2024 marks the fourth year of NASCAR at COTA, aka the Circuit of the Americas. With this there have been certain expectations of the last three years leading up to this race that were not met in the eyes of many of the fanbase. So today I want to come out and say that I think COTA is getting too much flak for many things that are out of its control in NASCAR. Today I lay these out in defense of COTA…
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41 comments
What are your opinions of COTA?
What did You think of The 2024 NASCAR Race Weekend at COTA?
The race deserves a place on the calendar, but that doesn’t make it a good race, just like Richmond or Pocono have been for several years.
It’s a fantastic facility. It’s definitely worthy of a cup race (the next gen needs to improve on road courses) this track is a world class race course and is great for racing when the cars race good. Bring COTA back!!!
I liked it
The tracks are not the problem. It’s the car mostly but also the package, less hp, and absolutely no tire wear. No road course is the same. They’re all unique.
COTA isnt the problem, the car is. The Xfinity race was very solid.
yeah but the car has been good for everything else. Just get off so many road courses :p
@nickmangona48 Thank you, you have proven my point.
@@TmnTyler2020the Next Gen has repeatedly been horrible at short tracks. We’re taking out 2024 Bristol since that’s a Goodyear issue
@@TmnTyler2020 So many? They’re down to 4 this year…
Would you be saying that without those late race cautions with SVG driving away from the field?
It’s also the case the car and skill discepency in Xfinity is much higher. In Cup, the cars and the drivers are more evenly matched.
Been thinking this since new road courses started being introduced. All these track limit rules are hurting road course racing in NASCAR and fans perspective of it. For example, the roval, spinning out in the last chicane and having to come to a complete stop on the racing surface. It’s not what NASCAR is, in my opinion. Not to mention, with a 3+ mile road course, this is just the kind of racing you’re going to get most often.
We saw an even worse race at Watkins Glen last year (ironically won by Byron too), and most fans, including me, love that track. So this is obviously not a COTA problem; it’s the car and the broadcast.
The car needs a new road course package to make it competitive, and for broadcast, it’s simple: Fire everyone at Fox except Kevin Harvick and LMC, NBC gets Dale Jr back on condition that what he says is gospel (and money)
@@S.K.R.E.Inc. This is how road courses are and it’s how they were before this car or do you not remember guys like Gordon, Montoya, Stewart or even Elliott stinking of the show?
At COTA, they can actually pass and use different lines on some of the corners. At the Glen, there’s none of that and last year’s race was probably the worse race NASCAR has had since the restricted New Hampshire race.
Watkins Glen wasn’t a bad race it was a race race without manufactured drama aka stages which ruined NASCAR everyone thinks every race has to be the best race of the year or it sucks which isn’t true I enjoy competition the faster car wins often in real competitive races without all of the craziness some people want
I’m just glad that we had a clean race yesterday
Ye
Not really.
@@crystaljonIt’s better than seeing every car crash imo
@@grimplayz7565 I meant there were still several spinouts in the race. No non-stage cautions doesn’t really mean a clean race.
Stay on the track. The place is fine. The coverage was awful.
they have a helicopter, stay wide on that through most the race and cut away as needed, we missed so much.
COTA and the Roval are my favorite road courses by far. I thought the race was pretty good, idk why so many are complaining about it. Or mabye it just looked good after watching the god awful indycar race
The race was just meh. It’s not just COTA. With the Gen 7 car, the road course racing as a whole has been a big problem.
Xfinity @ Road America is better than Cup. Loved going to Canada Corner in 2023 for Cup race, but it was a Tyler Reddick first win and a 2-man race. (Mostly Reddick had a car to beat, little overtaking) Indy, Xfinity, even trucks was better at Road America than NextGen car.
Cup is boring at most tracks when compared to Xfinity.
This year, a year AFTER a track repave, we get zero of NASCAR’s series at Road America but trucks at Milwaukee Mile….
*2022 Cup Race
2021 was Gen6 & a better race than ‘22.
Having a high-profile track shared between nascar and F1 is really cool. Problem is definitely with the gen-7 car — easy enough to drive that dirty air becomes a serious problem but unlike F1 doesn’t have any passing aids like DRS to help complete passes.
