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Last weekend I went to my first NASCAR oval event. Not my first oval, as I’ve been to IndyCar gigs back in the day, but certainly my first oval NASCAR race meeting. And it was certainly an experience.
The venue was Atlanta Motor Speedway, some 45kms south of the city of Atlanta, Georgia. It’s a huge stadium with capacity for about 50,000 patrons these days (it used to be a great deal more), plus all the obligatory motorhome parking both on the infield as well as overlooking the back straight.
It’s a highly impressive sight that stands tall in the countryside that surrounds it.
With Shane van Gisbergen (or SVG as he’s universally known Stateside) entered in both the Xfinity race on Saturday and then the Cup race on Sunday, it was a busy couple of days.
As you might imagine, the whole oval show is more reminiscent of a football match than a motor race at a traditional road circuit in some ways. First and foremost in that sense is the fact that the majority of spectators turn up at the venue in the afternoon to watch the race, be that Saturday for Xfinity, or Sunday for Cup. They don’t have to spend all day there.
Apart from the motorhome (RV) dwellers, of which there were a decent number, the rest of the fans arrive at the stadium exactly as you would for whatever code of football you’re going to watch. No hanging out for hours, just turn up and see the driver introductions, the fly past and the national anthem and then get stuck into the race with a 3pm start in both instances.
The place wasn’t full on Sunday by any means, partly because it was the first weekend of the NFL, as it happens. But there was a good crowd and a very vocal one.
The boos and cheers demonstrated the passion (the sort of passion that has deserted the sport in Australia these days, unfortunately) amongst the fans as the drivers were introduced, but far and away the biggest cheer was reserved for the fly past by a USAF Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. The respect for the military is quite something.
The Atlanta oval is 2.48kms in length and very steeply banked at each end. It’s flat out in both categories of car, given that the restrictor plate motors are run at this venue. A lap time is just over 30 seconds, so the cars are running around 280 km/h all the time.
That’s like going down Conrod continuously for three hours, apart from pit stops.
Apart from giving me a sore neck as I swivelled in my seat on the team pit stand to see the banking action, it was a great experience to watch and learn some of the intricacies of pack racing with the plate engines, which only produce a little over 400 horsepower.
Momentum is vital, but then fuel saving is a huge part of the strategy as teams try to shorten up stationary times in the pits, even by fractions of a second. These days, with centre nuts as per a Supercar, the Cup cars take longer to refuel than to change four tyres, whereas with the Xfinity cars it’s the other way around.
If you think it looks simple, I can assure you it isn’t. The skill in car positioning at that speed, with constant inputs from a spotter, and appreciating the likely aero effect on your car from those around you, is at a very high level. Seeing the action live gave me a much greater level of appreciation of the drivers talents. Television just doesn’t convey the whole story.
It was also interesting to be able to compare Xfinity to Cup over the weekend, with a bit of an insiders view. The cars really are totally different and the budgets are too. Night and Day. But, like Super2 back home, there are clearly some great young talents in Xfinity honing their skills ready for the Big Break into Cup.
Oh, and now that the Australian Supercars Practice Championship is over (hopefully forever), it’s worth just touching on the amount of practice that both NASCAR categories enjoyed at Atlanta. Zilch, diddly-squat, nada, nothing…… One lap of qualifying and then race.
As for SVG’s weekend, it wasn’t good in terms of hard results, but it was super impressive to see how he’s come on this year on the ovals. This form of racing is so utterly different from anything we do in Australia, it’s remarkable to me how he’s adapted so quickly and got his head around not just the actual driving, but all the rules and regulations that are often alien to us in many ways.
In the Xfinity race, as many of you will have seen, Shane made his own error late in the race by going too high on the banking, where there was maybe some dirt or a little more aero wash, and glancing the wall hard enough to puncture a tyre and mess the bodywork up. However, he had fastest lap for the race, and showed he could easily run in the pack.
On Sunday, the Cup race strategy was to hang back and watch things unfold, whilst also racing when he was comfortable and learning more about fuel saving in the second and third stages. He was in good company for much of the race, with Denny Hamlin who was also being somewhat cautious. SVG demonstrated that he was capable of running with these guys all day, especially in the faster stage one, where fuel saving was minimal and speed was everything.
Only by being up close and personal with the cars on track at a high speed oval, can you really appreciate just how much skill is involved in this racing. It was an eye opener for me. And these Cup cars are very tricky to drive on the limit. Kyle Larson, undoubtedly a top three NASCAR driver, lost his Camaro on his own and shunted in that opening, fast, stage.
Unfortunately, SVG did get caught in someone else’s accident and bent a rear arm trying to avoid the shunt. The repair put him four laps down. He got two laps back with cautions and wave bys but it wasn’t enough in the end to get back on the lead lap.
Whilst the results for Shane weren’t there at Atlanta, huge boxes were ticked. Like Scotty McLaughlin in IndyCar has so impressively shown, the oval success will come for SVG.
This coming weekend sees NASCAR visiting Watkins Glen, or the Marcos Ambrose ThunderDome as it should be renamed! SVG is again competing in both Xfinity and Cup.
I’ve never been there, but it’s steeped in history because of its place in F1 folklore as the venue for the US Grand Prix for two decades. Can’t wait!
