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Josh Gross
Following Denny Hamlin’s victory at Kansas, NASCAR leaves the heat and humidity in the heartland and heads to the “Lady in Black” for 400 miles around Darlington Raceway. Let’s wrap up action from this past Sunday’s AdventHealth 400, review numbers from last year at Darlington, and assess some expectations for the Goodyear 400.
AdventHealth 400 Wrap Up
One of my big stances last week was that practice was going to be the biggest indicator of the drivers to target, especially regarding the top lap leaders. For the most part this played out, as the two fastest drivers in the longer runs in practice both gobbled up the majority of laps led during the first and second stages. In fact, early on it looked like Toyota was going to run away with the AdventHealth 400 as the manufacturer held the top-six positions and both William Byron and Kyle Larson were dealing with early issues that shuffled them to the rear.
However, as the race went on, and the cautions began to pile up, Hendrick made its march forward — by the start of the third segment, Kyle Larson had raced his way forward and assumed the lead. After the final caution flag, when Erik Jones went spinning, Kyle Larson took the lead back from William Byron and appeared to set sail unto his third win of 2023. However, Hamlin’s long run speed reared his head as he picked off Byron and used a bumper to put a loose Kyle Larson into the fence (his fourth straight race getting tagged by someone) and get his first win of 2023 to a chorus of boos.
After the 267 laps, Kansas ended up being very entertaining — especially more than the F1 race in Miami which garnered many more eyeballs. The extra ingredient that made Kansas more than just another intermediate race was the impact of the heat and what it was doing with tire pressures. Teams already know they have a PSI limit they shouldn’t exceed, or they should expect their drivers to careen into the wall.
However, with the heat, the wise teams will be smart to start low because the temperatures will naturally raise the tire PSI beyond the recommended range. As the race waned on, and the track temps continued to rise, tires continued to become an issue and a track with little tire-fall off was suddenly consuming tires at such a rate that teams were on the verge of running out of tires if this were a 500-mile race and not 400 miles. Heck, Michael McDowell’s team did run out of tires they were given from Goodyear and had to resort to another tirecode for their final set and ended up running a full second slower than the field and dropping all of the positions they had gained throughout the race.
In the end, if we want to see a good product on the track, the solution continues to be to give the drivers a car that is loose and forces them to utilize their talent to keep the vehicle straight. Considering we’ll probably never see the days of 900-plus horsepower again, the simple math seems to be for NASCAR to continue removing downforce from this vehicle.
Darlington Raceway
As stated above, NASCAR goes from the cookie-cutter intermediate in the Kansas City Metropolitian area to the 1.33-mile, steeply banked, egg-shaped oval in Darlington, S.C. Opening in 1950, Darlington Raceway is considered one of NASCAR most historic and lore-centric tracks as the raceway carries more nicknames than an “Attitude Era” wrestler.
Part of the mythology of Darlington is its odd shape and size. From above, Darlington truly has the outline of an oblong egg meaning that turns one and two are shorter than turns three and four. This, in turn, creates the scenario where drivers and teams can’t have a “perfect” setup for their cars, as they either have to opt for the car to run better in the shorter turns while becoming a potential liability in the longer turns, or vice versa.
Secondly, there is the length of Darlington. At 1.33 miles, Darlington isn’t really an intermediate track (1.5 miles) like last Sunday’s venue (Kansas), but it’s not a short track in the sense of smaller venues like Bristol, Richmond, Martinsville, or Phoenix. It shares character traits with places like Nashville and Dover but firmly falls in its own category of uniqueness like Gateway in the St. Louis area or Pocono in Pennsylvania.
Finally, Darlington has a reputation as a tough track and that persona lies in its steep banks. Much like what we witnessed two weeks ago at Dover, the drivers willing to race against the wall will find the fastest route around the track. However, dancing too close to the fire can give drivers the infamous “Darlington stripe” as the walls will leave a reminder on your door or fenders that the envelope was pushed too far.
The ferociousness of Darlington could be on full display this Mother’s Day as the temperature looks to be in the low 90s come Sunday afternoon. A track that rewards risk takers, that could potentially be hot and slick, pegs for a very interesting and potentially wreck-filled come Sunday. Imagine what we saw at Kansas last week and add that much more tire degradation and we have all the ingredients for a treat come Sunday.
Expectations for the Goodyear 400
Wreck-filled is exactly what fans and DFS players got to enjoy last Mother’s Day as the 2022 Goodyear 400 as 10 of the 36 drivers retired early due to crashes. This was on top of three other drivers that had to quit early due to mechanical failures. In all, only 23 drivers finished the race that day as the bulk of the cars with DNF designations went out on a wreck on lap 260 that collected nine cars in total, in turn two. On the plus side, with nine total cautions, only three of the cars that were running at the end were a lap down or more.
Following 293 laps, the lead changed hands 24 times among 13 different drivers with polesitter Joey Logano leading by far the most — 107. Logano’s time out front was as cut dry as you would assume as he immediately lost the lead on the initial green flag to Kyle Larson, grabbed it back on lap seven, but gave it up a lap later back to Larson. Aided by his starting position and pit road spot, despite losing the lead seven different times that day Logano was still able to put himself in a position to bump and run William Byron, with two laps remaining, following the final restart.
In Saturday’s practice session, Logano indicated he had a fast car running the second-fastest single-lap followed by the fastest consecutive five and 10 lap averages. However, when the lap data moved to 15 consecutive laps, his rank fell down to 15th as his drop off was more than a full second. Thus, Logano showed he was going to have a fast short run car but that it was ultimately going to fall off in a longer run — a pattern he showed as he could get to the lead but was just as likely to yield it the longer the run went.
For the most part, the drivers that demonstrated the best short and long-run speed in practice ended up being the drivers that ascended to the lead (Kyle Larson, Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano), however, Logano ended up being the only driver to not get collected in a wreck throughout the race. This is what we should expect again this weekend. We can only hope that the drivers who accrue dominator points don’t get bit by variance and end up giving interviews during the race instead after the race.
