BROOKLYN, Mich. — Drivers are taking a wait-and-see approach to handling for Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 (2:30 p.m. Sunday, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) with the high drag package making its debut at Michigan International Speedway.
Two veteran drivers, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth, agreed that experience with the package at Indianapolis gives very little indication of how the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars will perform at Michigan since the 2-mile paved oval is so different from Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile flat rectangle.
“Indy is really one lane,” Biffle said Friday morning before the opening Sprint Cup practice session. “It was difficult to get close to that car in front of you because of the extra spoiler and extension on the bumper cover. It made it more difficult to get close to a guy to get a run on him. Here, I think that may change with the different lanes, but we will have to wait and see.
“The car is much looser to drive behind another car, as well, so that is why you look for clean air.”
MIS has wide, sweeping corners, making predicting how the high drag package will affect the cars harder to predict after the experience at Indianapolis.
“I don’t know that it will be a lot different in terms of what you feel in traffic and that type of thing,” Kenseth said of the new package at Michigan compared with Indy. “The race tracks are just massively different. Indy is all by itself. And it’s one of the toughest tracks to pass at no matter what package we bring. We’ll just have to see what it looks like on Sunday.”
The package for Michigan includes a 9-inch spoiler on the rear deck (increased from six inches) with a 1-inch wicker bill; a rear fascia extension panel similar to those used for superspeedway events, a 2-inch leading edge on the splitter and a 43-inch splitter extension panel (radiator pan).
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“The original (aero) package … was for Michigan; we had built this package specifically for Michigan and then worked to implement it into Indianapolis,” Steve O’Donnell, executive vice president and chief racing development officer for NASCAR, told NASCAR.com on Tuesday. “We feel comfortable with the package we have set up … but we certainly learned some things at Indy.”
O’Donnell left open the possibility of tweaks to the package after Friday’s practice and qualifying sessions.
“I thought I knew what it was going to look like at Indy, and I was a little bit off, but I am looking forward to today and seeing how it drives,” Biffle said, adding race day would still be a bit of a surprise. “Really the first time we race around cars is when the green flag drops.”
One thing NASCAR heard about the package at Indianapolis was higher heat inside the cars. The sanctioning body reacted by adding NACA ducts to right-side windows to allow greater air flow inside the cars at the Michigan race.
“The race really wasn’t that bad for me at Indy, so I don’t foresee any problems,” Kenseth said of concerns about heat.
Kenseth noted that teams had the option to put in extra air ducts before, but those that did have trouble with heat wanted the extra NACA ducts to be part of the rules package so all the cars would be slowed the same amount.
Temperatures at Michigan are expected to reach highs of 85-90 degrees over the race weekend, similar to the weather during the Jeff Kyle 400 at the Brickyard.
“Mainly the tail extension doesn’t let the air come out from underneath the car,” Kenseth explained as to why the extra heat builds up. “I think there’s a lot less under body air flow and the heat just stays there from the exhaust pipes and the oil lines and everything that’s making heat.”