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NASCAR pleased with Xfinity Indy package's potential

NASCAR went back to the drawing board for the Xfinity Series package at the Brickyard — and returned with best stock car race the 2.5-mile track has produced in years.

Ty Dillon, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and Daniel Hemric, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Ty Dillon, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and Daniel Hemric, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

Ryan Reed, Roush Fenway Racing Ford
William Byron, JR Motorsports Chevrolet takes the checkered flag and the win in front of Paul Menard, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Erik Jones, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford and Erik Jones, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Brendan Gaughan, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, Brennan Poole, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet and Daniel Hemric, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
William Byron, JR Motorsports Chevrolet takes the checkered flag

In 2016, Kyle Busch led all but one lap. Saturday’s Lilly Diabetes 250 produced a record 16 lead changes with eight different race leaders over 100 laps before rookie William Byron beat former Brickyard 400 winner Paul Menard to the line by 0.108-seconds. 

Positive takeaways

NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell approved of the latest optics at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

“Overall, certainly pleased with what we saw on the race track,” O’Donnell said. “From an eye test, it definitely passed when you look at the metrics, right?

“Most leaders we’ve had. Most lead changes. Closest finish. Certainly, on the quick recap, some really great metrics.

“But as we said before, there’s a lot for us to digest, go back, talk to the teams, drivers, crew chiefs, see where we’re at and go from there.”

The sanctioning body relied on a three-car test on October 12 to experiment with a variety of options. The teams returned this weekend with last year’s spoiler and splitter, two aero ducts on the front fascia which redirected air over the tires to create more drag and a restrictor plate which slowed the cars down by 15 miles an hour. 

Driver reaction

Joey Logano, who finished third in the race, described the package as interesting. 

“You had to race really smart,” Logano said. “For us, we may not have had the fastest Discount Tire Ford, so I had good restart early in the race and was able to get some track position. Then our pit crew and everyone did a great job of maintaining that track position. 

“You just had to be smart on restarts and knowing when to race guys and when to just keep momentum because if you started losing momentum you lost five or six spots. Being smart inside the car was key.  

“I just wanted a faster car. That would have been key to do that to go up there and race with those guys.”

When Busch won the pole last year, his speed was a record 181.939mph. Elliott Sadler’s pole-winning lap was 165.283mph. Logano said the overall lack of speed made the cars feel slow. 

“You’ve got a restrictor plate on them,” Logano added. “You’ve got a lot of drag. You’re kind of going down the straightaway like, ‘Where is the end of it?’  But the cars get such a big run down the straightaway. 

“It’s pretty amazing, but there’s still that bubble kind of in between cars that the cars kind of stop and they stall out for the most part. Sometimes you can get a good enough run to make the move, but it’s tough.”

Passing the test

The cars on the lead lap remained relatively close to each other. Separate packs would break away from one another. But it’s been a long time since stock cars went three-wide at IMS.

“I think a great race is the objective,” O’Donnell said. “I think what fans saw today was that. You know, certainly I think it passed the eye test.

“So speeds, you know, some races, you know, you're going 200, some you're, you know, down in the 100s on a road course. What at the end of the day matters is how many lead changes did we have and was it competitive throughout. And we thought it was today.”

O’Donnell is optimistic that the lessons learned from the package could potentially carry over for similar tracks in the Xfinity Series. 

“What you have to do is go back and look at a lot of the tests we've done, a lot of things we've tried, even at the Monster Energy Series level, where we ran some different packages at Michigan and Indy,” O’Donnell said. “We learned a lot through that. One of the things we had not done in the past was evaluate the power in the car, potential restrictor plate, and so that was another lever we wanted to pull here for the XFINITY Series race.

“Part of our evaluation now will be can we do this in the future, should we, and are there other racetracks that have a similar layout that we may be able to use this at. So that's all future potential. But it is something that you could look at for a couple tracks as well.”

As pleased as O’Donnell was with the results from the new NXS package, he felt it was premature to consider using a similar setup for the Monster Energy Cup Series in the future. But he didn’t rule out the possibility.

“I think it's tough to say without a lot more kind of CFD work and a lot more research and R&D,” O’Donnell said. “But it's not a huge difference that we made in terms of the current package with Xfinity to this package.                

“So it's safe to say that, you know, it's not a drastic change, but it's still something that will require a lot of work and a lot of efforts through all of the industry to make sure we are able to pull that off.”

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