RELATED: Drivers, teams give initial thoughts on Phoenix enhancements
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Three more Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races will take place at Phoenix Raceway before track officials move the location of the start/finish line at the 1-mile facility.
That move will be one of the final steps in a $178 million renovation project that is expected to be completed in November of 2018, just before the series returns for a second time next season.
Drivers say the change will make for interesting times going forward at a track that has hosted NASCAR national series events since 1988.
“I think it’s going to be a good thing,” Joey Logano, driver of the Team Penske No. 22 Ford and a former winner here, said Jan. 30. “I think you’ll see more action on restarts.”
The current layout sends drivers piling into a very narrow Turn 1, where passing opportunities are almost non-existent. Track position on restarts is crucial.
“You can’t really go three-wide in the corner (now),” Logano said. “We’ve seen what happens when you do. There really isn’t much opportunity to pass on restarts here, that’s why lane selection becomes important. … This opens it up.”
The new location of the line likely means that drivers will immediately fan out after taking the green flag and they work their way through the widest portion of the track. It will be “completely opposite” of the current situation, according to Logano.
“It will be the most open corner entry for a restart that we will have, going into a flat corner that’s basically like a parking lot,” he said.
Drivers will try to spread out, some dive-bombing off the exit of Turn 2 while others hug the high side of the track. But all are headed to the same spot — Turn 3 where the track will narrow with no change in the nine-degree banking.
“Right now it’s not wild in Turn 1 and 2; it’s wild off 2 and into 3-4,” Logano said. “And that’s after half the field has spread out. Now everyone will be on top of each other. They’re going to crash. We’re going to crash, there’s no doubt. It will be a challenge. A lot of opportunity to take advantage of that, good or bad.”
But dive-bombing cars all racing toward a tight turn won’t be the only concern — just getting a good restart in the middle of a corner will present its own set of problems.
“I think it will be really interesting to have the restarts while we are in the turn,” Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said during a break in testing the track on Jan. 31. “You are going to be coming through this corner — imagine if you are 20th, middle of the pack trying to get a good restart while you are in a corner.
“It’s going to be interesting to throttle up out of the turn for a restart.”
WATCH: Dale Jr. takes laps around Phoenix
Earnhardt, a three-time winner at Phoenix said he expects to see drivers “all over the place” going through the dogleg portion of the track just past the start/finish line for a variety of reasons.
“Because on restarts you have guys that accelerate better than others,” he said. “Guys in the right lane, the wrong lane; it’s going to be chaos coming through the dogleg (with) guys trying to shortcut to get into the new Turn 1.
“It will be some action.”
Two other facilities currently hosting Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races have moved the location of the start/finish line — in 1997 Darlington Raceway and Atlanta Motor Speedway moved the line to the opposite side of the track as part of expansion projects.
2000 series champion Bobby Labonte won the first race on the new Atlanta configuration while four-time champion Jeff Gordon won the first race at Darlington following the swap.