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Perhaps somewhat overshadowed by all the talk about Darlington Raceway‘s “throwback” platform this weekend is the return of NASCAR’s low downforce package, incorporating aerodynamic changes first unveiled at Kentucky Speedway earlier this year.
Three significant changes have been incorporated into the Sprint Cup Series package for Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 (7 p.m. ET, NBC/Live Extra, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR) that differs from the package used in the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky in July.
The Darlington spoiler will be 3-1/2 inches (instead of 3 inches) and the splitter will feature a 1/4-inch leading edge.
Also, the tires to be used at Darlington were built specifically for this particular low downforce package. The build was determined after a one-day test in July with drivers Matt Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing), Brad Keselowski (Team Penske) and Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Racing).
There is no change in the size of the splitter extension panel, which was set at 25 inches for the Kentucky event.
Driver feedback, for the most part, was positive following Kentucky. But Jason Ratcliff, crew chief for Kenseth, noted that differences in the two tracks and other considerations would have an impact this weekend at Darlington.
“It’s going to be a lot different … because we haven’t run at Darlington at this time of year in a while,” he said. “… Darlington is unique anyway — you run right around the fence, which makes it difficult to pass, but I thought the aero package was good and we were able to work on the car and find some speed and nothing negative with it.”
Fellow Joe Gibbs Racing driver Carl Edwards said he’s looking forward to putting the low downforce package back on the track.
“The way we’ve been running lately and the way this package drove at Kentucky, I mean to me Darlington is going to be like Christmas in September. I’m pumped,” he said.
So About Those Tires
The tire combination selected by Goodyear will feature the same left-side tire code used at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year with a right-side tire code that was run at Kentucky.
“We had a very minimal change in grip at Kentucky from what we raced there in 2014,” Greg Stucker, Director of Race Tire Sales for Goodyear, told SiriusXM NASCAR on Wednesday. “Just a little bit more grip on the left-side tire, and the results of that particular event I think were very, very positive.
“I think the low-downforce package showed a lot of potential. I think a lot of people walked out of there thinking that was a really nice package. It certainly reduced grip, put a lot of control back into the drivers’ hands. Did a lot of things that I think people were looking for.”
Stucker said a “considerable amount of grip” has been added to the Darlington tires, with hopefully will offset some of the aerodynamic grip lost with the aero changes on the cars.
“The reduction in downforce going from the standard 2015 (package) to the low-downforce package increased lap times by about three-quarters of a second, 7/10ths to 8/10ths, something like that,” he said. “That much slower. When we put the grippier setup on, it gave us about that same 7/10ths to 8/10ths back.”
A December test at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2014 actually provided some of the initial data for the low downforce tire build.
“We went back there again in March of this year to confirm that tire package for a low-downforce setup that at the time was thought to be run in the (Sprint) All-Star Race,” Stucker said. “So we had a lot of work done in a similar configuration. Historically Darlington and Charlotte are similar. We run the same right-side tire there, slightly different left. But it gave us a real good starting point for where to go back to Darlington so we did that.”
Riding a Blue Streak
The teams and track officials aren’t the only ones on board with this year’s “throwback” theme for the Bojangles’ Southern 500. Even Goodyear is going retro, returning to a logo design used in the 1970s.
At that time, the logos and markings on each tire were hand-painted — that won’t be the case this weekend — “but they’ll definitely have the looks of what we ran back in the ’70s,” Stucker said.
“We had not yet gone to Eagle on our race tires. They were still called Blue Streak Specials.”
The yellow Goodyear lettering seen on today’s Goodyear Eagle tires came into use in 1992.