“It Wasn’t Quite Enough” – NASCAR Leaves Day 1 of Testing With Unsatisfied Drivers

NASCAR had announced its testing schedule in January. Barring a cancellation in the testing for New Hampshire, NASCAR has not deterred from the schedule. Monday and Tuesday were supposed to be the testing scheduled at Richmond, which was supposed to be held in New Hampshire. However, it doesn’t seem like the testing bore desirable fruit, as of Day 1.

It is the drivers who can provide the best feedback on the vehicles, and it looks like they were not quite satisfied with the performance of the cars. 

NASCAR cars have received their fair share of criticism over the years, and NASCAR has always made it a point to continuously improve and improvise based on the feedback received. NASCAR is supposed to test on both Monday and Tuesday with a group of 6 drivers, but it didn’t begin on the best note.  

VP of vehicle performance at NASCAR talks about drivers’ feedback after the text

Things did not look up at Richmond as Eric Jacuzzi, the Senior Director of Aerodynamics for NASCAR, made the analysis of the feedback received from the drivers. William Byron, Christopher Bell, Noah Gragson, Harrison Burton, Ryan Preece, and Justin Haley are the six drivers who are scheduled to do the testing. The purpose of the testing was to make an effort towards limiting the turbulence or impure air emitted when cars are racing amidst traffic. Moreover, the drivers will also try out new softer-compound tires from Goodyear as a part of the test. It is also supposed to test out a fresh underwing specifically for road courses and short tracks. However, what Eric Jacuzzi said was a source of disappointment for fans.

It showed just how much more work NASCAR had to do on the new innovations it planned on introducing. In an interview, Eric Jacuzzi clarified what day 1 of the test had made evident.

“We did the group runs, we wanted to see – ‘okay let’s line them up like a real race and see what happens. And then let’s invert them and see just how fast these guys can get to the front.’ So I got the feedback from the drivers. There was a lot of feedback, but see, it wasn’t quite enough,” he remarked. He went on to mention exactly what the drivers had complained about, and where exactly the scope of improvement lay. 

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Elton Sawyer, Senior Vice President of competition at NASCAR, has mentioned that the test is for a short track package that NASCAR has newly introduced. A new front splitter was being tested to improve the overall racing product. Once it passes the final tests, it can be introduced in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. However, it first has to improve what drivers feel is lacking.

Jacuzzi has reported that quite a lot of complaints that came from the drivers after the first day of the test were in relation to the newly introduced tires. The 400 laps that the drivers tested made them feel that the tires were a major disadvantage and Jacuzzi feels that the amount of work done as of now is not satisfactory. One can only hope that further tests finalize the product for better race quality that also isn’t heavy on the environment.

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