Make no mistake, worn out Darlington Raceway is a treat for competitors and fans alike, regardless of racing platform or rules package but every indication points towards the Cup Series race on Sunday being ‘Too Tough to Tame’ by every definition.
The difference is the track debut of the 750-horsepower tapered spacer up from the 670 used since this car debuted in 2022. Additionally, NASCAR has changed the aerodynamic configuration from its intermediate track setting to those used on short tracks – meaning a reduced underbody, simplified rear diffuser and a 3” spoiler down from 4”.
Denny Hamlin first sounded the alarm about what this would mean earlier this month after sitting in the simulator to prepare for the Goodyear 400.
“One thing I will tell you is that heads up on Darlington, you want to see some cars out of control here in a few weeks,” Hamlin said. “These cars, with essentially little to no underbody because we’re now going to the short track aerodynamic package for Darlington, these cars are out of control.
“I’m predicting four seconds of fall off, it might be more. It’s just the cars with the underbody taken off and that simple diffuser, just even on new tires, just absolutely out of control. So, it’s going to be a wild card race.”
Christopher Bell has also echoed those sentiments.
“I think Darlington is going to be very, very, very different than what we've had in the years past with the Next Gen car so, I'm excited about it,” Bell said. “I think it has potential to look like a much different Darlington race than what we've had in the in the last couple of years.”
Bell pointed to the first true oval track race using the 750 spacer, which produced way more tire fall off and action than anyone was even predicting earlier in the week.
“I just had a ton of fun at Phoenix,” Bell said. “I thought Phoenix was night and day different than what we've had the last, well, since we've started going there, it's been really hard to pass and this race was the first race. I felt like you could actually make your way through the field if you had a better car. I proved that; Ryan Blaney proved that it seemed like.
“If you had a better car, you were able to pass, and I think a lot of that a lot of that was due to the horsepower and the added horsepower made the track feel slick. The tires degraded. We were sliding around, and the best cars made the way to the front. I think Darlington is going to be more of the same.”
Ross Chastain says Darlington is always fun.
“I only race the old car one year at (Chip Ganassi Racing) and all my other races there have been with Trackhouse,” Chastain said. “And in all my years racing there, we’re always sliding around.
“No, they haven’t slid around as much as the O’Reilly Series car but they slid in their own way. I don’t think we’ve had bad races at Darlington. Darlington, in my opinion, is the best race track in the world.”
Sure, but everyone seems to agree that the racing using the old car and the O’Reilly Series car is the best version of Darlington, and Sunday appears poised to look most similar to that if all the simulation holds true.
Brad Keselowski has made the joke, but also kind of serious, that teams are going to go through broken toe links and tires aplenty on Sunday.
“The biggest thing I’m thinking about at Darlington is to go 50 laps on a set of tires was almost impossible with the NextGen car in the last two or three seasons, and now that we have more horsepower and less aero, I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to go 35 laps,” Keselowski said. “So, keeping up with the tires is going to be a big challenge. The drivers managing it, the teams putting our setups to where it can do it. Darlington is going to be a heavy lift. It’s always a heavy lift, but it’s a heavier lift now, I think, with these circumstances and a lot of unknowns entering the race at Darlington.
“It might turn out no different, but I don’t think that will be the case. I think it’s gonna be a really difficult race.”
His teammate at RFK Racing, Chris Buescher expects passing opportunities to open up like never before with the NextGen car at Darlington because drivers will control the rate of tire degradation.
Some will push for track position early in a run and others will conserve to make it last to the end of a run. There will also be opportunities for drivers to short pit to gain position and try to make it last to the end of a run as well.
“If somebody is going to go be aggressive and really push hard and just wear out tires early, the hope is that you will see them fall off three or four tenths harder over the last 15-20 laps of a run versus somebody that just tries to be more consistent throughout the entire thing,” Buescher said. “I would say that if you have two cars that battle it out from the green flag until a green flag cycle, and are both pushing extremely hard, you’re going to see a minimal difference in fall off, which I think is not going to lead to those two cars being able to trade places as easily at the tail end of a run versus somebody that’s not pushing as hard early. That’s my prediction. I don’t know if that’s completely accurate, but, ultimately, we are all going to be grip limited.”
Buescher still concedes that this car will prefer clean air to complete passes but if there’s no tire left under the car, that simply doesn’t matter as much.
“You’re just going to be looking for some amount of clean air, some amount of grip on the racetrack,” Buescher said. “We’ve seen the bottom, what you would almost call the apron of three and four come in in year’s past. That’s hard on tires, but it is gripped up because it’s not been run in so hard through the years, so is that an option for a couple laps? Probably.
“Is that somewhere you’re gonna run an entire run? I would say very unlikely, so there are some options at Darlington for sure.”
All told, Buescher is just excited for this weekend to see what ultimately manifests.
“Like I said at the beginning, I think we have a lot more questions than answers right now, and I’m excited to see how that all plays out,” Buescher said. "Fortunately, all of our RFK Fords are in group two, so we get to watch that first practice and take notes or point and laugh or whatever it may be that we’re doing, but we will be watching with a sharp eye for sure.”
