Narrower racing surface will challenge Sprint Cup drivers in Sunday’s Food City 500
Drivers negotiate the narrower racing surface at Bristol Motor Speedway during practice for the Food City 500. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Illustrated
BRISTOL, Tenn. – The narrower racing surface in Turns 2 and 4 at Bristol Motor Speedway quickly grabbed the attention of drivers preparing for Sunday’s Food City 500.
Bristol added about 160 feet in SAFER barriers in the two turns in addition to what was already there. The goal, in addition to added safety, was to narrow the racing groove so that drivers may have to beat and bang more to gain positions.
“It got my attention the first few times coming off the corner,” Hendrick Motorsports’ Mark Martin said. “You get used to it, but you’ve got to pay attention and keep it in mind.”
The 0.533-mile, high-banked, concrete oval was resurfaced in 2007, increasing the racing groove by about four feet wide. Some of that extra width was taken out with the extension of the SAFER barriers.
“You could tell off four it’s narrower,” Roush Fenway Racing’s Matt Kenseth. “I think as long as we’re spending the money on SAFER barriers when you put all these people in here, we should just put them all the way around every track on the outside and inside. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about it and there wouldn’t be all those weird transitions.
“I know that they really don’t want to spend the money for them, but that would make the tracks safer anyways. It’s kind of weird because you come off and there’s the SAFER barrier and then it goes away from you and the wall is half-a-car length away from you and then it comes in again. I wish they would just put it all the way around everywhere.”
Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon agreed and said he might point that out to track owner Bruton Smith.
“I still have to find Bruton – it’s not like him to run out of money halfway through a project and just end it like at the start/finish line,” Gordon said. “I got to give him a hard time about that. I think they should’ve taken it all the way down the straightaways.
“That’s going to certainly make track position a little bit more challenging here.”
The biggest challenge could come on restarts.
“When you restart the race in about 10th spot, and you’ve got everyone crowding you up, I think you’re gonna wish you had that extra three or four feet,” Roush Fenway Racing’s David Ragan said.
Tony Stewart said he didn’t notice it much in practice Friday.
“They paint [the walls] white every week so we can see them and where they’re at you, know you can’t go any further than that so you just use as much track as you can,” Stewart said. “You can move it five feet and we probably wouldn’t know the difference.”
While some drivers said it was noticeable, it is not as if the entire track was repaved.
“We did have a little excess room,” Martin said. “About half of what they took we really didn’t need and really didn’t use, so that’s a good thing.
“We really only gave up about a foot-and-a-half. It is a smaller change than a repave or a lot of the changes that we’ve experienced through the years. I really don’t expect it to be a major thing, although I do expect to see a few stripes on quarter panels from that standpoint.”
