Ultimately, one half an inch fewer of spoiler is not expected to fundamentally change the racing at Talladega on Sunday but everyone in the Cup Series field is expecting continued directional positivity.
For the summer race at Daytona, NASCAR reduced the rear spoiler length from 7” to 4” to reduce the overall drag on the NextGen during superspeedway races. Drivers generally felt they could better jump out of line and make more efficient runs with the changes so NASCAR is taking it a step further this weekend with a 3.5” spoiler.
Denny Hamlin likes the general direction officials have taken this package.
“I still think that this was a positive direction and I absolutely felt that there was more space between the cars at Daytona than what we've had in years past,” Hamlin said on Saturday at Talladega. “So, I think that this is another little, small step compared to the big step we took there, but again, it's incrementally in the right direction.
“But this racetrack races differently. It's a little bit wider. So, the runs aren't quite as big here as they are at Daytona. There are a lot of outside factors that we really are not going to know until it all plays out.
“But certainly, a day race here is also going to make it a little bit slicker as well. Again, I’m going to find out exactly when you do.”
Hamlin articulates it that way because NASCAR does not currently allow for superspeedway practice sessions. In other words, as was the case at Daytona in the summer, no one will know what has changed until they start racing it.
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NASCAR plans to modify Phoenix dogleg to lessen driver loads Joey Logano enjoyed that process at Daytona and is expecting the same on Sunday.
“Yeah, I feel the same way because there’s still a lot of unknowns.”
Ditto Chase Elliott.
“I kind of enjoyed the unknown at Daytona,” Elliott said. :I thought it was kind of fun, just having absolutely no idea what to expect. I think there’ll be another element of that here this weekend. I do think that just the conditions and the track surface can play a big role in that too.”
In other words, Elliott is saying some of what happens on Sunday will just be the difference in temperatures and intensity from the early May race to the late October race. It will be much cooler weekend than the previous race.
It’s a similar dynamic in how the Daytona 500 and Firecracker 400 differ from each other.
“You know, I will say that throughout the course of my career, I feel like I have always complained about balance the least at the Daytona night race,” Elliott said. “And I just think in general, the level of aggression that you can have in that race with the temperature, typically the sun being off the racetrack and the surface being somewhat new — I shouldn’t say new, but has a fair amount of grip to it, it has always kind of surprised me how different the Daytona 500 feels to that race.”
William Byron said there was an ‘overestimation’ of how much grip would be lost in the summer Daytona race. In other words, there was more grip and stability than they anticipated.
“Some guys went the conservative route with their trim levels,” Byron said. “I feel like, this weekend, some guys will trim out even more having some confidence in what this package will do.
“I think you will see potentially faster speeds this and there’s less spoiler this weekend too. I think you’ll see bigger speeds in the draft and hopefully even more separation than Daytona had.”
Ultimately, Byron is expecting mostly the status quo from Daytona in the summer.
Tyler Reddick, for reasons mentioned above, thinks there will be more grip than the race at Daytona too.
“I think they will be a little easier to handle than Daytona was, even with less blade,” Reddick said. “It was funny because some of us were like ‘that did nothing,’ but I thought it was a pretty significant change from the last year.
“Knocking some more drag out will help some things but the car still has some similar drag than Daytona so I don’t think it will be much different.”
Ultimately, Reddick thinks the racing is getting closer to what it was like with the previous generation car.
“Daytona felt like a huge jump compared to where we’ve been from after we left the Gen 6 car,” Reddick said. “It’s interesting. This car has been a head scratcher sometimes. I feel like we’re getting closer to where we used to be.”
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