Yahoo Autos NASCAR looking into slow pace of Daytona 500
The slow race pace early in the Daytona 500 did not go unnoticed by NASCAR and the circumstances leading to that will be reviewed.
In the race’s first stage, the field slowed the pace down dramatically when going into fuel-saving mode. Typically, a full-speed lap around Daytona International Speedway in a pack would be in the 46- to 47-second bracket. But when the pace slowed Monday because the field was not full throttle, the lap times were over 50s.
“I think that’s something that just over time, 76 years of NASCAR racing, our race teams are just so good, and our teams are so good, and our drivers are so good, and the strategy and the preparation that goes into these events, they don’t leave any stones unturned,” NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Wednesday. “The Daytona 500, or superspeedway racing in general, has kind of come down to that, and basically what you’re trying to do is spend the least amount of time on pit road that you can. So, you’re getting through those stoppages, whether it be Stage 1 or 2, you’re getting the opportunity to gain some track position.
“It is something that we’re looking into. Ultimately, we want to drop the green flag on the race, and they’re racing as hard as they can until we drop the checkered flag. There’s some strategy in between there. We’ll definitely take a much deeper dive at this particular situation and the strategy that goes into it.”
Martin Truex Jr. came over his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team radio at one point and said it felt like they were “crawling.” His teammate, Denny Hamlin, described it as a 175-mile-per-hour “pace lap” on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” Hamlin said. “Fuel, yes, it’s always been somewhat of a big deal, but over the last few years of Next Gen racing on superspeedways, it’s been a dramatic deal. With the field all compressed into a one-and-a-half second group, you can save enough gas to be the last car in line and then jump to the first car in line after a pit cycle as long as you do a good job on entry of the pits, rolling down pit road, stopping, and then exiting pit road and then exiting with a group. You can flip-flop the field.”
Superspeedway pit stops have become less about tires and more about fuel-only. The tone for fuel being the big story was set early in Daytona during the one-stop Bluegreen Vacations Duel races. Hamlin admitted his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team played that strategy since he ran in the back for much of his Duel race but then jumped to the front after the pit cycle.
“Everyone is trying to do it and then I realized, holy (expletive), these guys are doing it on Lap 2,” he said of the Daytona 500. “I think I was on the top line and I’m trying to push the (expletive) out of whoever was in front of me, and I’m like, ‘What the hell? Why aren’t these guys going? Push the guy in front of you now.’ When I’m trying to push someone mid-race, early race, whatever, that is me whispering in the competitor’s ear in front of me, ‘Go hit the guy in front of you now. Go push him.’ I’m trying to keep that line moving.”
Hamlin wasn’t against saving fuel but would have preferred the field race some before doing so. If the field got single-file, saving fuel would have made more sense, but not when running side-by-side where Hamlin felt everyone was content not to pass and be conservative.
Said Hamlin, “The field just kept getting slower and slower and slower.”