For me personally, I love COTA, but it does feel different from what NASCAR is used to seeing in a road course (Watkins Glen and Sonoma). I’d say the most notable thing currently being the track limits where, generally, you don’t see that at the more familiar road courses (except for the “bus stop” at the Glen, but that’s only if you completely miss the chicane).
Maybe I’m bias since I follow F1 and IndyCar as well, so I have more of an appreciation for tracks and racing like this. I also grew up a Jeff Gordon fan and loved to watch him win at road courses. But, honestly, I really hope NASCAR improves on it’s road/street racing side because I love motor racing in all forms, and I love how NASCAR has such a wider variety now.
First race I’ve watched in 10+ years because I’ve been watching all your videos. I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching it! I’ll 100% tune in to it the next time it comes up on the schedule
Friendly reminder not all races can be bangers
This was my first time watching COTA personally.
I don’t root for anyone in the Truck series, and therefore, struggle to enjoy them. If I had to recall anything about it, it was the car who lost their rear axle completely.
The Xfinity race was great. It felt like constant action soured by the frustrating amount of penalties.
It’s hard to put my thoughts on this cup race into words.
As you said, I think the biggest issue was the Fox broadcast. I was watching the Bowman and Visbergen onboards during the commercials and I had the weirdest feeling that all the action was happening during said commercials. Of course, in hindsight, it was likely just Fox messing it up and not showing why this race is supposedly good.
I rated this race “Below Average” and while the reasons in this video are good, it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t enjoy the race.
All NASCAR has to do is add more power and all of their road course and short track problems will be solved.
Love COTA. The last lap of the 2022 race was when (after two years of seriously being into nascar) I finally found a driver in Chastain & a team in Trackhouse to pull for each week. Also living in Houston I very much plan to attend the race next year with some friends who aren’t race fans & see if I can help introduce more eyes onto the sport.
Def agree soms chnages to the car & broadcast are needed. Battles outside of the top 10 would be a nice feature at more races
As a new NASCAR fan, I really liked my first road course experience. Haven’t really had anything to complain about yet this season; it’s all been fun to me! I know that’s probably not the case for veteran fans, though.
I would just run the Next Gen at Superspeedways and Intermediate tracks, and run the Gen 6 at road courses and short tracks.
Yeah I know about cost of doing that (making it not acceptable with teams), but hey, we did it in 2007.
You’re spot on on Fox’s coverage, it was bad for this race. But for the racing itself, it was probably one of the better road courses for the Cup car. Strategy played a huge part, and the racing was better than previous. Better race craft broadly speaking and T1 wasn’t the calamity it had been. It was a great race, just poorly covered. As far as racing it (in iRacing), it screams the disjointed and awkward rhythm that every Tilke track does. I hate it. It’s an awful track to race (and track limits are silly in iRacing). And Hermann Tilke and his firm are a scourge on racing, and while COTA may be his best track, that is far from a compliment, as everything he touches has made racing worse, boring, and miserable. I award him no points, and may God have mercy on his soul. Granted, you didn’t ask about that aspect lol.
I didn’t get your broadcast since I’m french, and I think one of the problems with fox broadcasting was the ad segments, it was quite often in the most exciting periods… In France we don’t have as many ads (just after the end of each racing sequences) and following the race was interesting there
Also our commentators were great to see the details and also to focus on Christopher Bell’s strategy that almost worked out + all the rare racers like Kobayashi.
I enjoyed that race! A bit too long in my eyes but quite good anyways!
I was there at the Turn 15 grandstand and it was a good race but the spin outs were a shocker and I was thinking about there was absolutely no cautions for those spin outs and I was thinking “Officials not doing their job to put out the caution… CRAPTASTIC!” but I enjoyed the experience! It was once in a lifetime experience for me especially a track in my neck of the woods from where I live. I’ve heard about this track not only being built but the inaugural US Grand Prix back in 2012 and how it was living up to the hype and expectation but I seriously doubt that I would attend the MotoGP race and US Grand Prix for F1…
F1 is on my list to at least try to attend but it is definitely expensive but also you get tons of people not only across the country but people across the world to attend and pack that place up and it’s equivalent to a worlds fair…
MotoGP is on my list to attend at COTA as well I just never got a chance to get on board to watch a race on television maybe a race here and there to see what it is… but it’s in the outer parts of my racing bubble but as a consideration…
But I hope that NASCAR and SMI will use the track to continue to race there as long as they want as long they put on a great race…