Texas. Just the name brings thoughts of “everything’s bigger in Texas” and wide-open ranges and typically warm temps. We have two of those things this week as the track is fairly big for a 1.5-mile setup and the throttles will be wide open much of the race. The only thing we don’t have is the warm temps. Race day will bring mid-60s but Saturday practices have been run substantially cooler than that in the low to mid-30s meaning it’s hard to tell exactly what the drivers have under them for the race.
Speeds at Texas Motor Speedway can hit 200 mph routinely down the backstretch and into Turns 3 & 4. Unlike normal 1.5-mile tracks, Texas generally has more lead changes over the course of the 500 miles with an average of 20 lead changes a race over the last 10 events at the track. However in that same span, five of the winners have started top-five or better with the worst starting spot being P24 last spring and then P15 in the April race of 2016.
The two different banking angles at either end of the track pose some problems in terms of how to enter each set of turns with Turns 1 & 2 being a wider, flatter entrance than that of Turns 3 & 4. The other issue with the steeper banking in Turn 4 is that the entrance to pit road can be tricky trying to back down from 200 mph down to 45 for pit road speeds and often times speeding penalties result.
Weather, as alluded to in the first paragraph, hasn’t been helpful this weekend at the “No Limits” track. It was 85 and sunny on Friday for first practice, during which most drivers focused on qualifying trim instead of race trim, and then lightning shortened the qualifying session late Friday afternoon. With most cars only making one Q lap it’s hard to tell exactly if the cars are starting where they should be, with several drivers making that point during interviews on Saturday. Then on Saturday the two practice sessions, one shortened to less than half its slated time by drizzle, were run at temps in the low-to-mid-30s (which were colder than current conditions in Juneau, Alaska) meaning that the cars will react differently and have more grip than they will in the race. Sunday’s forecast is for 64 and sunny for the race so it will be somewhere between the two previous days. The biggest thing to look at is that in all the sessions run so far, the tires did not fall off nearly that much no matter the temps and so long run speed will be king for the race especially since there have only been an average of 38 caution laps in each of the last four races at Texas.
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