Rules verdict? 'Sold. Keep doing it'

Stats weren’t the only palpable result of the new reduced-downforce rules, which shaved inches off the rear spoiler, front splitter and the splitter extension panel in the hopes of promoting passing. The other promising yield was watching drivers grapple with their cars’ handling, making the cars dance through the track’s bumpy turns.

For all the unknowns after a rain-plagued three days leading up to Saturday night’s 400-miler, the theory of placing a greater emphasis on driver input and skill seemed to remain a given.

“I think it was awesome,” said Darian Grubb, Edwards’ crew chief on the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota. “We had a lot better show. You saw cars spinning out on their own, slipping and sliding around. I thought it was really close racing, passes for the lead — stuff we haven’t seen in a long time.”

RELATED: More rules changes to come at several other tracks

A track-record 11 caution periods stoked some of the increased competition, with cars fanning out three- and four-wide on almost all of the event’s frenzied restarts. But the other common thread was the package itself, which kept the action going well after the green flag re-emerged.

The competitive nature bodes well for the lower-downforce package’s next scheduled race, Labor Day weekend at Darlington Raceway. By then, NASCAR officials and Goodyear hope to have a softer tire to match up with the package. Such a compound wasn’t available at Kentucky because the tire-maker’s allotment of race-ready rubber had already been produced when the rules change was announced.

Even though the tire-plus-package combination wasn’t perfectly meshed Saturday night, third-place finisher Denny Hamlin applauded the move as “something we can build on.”

“They’re close. The tire definitely could be a little softer. I wore one out just grinding on it, abusing it too much,” said Hamlin, who made up two laps lost with his early woes. “That’s on me, but when you abuse a tire, you should not get rewarded for it. We’ve made our tires so dummy-proof over the last 10 years that anyone can just abuse them and abuse them with no consequence. I abused mine and I wore it out. That’s what racing’s all about. The drivers, our hands are uncuffed with this package. We’re able to manhandle the cars and really be aggressive with it.”

Four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, who wound up seventh in the final Kentucky start of his career, also made a vocal case for a softer tire makeup, which would allow tire wear to become an even greater factor.

“This is not the right tire,” Gordon said. “It is still way too hard. It doesn’t have near enough grip at the beginning of a run. It doesn’t really fall off. The only way you can make a low-downforce package work is to have the proper tire on there. I’m glad we tried it, did a little more work, I’m looking forward to trying it again.”

With a similar package teed up again for Darlington, just two races before the field for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs is determined, optimism seemed to flow from those on pit road post-race at Kentucky. Even so, several drivers and crew chiefs said more could be done to take downforce away, helping build on the rules package’s promising first run.

“When the sun was out early when everybody’s cars weren’t dialed in yet, I mean that’s the best racing we’ve had for a while, in my opinion,” Edwards said. “It was when I started in this 10 or 12 years ago and it was really, really fun. Towards the end of the night, everybody got their cars working, the speeds picked up a little bit and you still got some of that spread-out, really hard to pass, but I’m telling you, this is the way we need to go. You let Goodyear, give them some time to build a tire for this, cut about half that spoiler off again, you’re going to have some awesome racing.”