How can you not be romantic about NASCAR?
But no, seriously, the finish to the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix on Sunday was everything good about Cup Series racing on road courses. Four of the best to do it over the past decade duked it out for the win, and while they occasionally leaned on each other, they never truly roughed each other.
It was a clinic on how to get right up against the edge but without going over it.
The young Late Model and Legends Car drivers of today have this pandemic of aggression where they more than ever before just use the bumper without ever trying to force a mistake or set up a pass.
They learned it from what they see on television and hopefully Sunday served as a lesson for how much respect there is to be earned from doing it the right way amongst four guys who will continue winning races for years to come.
And with the exception of the first five laps, where Ross Chastain seemingly cleaned out Chase Elliott’s clock on the first corner; plus whatever that was between Austin Cindric and Ty Dillon, that was a really professional but still aggressive NASCAR race.
What was most disappointing, however, was just how much of a subset of the fanbase felt let down by it. NASCAR has conditioned so many people to wait for the controversial social media clip snippet of a moment that it’s somehow less of a race when it didn’t happen.
This changes everything!
Playoff implications!
Look at what he just did!
Sometimes, it’s still a good race when everyone largely takes care of each other and races hard for the win and that can be fantastic too. Â
Bravo Goodyear
It’s easy — after three years of minimal progress with the NextGen car — to take NASCAR and Goodyear seriously when they see the racing on short tracks and road courses can be improved purely through the tires.
The skepticism is warranted.
After all, this is the same tire manufacturer that keeps producing a softer compound and says ‘this is a soft as we can go,’ before doing it again, and doing it again, improving the racing product each time.
Even this coming weekend at Phoenix, Goodyear is going to introduce its ‘softest short track compound yet’ as an option tire alongside the primary tire, which was ‘the softest short track compound yet’ last year.
These cars are still too draggy and have too little horsepower for how bulky and heavy it is but real credit has to be given to both parties for continuing to push forward to get this car even remotely in the ballpark for both of these disciplines.
Circuit of the Americas was a great example of that as ‘the softest road course compound yet’ did everything it was supposed to do. Sunday afternoon looked very similar to Cup Series road course under the previous generation race car or even its Saturday counterpart in the Xfinity Series.
Drivers were frequently over the limit of the tire and there was 2-3 three seconds of legitimate fall off that teams could control with their setups or driving styles. When the final caution came out with 16 to go, there was a real decision to be made in whether to give up track position for tires or vice versa and the field was split in that decision.
That wouldn’t have been the case a year or two ago and that credit has to be given to Goodyear and NASCAR for continued efforts to produce these results.
The Superior COTA
While it remains an open question about NASCAR’s future at Circuit of the Americas, the decision to move this weekend from the Grand Prix layout to the shorter National Course was a masterstroke.
For one, the 2.30-mile layout is obviously shorter than the 3.46-mile layout, which means leaders were in traffic more quickly and more frequently. And while the shorter course eliminated two passing zones, it also sent drivers into the best passing zones in Turn 1 and Turn 6A with greater frequency.
Specifically, what was eliminated was the long straightaway, which was designed with Formula 1 DRS zones in mind, but isn’t applicable to NASCAR.
The results were undeniable, the EchoPark Grand Prix producing 20 green flag passes for the lead, a record that tied Riverside in both 1970 and 1980. But this race also passed the eye test too. This wasn’t a loop data special.
Speedway Motorsports, which holds this date and leases the track from venue owner Bobby Epstein, has a lot of options for what to do with its dates. There’s always Nashville Fairgrounds looming in the background pending a deal with the city but also any other initiatives Marcus Smith might want to try in the same way NASCAR itself has gotten creative with street courses and stadium events.
But if all parties decide to throw it back in 2026, the COTA short course is a no-brainer.
Back to normal
As much as Circuit of the Americas genuinely ruled this past weekend, here’s to the start of the actual season this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, followed by Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Martinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway, all tracks reflective of the bulk of the schedule — ovals where it’s time to see who came up with the best downforce and horsepower packages during the winter months.
The championship standings, while they are what they are, still are not entirely reflective of performance thus far with two drafting style tracks and a road course.
The holes that certain teams placed themselves in over the past month are no less real but it’s still early yet to where the good teams can race their way back up the grid.
With that said, Phoenix is still going to be a little more random in that there will be the option tire, which is effectively a test to see if that ‘softest short track tire yet’ is a viable option for the championship race in November.
But teams will only get on that tire once during the race and it still should be a straight-up downforce, balance and power race come the finish on Sunday afternoon.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.