Practically every data point suggests a drastically different NASCAR Cup Series racing product at Darlington Raceway on Sunday and it’s a direction that drivers have encouraged for quite a bit.
The first four years of this car being used at ‘The Track Too Tough to Tame’ came under the same rules package used at intermediate style tracks. That meant a 4” rear spoiler and a more sophisticated rear diffuser alongside the standard 670 horsepower tapered spacer.
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However, for this season, NASCAR increased the horsepower to 750 for all short tracks, while also designating some larger tracks like Darlington as short tracks that utilize a 3” spoiler and the simplified rear diffuser. This will mean less on-throttle time and a 20 percent reduction of overall downforce at the abrasive South Carolina speedway with drivers largely predicting tremendous tire falloff and action.
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For example, Denny Hamlin has called for four seconds of overall tire falloff and Brad Keselowski predicts numerous broken toe links due to contact with the wall.
From a sanctioning body standpoint, Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer John Probst isn’t willing to deliver as precise of a prediction but agrees that the overall direction points to less stability and more tire management.
“I would say that, while some might be comfortable saying there’s going to be a four second fall off and try to put a number on it, from our side, we’re just more comfortable saying it’s going to be directionally that way,” Probst told Motorsport.com. “I don’t want to pretend that the fidelity our simulators are to the level of what the teams have.
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“I think that, when you look at the teams and they are trying to extract every ounce of performance out of the car, they have probably taken a little bit more time to make their simulations good to the 32nd of an inch.
“Whereas, we turn bigger knobs like horsepower, drag and grip, things of that nature. We generally go more towards a directional standpoint and lean on the teams and OEMs to start putting some more precise numbers around the simulation in particular.”
It’s a familiar theme in this sport, where NASCAR and Goodyear land in a general direction of how they expect any given product to look, but competitors will always push their air pressures and set-ups to the figurative brink come race weekends.
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From there, NASCAR and Goodyear will gain even more data, which is ultimately how the package for Darlington has evolved over the past five years. When this current-generation car debuted at Darlington in 2022, it made a ton of grip with very little tire fall-off, and the leader was able to air block in a really significant way.
As Goodyear felt confident and comfortable going with softer compounds, that has become less and less prevalent and should be even less a storyline this weekend with the reduced downforce and increased horsepower.
For the better part of the early life cycle of this car, drivers have pushed NASCAR for the reduced aerodynamic package at Darlington, and Probst said the horsepower increase this year is what also led to them moving to the short track configuration.
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“I think the two were going together in a lot of ways for us, meaning the engine and aero, and we obviously heard the fans and listen to the drivers quite often,” Probst said. “There has always been a drumbeat there for more horsepower, and we got to work with our builders across the board, over the past few months to a year now to get as much as we can out of this engine without changing a lot of the hardware around it.
“We unloaded that this year to a pretty promising race at Phoenix. We got a lot of good feedback from the drivers and fans on that race, with respect to comers and goers, and a lot of sliding around … We’ve had drivers, even going back to testing last year, asking us to get more aggressive with the short track package and running at some of the bigger tracks.”
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This is how the short track package was extended to Bristol, Dover, Darlington, Nashville and Gateway.
As for Phoenix, there was more action, and Ryan Blaney being able to twice drive through traffic on the way to a win when that used to be near impossible was a testament to both NASCAR and Goodyear.
On the other hand, there was a subset of the fanbase that said there was too much crashing at Phoenix. That might be the case on Sunday at Darlington with the temperatures and lack of expected grip but Probst says there is a delicate balance when trying to deliver something as arbitrary as ‘race quality.’
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He hopes that if there is more crashing that drivers or fans aren’t critical for NASCAR and Goodyear’s continued efforts to balance ‘ability to race’ and ‘hard to drive.’
“I feel like right now, the relationship between NASCAR, the teams, drivers and even OEMs, and we’ve all said this, we’re going to get on this island together and be aggressive,” Probst said. “And I think the more aggressive we’ve gotten with the tires, the better the racing has been for the fans.”
This philosophy is what led to the best Phoenix race of the NextGen era and a dynamic that points towards the most thrilling Darlington race within that same time span.
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“I know that sometimes we don’t always move as fast as the fans want us to, but I will say we do hear it all, and we’re acting on it internally with ourselves and all the stakeholders,” Probst said. “And that means the fans, our drivers and media partners, and whenever there is that plurality of folks pulling in the same direction and agreeing with what we should do, we move as fast as anyone.
“This has been a good year so far and we’re looking forward to Sunday. … It’s going to be hot, slipper and with a bunch of unknowns, it should be an entertaining race.”
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