The NASCAR Cup Series had a very memorable show at COTA, though the memorable parts are both good and bad. Today we look back at the 2023 weekend at the Circuit of the Americas and see what can be taken away from it in both good and bad ways. This is how COTA showed the best and worst of modern NASCAR.
Video Credits:
ABC Sports
ESPN
FOX Sports
Motorsports on NBC
NASCAR
NASCAR on FOX
NASCAR Productions
NascarAllOut
NBC Sports
Pichu London
Skewcar
Turner Sports
White Bat Audio
Thumbnail Credits:
Getty Images
NASCAR
NASCAR Images
Outro Song:
Strange Animal (Crowder Remix) by Gowan
Songs:
80s Crime Thriller Soundtrack Playlist – Vice Beach // Royalty Free Copyright Safe Music by White Bat Audio
#NASCAR #Motorsports #racing
41 comments
What did you think of the COTA race overall?
I just can’t get into the road courses. Basically an off weekend for me. I try to like it, but I feel like I am watching a really slow f1 race.
It was a great race until the drivers lost their minds.
Perfect until lap 65.
It was a decent race, but as a Larson fan….more pain.
I will say, the three overtime restarts were a bit annoying to me but otherwise, it was a fun race and bittersweet with Reddick winning with Kurt Busch in the booth.
If it wasn’t for the clownish restarts into turn 1, this would have been a 10 out of 10 race. But because of that, it’s 9 out of 10 for me. Besides the ending, the first road course race with this package felt like a late gen 4/COT road course race.
Man, just a couple years ago, road courses were the cleanest and quickest races of the year. Now they’re what most superspeedway races are, clean for the first 75% to 90%, and after that, the drivers throw their brains into the trash
@TurboMarc yeah I like chaos in superspeedway races (as long as it doesn’t go over 2 overtimes) because it’s expected and part of that style of racing. At a road course I expect a strategy race with little to no chaos
@Dexter Hochstetler True but I think if those series were put in the same spot where there is a late race yellow the same thing would happen. We saw it with the Trucks at the Daytona RC in 2021. Although those series could also be more careful since they have a lower budget
@BikeScout22 And I think that’s a big reason why people want the Brickyard 400 back.
@BikeScout22 yeah, a road course race is supposed to be the cleanest style of track on the schedule.
@BikeScout22 Yea that first corner at cota might be fine for sportscars. But it does not work at all with 40 NASCAR cars out there. They need to get creative with a temporary fix there.
The ending wasn’t a road course problem, it was a NASCAR problem. It does not mean we need fewer road courses on the schedule. It means NASCAR has to change some rules to stop infinite OTs and kamikaze moves at the end.
I worry that the issue is the etiquette amongst the drivers. But it’s bred by the need to win due to the current points system. It undoubtedly provided exciting moments like the hail Mellon, but I worry that this kind of racing is inevitable without changing scoring systems (or penalizing drivers, which opens up a Pandora’s box)
Overtimes in road courses take a very long time because it’s 2 laps no matter the lap distance, that’s why I was turned off when they went to 2OT
They should get rid of OT almost entirely for road courses and have localized yellows. If it’s a full course yellow then fine I guess you can go into overtime. But a full course yellow is not necessary to get debris from a blown tire off the racetrack.
A others dirt racing rule is needed. Crashing rule that a restart to be changed to get some clean racing going
and part of the issues are the indestructibility of the cars
I was so disappointed with the finish, especially after the amazing clean racing throughout the day. Glad Tyler held strong and won, just wish it was a good battle against Willy B
With all the green-white-checkers, I’m genuinely surprised that Tyler just ran away with the win rather than a good battle with William Byron.
@TurboMarcyeah I’m surprised Byron took the outside line, once he did he just never had the position to battle Reddick
I hope they don’t run off Kimi Raikkonen and the others with the punting. I liked seeing them compete.
