During Tuesday availabilities with both NASCAR.com and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell discussed a set of important timelines for the next month.
Speaking to NASCAR.com, O’Donnell said the sanctioning body is targeting a public release of the 2016 national series schedules within the next month.
“A lot of work’s been done with the schedule already,” O’Donnell said. “That’s a constant process where, almost as soon as we leave a facility, we start that dialogue. We’re looking years in advance as well.
“We’re pretty well down the road with those discussions with each of our race tracks, and we expect in the next three to four weeks, to be able to get something out to the fans. But certainly we like the way it’s gone this year. Really liked the West Coast swing, and I think you’ll see some consistency in the schedule as we look at 2016.”
The 2016 schedule release neatly coincides with the start of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The opening postseason race is Sept. 20 at Chicagoland Speedway, and teams will likely know the rules for the final 10 races of the season later this week.
NASCAR has used a low downforce package at Kentucky Speedway (and will at Darlington Raceway) and a high drag package at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (and will again at Michigan International Speedway this weekend) over the past weeks.
“That’s going to be fairly immediate,” O’Donnell told SiriusXM when asked about the Chase rules. “It’ll be either toward the end of this week or coming right out of Michigan. We’ll get with all the race teams and tell them what to expect for the Chase, so that’s going to come up quickly on the horizon for us. We want to lock that in for the race teams. It’s not lost on us how much work has been done by all of our teams … we’re really appreciative of the hard work, and we owe it to them to get the word out now and let them prepare for the Chase.”
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O’Donnell also talked about the Watkins Glen course configuration following last week’s Cheez-It 355 at The Glen, and NASCAR’s plan for the future at the venue.
NASCAR uses a seven-turn configuration at Watkins Glen, but the course has 11 turns — the section that NASCAR doesn’t use is called “The Boot,” and there was talk of the full 11-turn road course being used in future NASCAR events.
“Next year is probably a little premature,” O’Donnell said. “I think you have to look at the potential of running the boot, obviously there are further conversations with the facility to make sure fans are able to access that area and have the racing experience they can have at other parts of the facility — it’s no secret that seating’s at a premium right now. I think it’s something we’d consider in future, for sure, but there’s a lot of logistics to work out.”