Over the past 5 or so years NASCAR has been upping its presence on road courses. While for many years they ran two races at these types of tracks with Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International they have since made it a much bigger piece of the NASCAR schedule pie. Now though many are saying that the series has oversaturated itself with road courses. With that today we look into this and see what could be done over time to possibly change the sport for the better with/without these tracks. So let's look into NASCAR's road course problem. How they can fix it?
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55 comments
What is your favorite NASCAR road course?
watkins glen
Sonoma,Portland and Watkins Glen
The roval
Also Canadian Tire raceway
Indi
The tracks need to be placed at different times on the schedule. The big one is that Sonoma should be when NASCAR heads to the west coast after Speedweeks.
I like that and then move COTA back a few weeks, say after the short track streak right before Dega
Exactly. No need to go all the way to California for just one race and then pretty far back east to nashville
Yes exactly. If it was balanced a little better this wouldn’t be an issue at all.
@BussinBlaneyThere is a break in between Sonoma and Nashville.
Agree. And they they always seem to have Indy Road Course & Watkins Glen back to back weeks. I love road races, but 2 weeks in a row is no good.
Well, COTA was pretty exciting to watch, despite the messy ending. But if we can get back to 2016 levels of good racing, I think it’s worth it
CotA was fantastic up until the end!
My favorite Road Course is probably COTA. So big. So challenging. And it allows for tight corner racing.
COTA would be my favourite IF they moved the start line to between turn 1 and 2
And it’s an F1 track outside of a big market like Austin TX
I flew down there this spring to see the race. My cousin had never seen a NASCAR race loved every minute of it. Would definitely go back
COTA would be great if they moved the start / finish line as someone else suggested OR just did single file restarts.
The outside line at COTA gets completely hozed. Especially when drivers can’t help themselves and continue to create cautions (intentionally or unintentionally) late in the race.
To me, this isn’t a problem but I understand why some believe there should be 0 or limited road courses on the schedule. I love road courses. 10 wouldn’t be too many for me. Perhaps its because I love racing and not just NASCAR.
10 is too many. There are only 6 short track races. 9 is you want to include Gateway and Phoenix.
Think 10 is too much. I think we get rid of Indy and replace it with the brickyard. Get with of Chicago and bring back Chicagoland. I say we get rid of a Phoenix race and bring back Road America
@Acuto I like your idea. I think 6 is the right number of road courses for cup. I was just saying I wouldn’t be opposed to 10. They can change the Fall Charlotte race back to the oval also.
@NAPARacingFan 927 get rid of some of the tracks that get rained out every year
In that case, you’re already catered for with Trans-am, Weathertech Sports Cars and the SRO GT Series. I think there’s room for some road courses in NASCAR but too many moves the sport into a very crowed market.
Many of the markets Nascar wants to enter only have Road Courses suitable for cup racing, so while a sizeable section of the fanbase doesn’t like the increased presence on the schedule I fully understand why it has happened.
And there are some markets with perfectly fine ovals that have absolutely no races in the area (Pikes Peak)
@Craig Stephenson Exactly. Like I said, Evergreen Speedway just outside of Seattle would need some track work to meet NASCAR requirements, and if they can get the short track package figured out, that could be a really great race.
A good example of your main argument here is the Portland race last week in the Xfinity series. That race was GREAT, but “no one out west wants NASCAR” (lies). Evergreen would be perfect as well, and either track would expand the reach of NASCAR to the Pacific Northwest!
The key will definitely be to diversify the locations of the tracks, whether or not the tracks are road courses or ovals. Make sure the vast majority of the country has a cup race at least once a year close enough that they could attend should they be able to. Even have one or two international races a year, maybe one in Canada and one in Mexico or overseas. They could designate certain race slots for certain regions instead of specific tracks (like giving a spot to New England or the Pacific Northwest instead of New Hampshire or Evergreen/Portland). That way, fans can have a rotating schedule with more track variety and better odds of a race close to them, NASCAR can keep experimenting with their schedule and reach new fans in areas they don’t normally explore, and more tracks can enjoy the bigger fan attendance and income that can help them continue to maintain and improve themselves. Drivers also get to benefit from the different styles of racing that the variety of tracks provide as they learn and potentially develop new strategies.
@The Phamily It’s a game of numbers, if you go to google trends for instance while the rural south tends to have a highest density of Nascar fans, if you divide it by percentage of population you’ll find that some big markets still have a of people that are interested in the sport
I feel like the Garage 56 entry at Le Man could be a big test for a future road course package for NASCAR.
I really like that idea
I disagree. Have you seen the technical tear down videos that just came out this week? While there are some common parts, they have changed a lot of the car. The front tire is a half an inch wider, the rear tire is an inch and a half wider. The car is 2 inches longer. The engine is farther back towards the driver. They may be able to learn a thing or two, but I don’t think the car is economically feasible to use in general NASCAR. I think the main problem road course racing has now is the bodies of the car are too rigid and people feel like they can just beat and bash on each other which completely screws up the restarts. I don’t think you can change that, but if the cars were a little vulnerable I think they would have to be a lot less crashing on restarts. Everyone just barrels into turn. One cars who have been running up front all day get crashed and get sent to the back, which is blatantly unfair.
