SPARTA, Ky. — Considering its brief term as a host to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, Kentucky Speedway is still making modest gains at establishing a sense of heritage.
Before last season, the 1.5-mile track’s most momentous occasion was the crowd-choking traffic jam that snarled a large swath of nearby Interstate 71 for its premier-series debut in 2011. That changed last year, with Kentucky’s most competitive race — a 400-mile festival of passing that signaled a major shift in the sport’s approach to aerodynamics.
This year, the Bluegrass State track aims to enrich that sense of tradition in Saturday’s Quaker State 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM) with a new chapter in its story — a repaved surface that seems to have retained the venue’s character, a reconfigured layout with mismatched banking at its opposite ends, and another big swing at aerodynamic nuances that likely will shape the 2017 rules package.
“This is the big unknown with the new surface, the tire, the package — all that stuff,” said Carl Edwards , echoing words that his crew chief, Dave Rogers, shared with him before the race weekend. “And that’s the kind of racing that’s fun to go do. We don’t know what to expect.”
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NASCAR competition officials tinkered with aero setups at four tracks last season, deploying a reduced-downforce package first at Kentucky then Darlington, and then trying an ill-fated high-drag package at Michigan and Indianapolis. The Kentucky rollout delivered on its raised expectations, producing a track-record 22 green-flag passes for the lead and a total of 2,665 green-flag passes overall.
The array of side-by-side racing served not only as a launching pad for further aero changes this season, but as the fulcrum for a closer working relationship between the series’ drivers and its officials.
“I would say this race a year ago was a huge landmark for our sport that maybe goes a little bit unnoticed, in terms of we had a collaborative effort for a rules package and we saw a significant increase, in my opinion, of the on-track product that we saw,” said Brad Keselowski , a two-time Kentucky winner and last weekend’s victor at Daytona International Speedway. “And I think that showcased a lot of hope for our abilities to work together as a sport that has kind of created a wave of momentum that we’re carrying today.”
Edwards finished fourth at Kentucky last season as Joe Gibbs Racing placed its four cars among the top five. But instead of feeling dejection for a Victory Lane near-miss, Edwards was among a chorus of drivers finishing behind race winner Kyle Busch who reveled in the racing produced by downforce reduction.
“I think it was a really big deal,” Edwards said. “If you go back and watch the race, just watch the interviews, you know everyone’s demeanor. Even guys that weren’t in it for the win, everybody got out and said, ‘Man, that was fun.’ NASCAR did a really great job responding to that, implementing a lot of that stuff for this season. After some of these races, it’s got a whole different feel to it. It really has been a good time. There’s been some great races.”
The series makes its Kentucky return with even further restrictions on the effects of downforce and sideforce. Foremost among the changes is a smaller rear spoiler — a 2.5-inch tall version that was also used at Michigan — and the elimination of rear-axle offset or “skew” for a more neutral setup.
That configuration — the likely forerunner to the 2017 package — was tested here June 13-14, immediately after it was used for the series’ first Michigan stop of the season. The only change from then to now was a different right-side tire, designed to better adapt to the fresh surface.
And what a surface it is. The track’s trademark teeth-rattling bumps have been smoothed in certain places, but retained in others — something drivers commonly refer to as “character.” But in repaving, track officials traded one character trait for another by going asymmetrical with its banking — Turns 1 and 2 were increased from 14 to 17 degrees with a narrowing of the racing groove; Turns 3 and 4 remain at their original 14 degrees.
“I think anytime you have a track like that it lends itself to compromises with race car drivers, techniques and car setups, and all those things that tend to open up the box to allow for better racing because whenever there are those (banking) discrepancies, I think that’s when you see mistakes and when you see strengths and weaknesses that vary from car to car and driver to driver,” said Keselowski, who plans double duty in Sprint Cup and the NASCAR XFINITY Series to become more familiar with the new layout. “I think that’s a really good thing for our sport, so I’m interested to see how that is gonna play out this weekend.”