NASCAR TRACKS LAYOUTS

VARIETY OF TRACKS ADDS SPICE TO CUP SERIES

Being a successful NASCAR Cup Series driver not only requires talent, it also demands adaptability behind the wheel across all lengths and layouts of race tracks.

A driver may be great when it comes to turning left on an oval, but if he or she can’t also turn right with equal aplomb on a road course, or doesn’t know how to master the draft on a superspeedway, that driver may be destined for a career of mediocrity.

Virtually every Cup Series racer has struggled on certain layouts during his/ her career. Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick both labored on short tracks early on. Martin Truex Jr. won only three races in his first 10 full-time Cup Series seasons, before exploding for 28 more wins and a championship in the subsequent eight seasons.

They didn’t suddenly become greater drivers overnight. Rather, as the old saying goes, practice makes perfect – or in this case, ultimately made drivers better on tracks the more frequently they raced on them.

Kyle Busch, now the winningest active Cup Series driver (59 wins) since seventime Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson retired following the 2020 season with 83 wins, agrees.

“The biggest key is studying all the race tracks, learning as much as you can about each one,” Busch once said.

That’s why he competed in so many Xfinity and Truck Series events earlier in his career, many in preparation for a Cup Series race that same weekend, to try and get an edge on his competitors. The results speak for themselves: Busch also has 102 Xfinity Series wins and 61 Truck Series victories.

Yet, even some of the greatest still never quite got the handle on certain tracks.

Johnson, who thrived on intermediate tracks between 1 to 2 miles – earning 49 of his 83 Cup Series wins, including 26 on 1.5mile tracks alone – had one Achilles’ heel throughout his career. In 40 career starts on road courses, he managed just one win (Sonoma, 2010).

NASCAR Cup Series racing today has evolved significantly from even just 10 years ago, with the greatest variety of race tracks the sport has ever seen. This season, Cup Series cars will race on 29 different tracks or track layouts, including a points-paying event on a temporary dirt track, plus an exhibition race on a temporary

ROAD COURSE Circuit of The Americas short track that will only be a quarter-mile long.

Let’s break them down:

Short track (under 1 mile in length): Martinsville (.526 miles),

Bristol (.533 miles concrete surface), Bristol (.533 miles temporary dirt surface), Richmond (.750 miles) and the preseason exhibition race at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (.250 miles temporary oval).

Intermediate track (1 to 2 miles in length): Phoenix (1 mile), Dover (1 mile), New Hampshire (1.058 miles), Gateway (1.250 miles),

Nashville (1.333 miles), Darlington (1.366 miles), Charlotte (1.50 miles), Homestead-Miami (1.50 miles), Kansas (1.50 miles), Las

Vegas (1.50 miles), Texas (1.50 miles), Atlanta (1.54 miles) and twin two-mile tracks at Michigan and Fontana.

Superspeedway (ovals or tri-ovals more than 2 miles in length):

Pocono (2.5 miles), Daytona (2.5 miles) and Talladega (2.66 miles).

Road courses (varied lengths): Charlotte ROVAL (2.320 miles),

Indianapolis (2.439 miles), Sonoma (2.520 miles), Austin (3.427 miles), Road America (4.048 miles) and Watkins Glen (2.450 miles).

VARIETY OF TRACKS ADDS SPICE TO CUP SERIES

SHORT TRACK Bristol Motor Speedway

BY JERRY BONKOWSKI

SUPERSPEEDWAY Daytona International Speedway

INTERMEDIATE TRACK Las Vegas Motor Speedway

The shift to a more varied style of race track came after years of fan complaints about too many races on 1.5-mile “cookie cutter” tracks, particularly during the playoffs, when half of the 10 races were on so-called “mile-and-a-halves.”

NASCAR began a significant shakeup of the type of tracks on its 36race schedule in 2018, switching the annual fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway from the 1.5-mile oval to its 2.320-mile infield road course. But that was just the beginning.

Then came last season, when road-course racing exploded with seven events – nearly one-fifth of the schedule – including in the infield at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (which also marked the first time NASCAR shared a race weekend with IndyCar).

NASCAR also converted Bristol Motor Speedway from concrete to a temporary dirt track – requiring nearly 3,000 dump trucks of clay.

What’s next? With the 2022 switch to the sports car-style Next Gen car, don’t be surprised if NASCAR holds a Cup Series race on a temporary street course – much like IndyCar’s Long Beach Grand Prix – in the near future.

Drivers: start practicing up now.

Let’s breakdown the type of tracks found on the circuit:

SHORT TRACKS

SHORT-TRACK RACING HAS BEEN NASCAR’S

heart and soul since its formation more than 70 years ago. The King, Richard Petty, earned 138 of his record 200 NASCAR wins on short tracks (including dirt tracks). While their own careers began on short tracks, NASCAR’s three-most active short-track winners pale in comparison to Petty: Kyle Busch has just 16 wins, while Denny Hamlin and Kurt Busch each have 10 wins. Joey Logano is the only driver to win on all four of the current short tracks: Martinsville, Bristol (concrete), Bristol (dirt) and Richmond.

INTERMEDIATE TRACKS

WHEN JIMMIE JOHNSON RETIRED AFTER THE

2020 season, he took not only his seven NASCAR Cup championships with him, he also took a grand total of 61 victories on intermediate tracks. Even former teammate Jeff Gordon had fewer wins on 1- to 2-mile tracks at just 49. And hard as it may seem to believe, Richard Petty only had 42 wins on intermediate tracks. Johnson’s successor as winningest active driver on intermediate tracks is Kevin Harvick with 45 triumphs. Surprisingly, it’s not Kyle Busch, who only has 33.

SUPERSPEEDWAYS

THE MAN KNOWN AS “THE INTIMIDATOR,” DALE

Earnhardt, may have won the Daytona 500 only once, but he’s still NASCAR’s all-time winningest overall driver on superspeedways with 15 total wins: 10 at Talladega, three at Daytona and two at Pocono. Richard Petty is next with 14 (10 at Daytona and two each at Talladega and Pocono). The winningest active driver on superspeedways is Brad Keselowski with just eight victories: six at Talladega (including his lone Cup Series win in 2021), and one each at Pocono and Daytona.

ROAD COURSES

JEFF GORDON (9) AND TONY STEWART (8) ARE

the NASCAR Cup Series’ all-time winningest drivers on road courses. But those marks will likely fall soon, perhaps as early as this season. The winningest active road-course driver is Chase Elliott, already with seven wins (out of 13 total Cup Series wins), all in the last four seasons. The next two closest are Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., both with four wins apiece. Don’t feel bad, guys: Richard Petty won only three road-course races in his illustrious career.