BRISTOL, Tennessee. – NASCAR tried feverishly to save its first Dirt Cup Series race since 1970 from becoming a total disaster, those not seen since the 2008 tire debacle in Indianapolis became one of the worst events in the history of the sport.
The Series Cup is scheduled to run Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, where 2,300 Tennessee red mud trucks have filled the famous bullring to do an experimental stab (some might claim) at base races.
But the dirt, Bristol’s 28-degree bench and 3,400-pound lead cars seem to be a terrible fit.
Yes, the drivers had fun playing on the ground, some for the first time since they were kids. But four training sessions on Friday showed that the tires can’t stand the intense wear. The three layers of dirt acted as a cheese grater and, in turn, the tires dug deep holes in the surface.
“The track is a little close and it just makes big crazy divots. It’s definitely not smooth,” said Ryan Blaney, who was the fastest driver in the Cup on Friday.
Led by drivers Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon, both of whom competed last week in Bristol, NASCAR made several procedural changes on Saturday in a desperate bid to save Sunday’s 250-lap race.
The first stage has been extended by 25 laps, the second stage by 50 laps and two competition precautions have been added. NASCAR also assigned teams an additional set of tires.
The added competition warnings create additional opportunities for track preparation.
“We need this program to be fantastic,” said Scott Miller, NASCAR’s vice president of competition. “We have to err on the side of caution.”
NASCAR also faces weather challenges: heavy rain has soaked up dirt and delayed Saturday’s activity.
“We didn’t want to end up in a situation where we had 20 behind gaps and we talked about the Bristol dirt program 20 years later, like we were talking about what happened to Indy,” Miller said.
This “thing” at Indy in 2008 ruined NASCAR fans ’appetite at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Goodyear tires used in the new NASCAR model that year could not withstand the loads and began to explode during the race. To mitigate the damage, NASCAR launched competition precautions every ten or ten laps to force teams to look for new tires.
There were 11 52-lap precautions in a 160-lap race (an average of nine laps of green flag racing in a stretch) and fans haven’t forgotten that yet.
More than 400,000 result in the Indianapolis 500, but attendance at NASCAR events fell well below 100,000. This year’s Brickyard will be held in the field by road after 27 years in the famous oval.
Bristol also made a bold change this year by turning its facilities into a ground race as part of the radical changes to the 2021. NASCAR needed a major shake-up and the ground race was joined by an influx of ground courses. road and new spaces for the most adventurous calendar in the history of the sport.
Bristol, which is called “The Last Great Colosseum,” wanted to take part in the action. The track had 55 consecutive sales and was one of the most difficult entries in sports. But his spring race has faced a sharp drop in attendance, as a constantly changing race date presented annual weather concerns.
So when NASCAR broadcast partner Fox drove a dirt race on the Cup calendar, Speedway Motorsports said Bristol would be the guinea pig.
The decision infuriated Tony Stewart, who successfully hosted seven Truck Series races at his Eldora Speedway dirt track in Ohio, but was turned down for a coveted Cup Series date.
Still, Stewart withdrew the Truck series from Eldora’s lineup this season and openly wondered if Speedway Motorsports was up to the task of handling the challenges of a dirt race.
Bristol had previously become dirt for the outlaw world in 2000 and 2001, and Speedway Motorsports has hosted dirt events at other facilities with mixed reviews. The conditions at Charlotte’s Dirt Track last November meant a chess hunt, but Bristol seemed to have found out last week when it organized a week of trouble-free racing.
Saturday’s qualifying races for the Truck series barely made a turn before thick mud enveloped the windshields and reduced visibility to zero.
“I honestly thought they would go around the corner and never turn around,” said Larson, one of the seven Cup regulars registered for the Truck series event.
NASCAR stopped the heat race and later sent vehicles to the track to turn around and pull some of the water off the ground.
“It’s probably the most uncomfortable I’ve ever had in a race car,” said Kevin Harvick, who has been running his first truck race since 2015. “Really unsafe conditions so far, in terms of vision.” I just had to look to the left and get out of what you know about the racetrack. ”