NASCAR Chairman and CEO: ‘Definitely an improvement’
RELATED: What we learned from Kentucky race, rules package
NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France said the sanctioning body “saw some things that we liked” during Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with a new rules package at Kentucky Speedway. He told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Monday that he’s looking forward to the package being run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month as the sport seeks tighter racing for talented drivers.
A lower downforce package at Kentucky led to a track-best 22 green-flag passes for the lead and more than double the green-flag passes throughout the field from last season, from 1,147 to 2,665. France credited the NASCAR Research and Development Center for taking risks by running a new package in a race as the series reached the halfway point of its season.
RELATED: Inside the R&D Center
“Our group at the R&D Center did a really good job, and they’re taking some risks that are a little bit outside the box of NASCAR,” France said. “We typically wouldn’t be changing packages in mid-stream like this in the middle of our season. But we want to make sure that we’re delivering the absolute best racing that we can. They felt — and I agree with them — the only way to sort that out is not to test it in sort of isolated tests but to do it in real racing time.”
Last week, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell announced a high-drag package would be run at Indianapolis and Michigan International Speedway. France noted that this package will help solve for some of the other aspects of racing that weren’t seen at Kentucky.
RELATED: New rules package at Indianapolis, Michigan
“We’re going to try some things coming up here at Indy where we’ll go the other way,” France said. “I’ll tell you what we didn’t see (at Kentucky) that we’d like to see more of is more drafting. (We) didn’t see as much of that as we would have liked. And more pack racing. You saw that on the restarts but not quite as much as we wanted. So there were a lot of things that we liked. Definitely an improvement on races that have happened at Kentucky.”
France credited NASCAR Senior Vice President of Innovation and Racing Development Gene Stefanyshyn with leading the charge at the R&D Center as NASCAR combines technology with traditional ways of evaluating racing to provide the best product for fans.
“I said a couple of years ago that we were going to use science and stop everybody guessing,” France said. “We use our institutional, been-at-this-60-years knowledge for sure. But you’ve got a group of people now that have filtered it all out. They’ll come up with the right package that rewards the drivers that are working the hardest, have the most talent.
“(Our fans) want tight racing. They want to see close finishes. They want to see multiple leaders, and they don’t want to see a certain package that doesn’t provide that. That’s what we’re striving for. It’s hard to do. Hard to get right. But we’re working at it every day.”
A driver who took advantage of the new package but also excelled on the road course at Sonoma Raceway was Kyle Busch, who has won two of the seven races he’s run and has climbed to 35th place in the points standings since his return from a compound fracture of his right leg and a fracture of his left foot suffered in the season-opening XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway.
Sitting 87 points out of the 30th place, a requirement to be eligible for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Busch has a fan in France. But he’ll need to deliver on the track over the next eight races to make NASCAR’s postseason.
“His determination is quite amazing to already have two wins, especially on the road course where you knew that he had to be a warrior to get through that constant using your feet to break and all that,” France said. “He’s been impressive, and he’ll be a story.
“I would be surprised, frankly, if he doesn’t get in the Chase. I think he might win some more. There’s not many drivers out there that have as much talent as he has. So on the one hand, it’s not even surprising, but given the mountain he’s had to climb, that’s pretty impressive.
“I can personally root for all kinds of things to happen. I just can’t do anything about it. I’m rooting for him, but at the end of the day, this is where the individual drivers and teams have to do it. But I’m rooting for him.”