Happy Hour: Getting ready for the Chase
Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to [email protected] or @NickBromberg. We’ll post them here and have a good time.
Wednesday’s test at Kansas Speedway was a chance for Chase teams (and others) to get an opportunity to test out some configurations for the 1.5-mile tracks on the Chase schedule. Remember, five of the 10 races are at 1.5 mile tracks.
However, the most notable thing about the Chase might have been the experimental car that NASCAR had Austin Dillon test throughout the day. The car had some things that NASCAR reportedly is working on for the future (not 2016). But other than these pictures, we didn’t have a chance to find out much information about the car.
Though it was an open test, no one from NASCAR associated with the test of the car was available for comment. While on one hand it’s understandable that the sanctioning body wouldn’t want the possible low-downforce tweaks for the future to overshadow the final 10 races, given the social media reaction to the pictures of the car, it was clearly the draw of the test for many fans.
Onwards.
We don’t think many people did multi-car runs, experimental car or 2015 car. Heck, no one may have. We didn’t see the entire test – writing and interviews takes up some time – but from what we saw and could hear, it was dominated by single-car runs.
We wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a Gibbs car, simply because having four cars in the final round is almost impossible. Though what would constitute early? First or second round? The driver that could be the biggest wild card is Jeff Gordon. While he’ll be the sentimental favorite to get to the final round, it’s entirely possible based off the way that the No. 24 is running that he could be out of the Chase after the first round.
Thursday’s topic at Chase media day has been restarts and how NASCAR could enforce them in the Chase. We’ll have more on this tomorrow, but we’re not sure NASCAR is in a position to police restarts much more than they have already. Because they’ve given teams a lot of leeway when it comes to determining restart penalties before the Chase, the sanctioning body runs a severe risk of affecting the Chase if it decides to police restarts more heavily starting with Chicago.
There were a bunch of engineers and people around the X-3 on Wednesday. After taking the first pic of the car we took a walk around the garage. Five minutes later after wandering back to the vicinity of the X-3, there were five people in a circle talking behind the car.
That’s a brilliant From the Marbles Nation flag. If you’re missing the reference, NASCAR now has a Chase app where you can create your own “flag” for your favorite driver in the nation concept that the sanctioning body is pushing. If you download the app on your phone and upload a funny picture for your driver’s “nation” send it to us.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
