NASCAR takes away downforce for Michigan and Kentucky races
Two Sprint Cup Series races this summer will feature even more tweaks designed to take away downforce from the cars.
NASCAR said Thursday that the races at Michigan on June 12 and Kentucky on July 9 would feature changes to the splitters and spoilers on the cars. The spoilers will be an inch shorter (2.5 inches) and the splitters will be two inches smaller.
“I think we look at it as a never-ending journey; if we can improve we’re going to do that,” NASCAR vice president Steve O’Donnell said via NASCAR.com. “We wanted to go the direction of low downforce, see how that worked, not kind of go all the way in and hope that we are directionally right. And we are seeing that play out. We’ve seen some great racing at the beginning of the year.
“But we also knew that we had some more levers that we could pull if the direction kind of proved out, so we’ve tried some of those things. We’ve tested it and what we’ve also wanted to do is lower some of the corner speeds to allow for even more passing. That was one of the areas where we’ve seen minimal change, but there are some levers we can pull to really drive that down.”
NASCAR has said that teams have been able to engineer back some of the downforce that was taken away as part of the rule changes for the 2016 season. And while slowly reducing downforce (to help decrease the reliability on aerodynamic grip) can also be characterized as a never-ending journey, NASCAR is responsible for putting itself in the position to have to make the tweaks. Had the sanctioning body been a bit more proactive in recent years, these changes may not be happening at the moment.
However, they are. And it’s a damn good thing too. Last year’s August Michigan race featured the higher-drag rules tweaks and it flat stunk. Michigan deserves to be the track to test out the reduced downforce changes in a few weeks. The Michigan and Kentucky races will also feature rules regarding the rear toe of the cars as well. NASCAR instituted changes to the rear toe at the All-Star Race as a test of sorts. The changes were designed to reduce corner speed.
Many drivers have continued calls for NASCAR to keep taking downforce away. With less downforce in the cars, drivers are forced to use the brakes more and the throttle less in the corners. The reduced corner speed can help facilitate more passing and can also reduce the effects of turbulent air off the cars ahead.
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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!
