In any racing series, when the racers head to a new circuit, there is always a practice session, and the same goes for NASCAR. The idea is to get used to the track and find the ideal setups. In these kind of scenarios, teams try and see who has the advantage, heading into the weekend.
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So when the sport temporarily outlawed practice and qualifying, there were some concerns. Owing to the COVID-19 virus, the sport has resorted to letting teams show up and race right off the bat.
In the four months that NASCAR has been active, many teams have been caught out for technical infringements. In other cases, they would discover problems with their car, that would have ideally been fixed in a practice session.
“Now more than ever that’s critical,” Team Penske’s Travis Geisler said. “We just unload and we go race. A lot of times you would go practice, you’d work out some little things here and there, you’d have an opportunity to say, ‘Okay, this looks like it’s probably a little on edge. We need to back off a little for this week.’”
How important is this for NASCAR, with the playoffs underway?
Any issues will get magnified during the playoffs, as none of the 16 Cup Series drivers can afford any such mistakes. When the playoffs kicked off at Darlington Raceway, two playoff teams got caught for technical issues before the race.
Drivers like Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon fell afoul of the technical regulations and paid the price. They were not the only ones to feel the sting on that day. The problem is that teams are finding it difficult to do thorough checks on their cars before the races.
“Really it comes down to checklists and having all your mechanics working through everything each week as carefully as possible,” Geisler said. “It’s a zero mistakes game and that’s a really hard game to play when you think about how many opportunities there are for mistakes during 10 races (in the playoffs) with every car being put together from the ground up.”
The real concern is that the inability to catch such silly errors early could cost the playoff teams. It would be heartbreaking for a team or driver to lose a well-earned playoff spot. All because of something like improperly fitted tires or loose ballast.