Hopefully more races will get rid of stage cautious other than road courses
This is what I wanted them to do all along, and I thought this was what they meant when they said “stage racing” not the contrived stop the field and award stage points. They have electronic scoring, just let the race play out naturally and award the points and show the winner of the stage on the screen. That worked, but the unlimited overtime attempts really get crazy and drivers know they can let all hell break loose and crash people to give them more chances. They should only get one attempt in and then call it good, this unilimited attempts just keeps the race going for too long. I miss the end of the race because we stream it and they just cut the feed at overtime.
I think the biggest factor in the overaggression at these races now is actually the cars themselves. The older cars used to be more fragile and prone to getting torn apart, but the Next Gens are super durable, so drivers can afford to use each other up way more. If you look at two years ago, not a single one of those Road Course races was a demo derby aside from maybe Indy, but that was mainly due to the kerb failure. It’s not NASCAR’s fault or the track’s fault. It’s the drivers and the cars.
But parts aren’t
With the old cars drivers were aggressive too, and aggressive driving isn’t a problem, do people not remember “points racing” where drivers barely even tried to win and just rode around and said “good points day” it sucked and was boring, I got so sick of hearing it every weekend.
COTA needs more exit areas for damaged cars, and a NASCAR tower willing to tell heavily damaged cars to GTFO the track before they spread debris everywhere. Honestly this can go for several other larger tracks, too. I hate to see a debris caution from a wreck because the tire falls off halfway back to pit road, when you know darn well they aren’t surviving the damaged vehicle policy clock!
Introducing local yellows or slow zones on road courses might be a good idea.
COTA has plenty of spaces for cars to exit through, every couple of hundred yards or so, although they involve having to reverse or be pulled backwards through. It was designed for F1 and is an FIA Grade 1 circuit.
As much as it would been anticlimactic, I would have preferred the race just end under yellow. The lack of stage cautions is a step in the right directing, but I think nascar should fully commit to races playing out naturally over the set distance of the race.
Yes, it’s when Nascar stopped doing this is when drivers started getting out of hand because they know they can draw cautions if they are aggressive enough.
Yeah, really, your analysis is spot on. Like, the race was superb until the overtimes. One thing that was also really fun was the obvious differences in setup. Like how Reddick was obviously faster than Byron in the corners, but Byron could run Reddick down on the straights.
I think another issue is NASCAR’s general lack of enforcement on track limits; basically if its paved its legal to NASCAR unless they specifically say so(the S’s section for example). But a lot of these tracks are designed the way they are for a reason, ignoring the track limits is asking for trouble, like all the dirt that got thrown on the track in turn 8 creating the caution that bunched the field back up and set up the potential fuel run.
I also feel like until drivers learn how to behave themselves, road course restarts might need to be single file to stop the half-field-divebombs. Probably not a popular opinion but its kinda embarrassing watching the field pile into the first turn like a mobile parking lot and imagining the drivers just hoping they get through pointed straight.
It was great seeing Tyler Reddick get the W
But Considering how the ending went, Road Courses do not need multiple attempts at OT
You nailed it… the good, the bad & the ugly. I agree with you on all points. Overall, it was a very good race.
The race at COTA was fantastic, even with the extra few cautions at the end of the race. COTA deserves to stay on the NASCAR schedule for a long time.
that first corner at cota might be fine for sportscars. But it does not work at all with 40 NASCAR cars out there. They need to get creative with a temporary fix there.
Loved Reddick and Byron racing side by side crossing each other over & wanting to see who would run out of fuel first. Hated Bubba losing his mind again, Suarez hitting Bowman and Ross. Thought the broadcast was great. Kurt Busch & Chase added so much insight that has been missing over the past couple of seasons.
Right on!
COTA is great because they took a bunch of world famous turns and sequences from around the world and made a track and ran it counter clockwise ..You have a Maggots and Beckets sequence from silverstone,,the turn 8 Istanbul,, and turns form Hockenheim,, and some other loosely based on bits from the Red Bull Ring and Such and it’s big and wide so you can really race it up… it’s really a world class circuit