Reader Question: Road Courses

In two weeks the Cup series heads to their first road course of the year at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. With that we recently received a question from reader NascarInSonoma. He asks:

What do NASCAR insiders really think about the road courses? Are they a cool change of pace? Are they genuinely interesting/fun or an unnecessary distraction?

From the earliest days of NASCAR racing, road courses have occupied a unique change to a schedule dominated by ovals; in fact an argument could be made that the old Daytona beach track was a road course. Throughout the better part of the sport’s existence in the last century both Watkins Glen and Riverside Raceway occupied positions in the schedule. Riverside was removed from the schedule in 1989 (and turned into a shopping center) and replaced with Sears Point Raceway (now Infineon). NASCAR’s top series now goes to Watkins Glen and Infineon once per year and the intense debate about their position on the schedule has never been stronger. For NASCAR teams there are positives and negatives to every situation, and the same is true when it comes to road courses.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of road course racing is the cost of building cars you only use twice a year. This is the same though for cars used at Daytona and Talladega. Now obviously you are at those track for 4 races a year, instead of two, and potentially several more (Bud Shootout, The Gatorade Duel, etc.). For the road courses the teams have to put bigger brakes on the cars, different transmissions and completely different suspensions. All that extra time testing, researching and building the cars really adds up and for some teams they are a miserable two weekends. In recent years though with the advent of the COT, the transition of those cars from ovals to road courses is not quite as intense, however it is still a pain.

A large determining factor for teams and their enjoyment of road courses is how good their driver is at said tracks. For instance over at Chip Ganassi Racing, they like going to road courses, maybe not for the extra work, but for the fact that they have a shot of winning either of those races. If there is one thing Juan Pablo Montoya can do, it is road race. On the flip side if you stink at road course racing, or are the hauler driver who has to go to Sonoma, you really don’t enjoy them that much.

As far as facilities I don’t think anyone could make a complaint against the Cup series courses (we’ll get into Mexico on another day); they are as nice or nicer than any facility on the schedule. One complaint I know guys have at The Glen is having to pit the cars backwards. In order to make this work they have to build the fuel inlet on the opposite side of the car, and then of course have to change it back at Sonoma (which until recently had “Gilligans Island” where you did have to pit the cars backwards). As far as the locations go, Watkins Glen is not the farthest North they go to race and Sonoma is not the farthest South, maybe West, but not South.

So in the end, the personal opinions of guys are going to vary. TC and I both like the road courses and I know a lot of other guys in the sport share the same opinion. I also know others who don’t care for them, however in my opinion, they offer a nice break from the ovals and the racing can really be some of the most interesting of the season. So are they a pain? Yeah, but the 50 hours they spend to go to any other race isn’t really fun either.

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