After a brief infatuation with lug nuts, it’s good to see the NASCAR gang has gotten back to more pertinent matters:
Racing.
Don’t say “duh” quite so fast. Fact is, NASCAR’s aerodynamic minds have grappled in recent years to find the right balance of man and machine. The last thing a driver wants is to lose control and let a victory be decided by a machine’s ability or limitations, and not his or her driving skills.
Hence, the new package unveiled at the start of this season with less aerodynamic downforce. It rolls into Charlotte Motor Speedway again this week with rave reviews. Those started in Atlanta in February when the race stayed green for the first 210 laps, a track record from the start of a Sprint Cup event.
“That race felt like I was in 1975,” Brad Keselowski said. “That was kind of awesome. I should grow my sideburns out after that one.”
Flash-forward to May. Much happiness. Still.
“I think the racing has been good this year,” Matt Kenseth said. “I think there’s been some really good finishes, so I think they’re just trying to keep going down that path of reducing downforce and hopefully keep making the racing better.”
“I think it’s an improvement,” Chase Elliott said after Saturday’s all-star race. “But improvement doesn’t mean it’s perfect. We need to keep working on things and hopefully find a good stopping point.”
OK, so the all-star race in Charlotte last weekend bombed because of the confusing rules. But the race didn’t unravel because of the aerodynamic package. To Kenseth’s point, the margin of victory in eight of the first 12 races have been under one second, the most since 2010.
That includes the Daytona 500. But the issue here is not what’s going on at the restrictor-plate tracks but NASCAR’s standard 1.5-mile venues.
Please don’t call me for all your engineering insights, but in layman’s terms, a car frees up with less downforce, putting the wheel and the skill-set back in the driver’s hands. And that is always a good thing.
On the flip side, NASCAR went with a higher-downforce package last season at Michigan International Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and that wasn’t a good thing. More tinkering has worked out well.
“In the past couple years, [the cars had] really been stuck like glue, and it was very frustrating because you couldn’t catch a guy,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said after the race in Atlanta. “It seemed now like you could move around and pass guys a whole lot easier. A couple times I drove up to guys in the corner. I ain’t done that in three years, four years. You just couldn’t do that before.”
Please excuse Junior and his grammar. But at the risk of doubling down, I’d say the majority of his peers would be willing to say, “Ain’t that the truth.”
gdiaz@orlandosentinel.com Read George Diaz’s blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/enfuego
Saluting their ultimate sacrifice
Honoring For the second consecutive year, each of the 40 Sprint Cup Series drivers will honor a fallen service member by placing the hero’s name on the racer’s windshield during Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
According to NASCAR, during the “600 Miles of Remembrance, windshield headers normally reserved for drivers’ last names will read SGT HARVEY, LCPL RAMIREZ and SPC BEAUDOIN,” among other fallen heroes.
“There’s a lot of significance in having these names on our front windshield,” Martin Truex Jr. said. “None of us would be here if it wasn’t for them protecting our freedom. It means a lot to all of us to have soldiers at the race track every weekend, but especially for the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend. It’s always special to have soldiers around and be a part of NASCAR.”
Further personalizing the concept, many of the service members whose names will be featured this weekend were chosen by the teams, some with stronger connections than others.
Navy SEAL Denis Miranda, who was killed in a helicopter crash in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2010, once trained alongside Graham Molatch, jackman for the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing team. Miranda’s name will appear on Kyle Larson‘s car.
Other connections include Lance Corporal Scott Lynch, who served in the United States Marine Corps, and Mark Singleton, tire changer for Chip Ganassi Racing. Lynch will be honored on Jamie McMurray‘s No. 1 car. Furniture Row Racing employee John Parks served in the Marines with Jeffrey Bohr Jr., a gunnery sergeant killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Truex will honor his memory on his No. 78 car.
Dollar General out
NASCAR took another sponsorship hit on Monday when Dollar General announced it will end its primary sponsorship with Matt Kenseth, who drives the No. 20 for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Sprint Cup Series.
“Our strategy to reallocate our future marketing assets into new programs is strictly a business decision to align our priorities to better serve our customers in this rapidly changing retail environment,” the company said in a statement.
Dollar General has been with JGR since the 2012 season and currently is on board for 30 of the 36 races.
As industry insiders have noted, it’s going to be challenging to secure a 30-race deal with a single company. Other sponsors on Kenseth’s car — including Stanley Black & Decker and DeWalt — could step up to take a larger role.
Kudos for Daytona
Daytona International Speedway and its “Daytona Rising” project reaped some nice rewards recently when it was named Sports Facility of the Year at the 2016 Sports Business Awards in New York City.
The Sports Business Awards honor excellence and outstanding achievement in the business of sports. Daytona took top honors over Avaya Stadium (San Jose Earthquakes), Bill Snyder Family Stadium (Kansas State University Wildcats), Kyle Field (Texas A&M Aggies) and Petco Park (San Diego Padres).
“We’re honored to receive this prestigious award for our new motorsports stadium,” said International Speedway Corporation chief executive officer Lesa France Kennedy. “Our employees, fans and partners deserve the credit for helping us transform the vision into reality.”
Daytona recently unveiled a $400 million renovation that includes huge concourses with interactive displays, 1,400 television screens, 60 suites, 40 escalators and 17 elevators, and a nose-cone replica of a space shuttle.
