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NASCAR, Motorsport, USA NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Race at Talladega Oct 19, 2025 Talladega, Alabama, USA NASCAR Cup Series driver Josh Berry 21 leads a large group during stage two of the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Talladega Talladega Superspeedway Alabama USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xVashaxHuntx 20251019_rwe_hd1_0186
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NASCAR, Motorsport, USA NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Race at Talladega Oct 19, 2025 Talladega, Alabama, USA NASCAR Cup Series driver Josh Berry 21 leads a large group during stage two of the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Talladega Talladega Superspeedway Alabama USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xVashaxHuntx 20251019_rwe_hd1_0186
Since its inception, the American luge team has often competed against stronger, better-funded European programs. This has made their Olympic success more difficult to achieve. With limited access to advanced tech and financial constraints, the team has sometimes struggled to stay competitive. But not anymore, as NASCAR has come to its rescue.
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NASCAR partners with America’s luge team
According to recent reports, the American Luge team will wear NASCAR branding during the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, also known as the Winter Olympics. NASCAR is the face of American racing to the world, and as per experts, this will only enhance the sport’s visibility on the global stage.
“NASCAR obviously is the face of racing in the United States, and we’re part of the Olympic movement,” USA Luge CEO Scott Riewald said. “We both have strong passion for USA, but also are aligned on things like speed, technology and elite level performance. Just a lot of ways that we can help each other and promote the brand.”
Aside from branding, the vehicle engineers will help the Luge team develop enhanced sleds through aerodynamic engineering and computational fluid dynamics.
Given the importance that aerodynamics and CFD play in modern racing, one can expect the vehicle engineers to enhance the sled technology and make it superior for the upcoming competition.
“The expertise that exists within NASCAR, combined with our sport-specific knowledge really opens up some doors to dig into some questions,” said Riewald, who previously held a role similar to Levine’s as senior director of high-performance projects at the USOPC.
Over the years, the American Luge team reportedly used sleds built with substandard parts, leading to inconsistency, and as a result, they were no match for the top nations, such as Germany, Austria and Italy, among many others.
TotalSim, NASCAR’s CFD partner, is in charge of the entire operation after Mike Levine, USOPC senior director of performance pathways and innovation, stepped up to crack a deal. NASCAR’s Chief Brand Officer Tim Clark traveled to USA Luge headquarters in Lake Placid last year and oversaw the proceedings.
Even though NASCAR and its engineers might not solve the individual performance problem for the luge team, they can surely enhance it with the help of modern technology, especially CFD. While the stock car racing body is trying to uplift the American Luge team’s performance, their own event is in jeopardy due to inclement weather!
Meanwhile, coming back to the NASCAR calendar, it’s Monday, and the Clash is still a bit far.
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Clash received further postponement amid weather delay
On Sunday, NASCAR rescheduled the Cookout Clash race at Bowman Gray from Monday to Wednesday. This is the second time the governing body rescheduled the event due to inclement weather.
“Due to the impacts of historic winter weather across the North Carolina region, the #CookOutClash has been rescheduled to Wednesday, Feb. 4,” A NASCAR statement read. “NASCAR is continuing to work closely with the City of Winston-Salem and NC Department of Transportation. We appreciate your patience as we work toward hosting a safe event.”
According to AccuWeather, the temperature is expected to reach 37 degrees on Monday, 49 degrees on Tuesday, and 41 degrees on Wednesday. However, the temperature will fall back and go below freezing at night, risking snowfall.
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Bowman Gray Stadium (via NASCAR.com)
The dates for the inaugural exhibition race of 2026 were Saturday and Sunday. Due to extreme cold and snow, NASCAR rescheduled the entire event to only Sunday. However, heavy snowfall delayed the event, and NASCAR had postponed it until Monday.
Unfortunately, things did not improve as historic snowfall pushed the event two days ahead to Wednesday. Even though the snow has stopped falling, it will take time for NASCAR to get rid of all the snow from the track and stadium to host the race. Meanwhile, fans’ mood has lightened up a bit, as NASCAR stars turned “blue-collar” heroes while joining the crew to clean up the snow.
Thankfully, the mighty Daytona 500 is two weeks away. Otherwise, NASCAR might have had to cancel or call it off, owing to the preparation for the 500-mile race at the Daytona International Speedway.