@sethbomgardner9030 The Aero package would be a great. I dont think anyone would want to all the other stuff, but just aero would work. That’ll keep guys off of each other bc they don’t want to lose downforce by damaging a splitter or losing canards.
I love that Nascar is building a repertoire of tracks, because I think the future could be a base set of tracks that run yearly, and another set of tracks on some amount of rotation. Perhaps the Roval becomes an alternating configuration of Charlotte every year. Chicago and Nashville can alternate between ovals and street courses. Places like Daytona or Indianapolis can add extra dates every few years with their road configurations. It may be unrealistically expensive, but that novelty that made Nascar put dirt on Bristol and run the road course at Indy is certainly a draw, and a race you see every other year has a shine the regular tracks lack.
I really like the idea of having a rotating track list. Maybe that’s the only way we get Nashville Fairgrounds back on the schedule, by having it every other year.
I think rotating tracks would definitely help some of the attendance issues. We’re seeing. If a race is there every other year you’re definitely going to get a higher percentage of stands filled.
We need Mexico City and Montréal back.
I like your idea about 4-5 road courses a year to be able to switch the schedule. I just wish they’d move some track dates around with the weather delays we’ve had the past few years..Sonoma looks better in May
i love the fact Nascar is doing more road courses, watching ovals can be a bit tedious at times. It gives it a Aussie Supercar feel to it.
Particularly with Van Gisbergen heading over to do P91 for Chicago
There may be 10% less TVs on but road courses have a much higher percentage of awake viewers! Sleeping viewers don’t see the commercials!
Then just watch Aussie Supercar racing (or literally any other form of motorsports that isn’t drag racing or dirt). Why bloat a racing series with road courses, where both the cars and drivers aren’t suited, and that the broadcast viewers don’t watch?
I love road course racing. It makes me wish there was a nascar series that was nothing but road courses. I say keep the glen and Sonoma and rotate the other 2 or 3 for different road courses.
The place I want to see is the Cleveland Airport as an INDYCAR/NASCAR double header. The long WIDE straightaways with open field would lead to incredible racing. Watching an old IROC race, it’s a shame no one has revived this race.
I like the idea of 5 with Sonoma, Glen, and COTA being mainstays, and the other 2 being a rotation. Would be cool to see like Sebring or Road Atlanta have at least a 1-off
4-5 is a great number to fall behind, but five woukd be great. Sonoma, the Glen, and COTA are great fixtures to the schedule, but I do have an idea for the last two. The rotating road courses is a good idea. There are many road courses in the country that need to be seen, such as Portland, Pacific Raceways, Mid-Ohio, Road Atlanta, Sebring, etc. Let a selection of these tracks rotate out. For the fifth, there was news that NASCAR could be racing Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as early as 2024 in Canada, maybe a rotating international road course could work with Montreal, Mosport, and Mexico City to name a few with future exploration to European countries; this can help build an international audience, much like how F1 is doing.
Canadian Tire Motorsports Park outside Toronto Canada…
@American Walmarts Canadian Tires is also known as Mosport.
i think right now the schedule is in a good place. i enjoy no stages, and the strategy of road courses. i may be biased because COTA is now my home track, but its really changed my view on road courses
I rewatched the 2015 Sonoma race and it’s underrated imo. I can’t think of too much footage of Jeff Gordon behind the wheel, but they did an excellent job showing his brake/throttle inputs on the pedal cam along with his steering inputs. Ever since I started watching F1, I’ve really been on a journey trying to understand most of the drivers’ driving styles and observing how they place the car in each corner. One problem, Clint Bowyer should be doing that and telling us. Honestly, if Fox can get Gunther from HAAS F1, I hope they get someone like Rob Wilson or Peter Windsor to do commentary but doubt that’ll ever happen. And while yes, the tracks that use the most brakes like the road courses and short tracks haven’t produced the best racing lately, there’s still so much to look at on top of strategy and other factors.
I remember that now. Man he was smooth going around that track. Sucks they missed the race setup that weekend.
I pretty much agree. Indy Road and The Roval need to go. I also like the idea of maybe not having as many road courses one year and then having more the next. I feel like in the years that they dont have as many road courses, they could play with the double header weekend idea some more since i thought that was fun.
Even though racing at Indy suck I def would give that back to the Oval instead of the road course but I love the idea of a experimental race date on the schedule, Ex: international race, race on beach of Daytona, new street course race like Vegas or any other experimental type race. I thinks it’s always good to test or push the boundary to insure the sport stays fresh and exciting.
The Garage 56 Le Mans entry is proof that Nascar is capable of taking on road courses. I seriously hope they consider making a new racing series for it.