“I Now Know What a Turkey Feels Like on Thanksgiving Day”: Hot Weather Tested Every Drivers Patience at Texas

The O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway race concluded on Sunday, and many drivers absolutely loathed the conditions. In fact, Cup Series driver Chris Buescher admitted that describing the weather there is quite simple.

“It’s just miserable. Miserably hot,” he noted. “It could very well be our hottest race of the year to date, and possibly for the year.”

Meanwhile, John Hunter Nemechek quipped on the radio. “I now know what a turkey feels like on Thanksgiving Day, sitting in an oven.”

According to weather forecasts, drivers faced temperatures of 96-98 degrees with chances of climbing to 105 and 110. Interestingly, the Circuit General Manager, Eddie Gossage, was quite pleased because he wanted a slick and greasy track.

He believes that those track conditions are exactly what the drivers pine for.

How bad were the conditions at the Texas Motor Speedway?

Championship contender Denny Hamlin is worried because drivers could face temperatures up to 140 to 150 inside the car. Buescher clearly agreed and confessed that they would be lucky if the temperature stayed around 150°F.

He continued, “NASCAR’s been keeping up with temperatures inside race cars, and we’ve seen thermometers mounted to our headrests the last couple years.

“The hottest I’ve ever seen was 158 numerically — but I did see one of our thermometers just say ‘HOT.’ And so I want to know at what temperature it just goes to ‘HOT.’

“If it’s 100 degrees outside ambient temp, I’d say we’re definitely looking at somewhere in the 150-160 range inside the car. It’s very difficult to concentrate, especially by the end of these races.”

According to Buescher, the conditions resembled that of a sauna. Something that he has often used in the past as a training tool. He joked that if the car had some air-conditioning, he would definitely crank it on high.

Suffice to say, many drivers were expecting to lose a lot of weight in the form of sweat. In the end, the Richard Childress Racing cars grabbed a 1-2 in the sweltering heat at Texas.

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