probably yes. Again, what that looks like and will it be tweaked or will it be cut back a little bit, those are all things we need to determine, and we’ll do that working with our industry.”

Forced to adapt due to unforeseen circumstances, NASCAR might end up better for it, should some of these variables stick around going forward.

Insights & Analysis, NASCAR

 

Texas top three reflect on the good and bad of a one-day show

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emailBy Andrew Crask | 22 hours ago

Part of the unique challenge in IndyCar’s return to racing amid the COVID-19 pandemic was the necessity for the Texas Motor Speedway event to be compressed into one day, with just a single practice session leading into qualifying and the race a couple hours later. For the three drivers who wound up on the podium at the end of that long day and night, there were both positive and negative aspects to the tight timeframe.

“It was really the unknowns — trying to cram that all in,” related winner Scott Dixon. “Traveling here this morning, qualifying, practice, race, then we fly home tonight. First time we’ve ever done anything like that. A lot of new things.

“Maybe that’s how we’ll do a lot of our events from now on. I’m not sure. I actually kind of enjoyed it,” the Chip Ganassi Racing driver mused. “Kind of cool to do doubleheaders like this — which I think we’re going to do in the future this season, which is going to be a lot of fun. I think the unknowns are the most difficult part.”

“The one-day show is actually interesting in many ways,” agreed runner-up Simon Pagenaud of Team Penske. “You had to be very decisive in your decisions. Obviously, after the first session, we kind of had to decide the race setup right away because the car was going to go to impound after qualifying. That’s a split decision you make in a very short amount of time with your engineer. Same for the crew.

“Yeah, I thought it was very interesting to just do one day, actually. Why not? Bring your stuff and race as hard as you can.”

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Pagenaud’s teammate Josef Newgarden, who outdueled Dixon for the pole and battled the New Zealander in the early stages of the race before settling for third at the end, also found a lot to like about a one-day-and-done event.

“I had a blast tonight and today. Just like these guys said, it was super fun to have kind of a jam-packed schedule,” said the series champ.

While Newgarden pointed to the limited running as a partial reason for his handling struggles during the race, he saw positives to that as well.

“The hardest part for me was that, basically thinking we made the right decisions going into the race, about 15 laps in realizing that we were horribly off the mark. So you don’t have a lot of time to rectify an issue,” he added. “I think if there was more practice, more of a lead-up to this event, maybe we would have had some clues to point out maybe we weren’t as strong as we thought we were going into the race.

“When you have that jam-packed schedule, it’s kind of on the team and the driver to execute quickly and to make the right decisions, to show up with good stuff, kind of stick to your guns. I like that. It didn’t work out for us tonight (but) I think in the future we can hopefully thrive in that situation.”
Unique attributes to Scott Dixon’s latest win at Texas. Image by Chris Owens/IndyCar

Dixon acknowledged his extensive experience helped with the situation, but felt the Ganassi’s team’s preparations were just as significant in crafting his winning advantage.

“I think experience is good most of the time. It can also set you in your ways a little bit too much, as well,” he noted. “If something changes, it’s not what you’re expecting — I think that can be a bit detrimental as well.

“The car rolled off really well. I knew we’d be working extremely hard on just trying to fix some of the issues we had last year. We had some new people, plus a ton coming back over from the (discontinued) GT program. The engineering depth and everything got a lot stronger, so development was good through the winter.

“The DIL — the simulator with Honda that we’ve been using for the last three weeks in preparation for Texas — has been really good. Lots of things we didn’t think we would try or have the time to try on track, we were able to kind of do that. Gave us some ideas. We were able to sort of verify them once we got here.

“But, yeah, experience tonight definitely helped. You saw some people I think early on make some mistakes pretty quickly. Maybe, if they’d done a few more races before we got to Texas, that wouldn’t have happened.”

Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud, Texas, IndyCar

 

CRANDALL: Taking stock of NASCAR's return

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | 13 hours ago

NASCAR has run eight races since restarting its season a month ago, and things have been non-stop since the green flag dropped in the first race at Darlington Raceway. But given recent social events, penalties and suspensions, there have been just as many off-track headlines. Time to take stock.

