Great racing, Busch win despite delays; track issues to be addressed
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With weepers taking twice as long to address than actual track drying at Kentucky Speedway, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the surface will be addressed before the Sprint Cup Series returns next season.
"That facility from a surface standpoint is absolutely a challenge for us," O'Donnell said. "I think in one case, we got the track dry in two hours, and it took an additional four to address the weepers."
O'Donnell explained weepers as "cracks in the race track where water, even once the track is dry, just continues to pour out of it like a river almost. Sometimes when you put heat on it, like we use to dry the track, it springs up more and more water."
Rainfall along with these spots of water gushing out of the track led to delays from Wednesday through Friday, limiting track time for NASCAR's premier series and canceling Coors Light Pole Qualifying.
"It is absolutely something we're going to address with the folks at Kentucky because we need to be able to get on the race track as quickly as possible," O'Donnell said. "It presented a challenge for us for sure, but we're having those conversations."
The industry came to Kentucky prepared with a new rules package and was willing and able to go ahead with it despite limited practice time. The decision created great racing with more than double the green-flag passes from a year ago and a new track best 22 green-flag passes for the lead.
"You look at the industry and the amount of work that they put into that package really enabled us to do what we did Saturday night," O'Donnell said. "We went in with obviously a backup plan in case we got weather. (We) checked with the garage area specifically Thursday. 'Hey, what are you seeing? Should we stick with the package?' To a person, every team throughout the garage was 'Let's go. We want to do this.'
"So certainly only got about an hour, hour and a half of practice time but those guys are, as we've said often, the best in the world at what they do. They put together some great race cars. Certainly would have liked to have some more time to prepare, but we liked what we saw."
The night ended with Kyle Busch winning his second race in the last three events and climbing to 35th in the driver points standings. Just 87 points out of 30th place, Busch is required to reach that spot in the standings to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup as NASCAR did not waive that requirement.
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While giving Busch and his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team credit for completing half of the what's needed to make the Chase by notching victories, O'Donnell reiterated the driver would have to make the top 30 to make the Chase.
"First, it's an unbelievable story what he's done, coming out and winning the two races that he has," O'Donnell. "You look at Joe Gibbs and Toyota certainly had them covered in Kentucky with four cars up there from his race team.
"We've been clear on where we stand now in terms of being eligible by being in the top 30. Kyle's certainly making a huge run at that right now, and we believe he's more than capable of achieving that goal."
According to NASCAR, Busch will need an average finish of 17th over the next eight races to reach the top 30 and secure a Chase berth. The series' next stop is New Hampshire Motor Speedway for Sunday's New Hampshire 301 (1:30 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network, PRN, SiriusXM) where Busch has a win and a 14.1 average finish in 20 starts.