• The All-Star Race is moving to Bristol Motor Speedway this year, and it will be the first time the race will run on a short track. And what a perfect short track. Bristol has been putting on great racing the last few years, and the All-Star Race needs great racing. That has been missing at Charlotte Motor Speedway, with the last segment typically being 10 laps of the leader running away off the restart. I don’t expect that to be the case at Bristol. While this move was forced by NASCAR’s need to adapt to COVID-19, choosing to go to Bristol is what you’d call making the most out of a situation.
• Speaking of Bristol, new dad Austin Dillon tweeted late Monday night that the choose cone might make an appearance in the All-Star Race. The choose cone would allow drivers to pick which lane they wanted to restart from. Certain tracks are more lane sensitive than others, and a choose cone is intended to eliminate the practice of drivers slowing down when coming off pit road to try and land in the lane they want. If the first 15 drivers all want the top, then the 16th driver in line can take his chances by lining up as the first driver on the inside. NASCAR has used the All-Star Race as its test for rules they’ve wanted to look at implementing in the past, and for a good reason. It’s a non-points event, so it doesn’t affect the integrity of the championship season. So, if the choose cone is next in line, let’s see what happens.
• One last thought on the All-Star Race and trying things. NASCAR is going to allow teams, at their request, to adjust their paint schemes by placing the number to the far right on the door, next to the rear tire. Hopefully, this is a one-race experiment. A car number is a driver’s identity, and while giving sponsors more space along the side of the car is nice, moving and even changing its size ruins the character of said car and number everyone has come to recognize through the years. NASCAR has changed so much about its race cars over the years, and not all for the better. Nowadays, we have banners across windshields, fewer contingency decals than ever before, and even different color splitters, and spoilers for playoff drivers. The worst change has to be the addition of winner stickers – and the fact that drivers mention those stickers in interviews. A professional sports league handing out stickers to its winners and doing photo ops in victory lane. Oy.
• With his third win of the season, and second since NASCAR returned from hiatus, Denny Hamlin now leads the series in playoff points. Hamlin is in his 15th year with Joe Gibbs Racing, and as has been well-documented, is still chasing that first championship. Yet he said after winning at Homestead that it’s not championship or bust: he takes more stock in putting together a great season than how things play out in a winner-takes-all finale. Hamlin had a great season last year with six wins, and he’s halfway there in 2020, only 12 races in. With 40 career wins and three Daytona 500s to his name, it’s starting to feel like even without a championship, he’s made his case for being one of the best in the Cup Series.

Championship or no championship, Hamlin is staking out a place among modern NASCAR royalty. Chris Graythen/Getty Images.

• Where in the world has Matt Kenseth gone? Just as quickly as he arrived back in the Cup Series, he has disappeared. Kenseth finished 10th at Darlington Raceway in his first race with Chip Ganassi Racing, and in doing so, made all those who believed Kenseth and crew chief Chad Johnston could contend every week all the more confident. However in the last seven races, Kenseth has just two top-16 finishes and is 30th in the standings. This could be a case where not being able practice each weekend is hindering Kenseth and the team from adjusting on their car and improvement from race to race, and if so, that’s unfortunate and will make for a much more formidable task of becoming contenders. The team and driver are perfectly capable, but they haven’t been showing it.
• The deeper the season goes without practice or qualifying, the more spoiled some of us get, and not just because it makes the weekend a simple matter of sitting down and watching a race. The drawn-out three-day weekend is not missed. The lack of practice, though, doesn’t seem to be severely impacting the racing, at least not in a negative way. Seeing which teams have their cars ready off the hauler and which ones need a few pit stops to get in the ballpark has added to the viewing experience. Martinsville was the perfect example, with some teams so far off the mark they struggled all night, while others who were a lap down at the end of the first stage used every lap to climb back into contention by the end. In recent weeks, we’ve seen the likes of Richard Petty Motor Sports and Front Row Motorsports have some great runs, and while they are working hard to improve their teams, the weekend format is helping their competitive cause.
• Have you looked carefully at the point standings lately? As the Cup Series starts getting into the stretch run to make the playoffs, the battle to get into the postseason on points could get interesting. As it stands going into Talladega, Aric Almirola sits 13th in the standings with 303 points. It’s only a 112-point difference to Ryan Newman at 25th in the standings. In between, there are some big-time drivers and teams (William Byron of Hendrick and Erik Jones of Gibbs are two who stand out) who need to pick up the pace if they want to make the playoffs. Otherwise, they face the possibility of being overtaken by underdogs like Tyler Reddick, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, John Hunter Nemechek and Michael McDowell.
• Richard Childress Racing has picked up the pace. One of the teams benefitting from the new Camaro body, the organization has also been running solid races. Austin Dillon is 16th in points with four top-10 finishes while rookie Tyler Reddick is 17th in points with three top-10 finishes. Both teams look like they can contend for a playoff spot. That is a significant improvement compared to last year, when the organization earned only nine top-10 finishes and didn’t place a car near the postseason.
• Homestead-Miami Speedway is probably NASCAR’s best mile-and-a-half facility. Although the low downforce package doesn’t translate well to some other tracks, like Charlotte or Atlanta, the race last Sunday was good. The best racing with the best package, however, was in the Xfinity Series at Homestead. Two races in two days didn’t disappoint, with drivers able to come through the field, rip the fence or run whichever lane the driver wanted, and put on entertaining battles for the lead and the win.