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NASCAR

NASCAR drivers uncertain what to expect from Las Vegas track

By SceneDaily.com

Feb 26, 2009

From early indications, it’s hard to know just what kind of race to expect in Sunday’s Shelby 427 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Some competitors anticipate finding a track conducive to plenty of passing and side-by-side action. After all, that was the primary impetus behind the move by speedway officials to increase the banking in the track's turns from 12 to 20 degrees prior to the 2007 race.

Yet the new surface has also presented less desirable effects: It has made the track bumpier in places and forced drivers to work harder to break in multiple grooves on the still young asphalt.

That Goodyear will bring a different tire for this weekend than the one it brought to the 1.5-mile trioval last year is just another wrinkle for competitors to consider.

For right now at least, it seems the nature of Sunday’s showdown in the United States' gambling epicenter is about as easy to project as, well … a roll of the dice.

“The track has changed over the past few years, and since last year, the tire has changed,” said Tony Gibson, crew chief on the No. 39 Chevrolet of Stewart-Haas Racing’s Ryan Newman.

“The tire change is going to be the biggest obstacle to overcome just because you have to figure out how it is going to react to the car and the race track.”

Four drivers – Hendrick Motorsports’ Mark Martin (Chevrolet), Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards (Ford), Penske Racing’s David Stremme (Dodge) and Red Bull Racing's Brian Vickers (Toyota) – came to Las Vegas in December for a two-day Goodyear tire test in which each of the four manufacturers were represented.

The test did more than provide insight about the tire that Goodyear would bring for Sunday’s race, however. It served as reminder that the track’s new surface is still a work in progress.

"It's definitely surprising how rough the track is, seeing as how they just repaved it a few years ago; it's actually almost rougher than it was before, especially going into Turn 1,” Martin said. “It's a great race track, though. No one likes new pavement, but as the years go on, the asphalt ages and gets more conducive to racing. The track gets more forgiving, and the groove widens out.”

Newman calls the bumps in the track “pretty tricky.”

“It has a rougher surface in that there’s more bumps,” he said. “The track has some character to it.”

Richard Petty Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne believes the new Las Vegas surface has already reached a point where it will allow for quality racing. In the relatively short time since the repaving project, the facility has hosted two Cup races, two Nationwide Series races, two Truck series races and two official Cup test sessions, not including December’s Goodyear test.

“I think this will be one of the best races at Las Vegas yet,” Kahne said. “The track has had a chance to mature and develop the extra groves since the progressive banking was added. With the multiple grooves, you can really search for the best line that will make your car work.”

But even with its improvements, Las Vegas isn’t easily conquered. Just ask some of NASCAR’s top drivers.

Consider that now-defending three-time series champion Jimmie Johnson struggled to a 29th-place finish here last year in what turned out to be the unequivocal low point of his season.

Johnson's Hendrick teammate, four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon, has found victory lane just once in 11 Vegas starts.

And for two-time series champion Tony Stewart, it’s the only Cup venue where he has yet to hoist the winner’s trophy in an event for the Cup or Nationwide series. No wonder the Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner/driver considers certain features of Las Vegas more demanding than the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway where the series competed last weekend.

“The corners are tighter,” Stewart said. “It’s tighter coming off Turn 4 and tighter going into Turn 1 than it is at California. That’s why the handling is so important there. Because the corners are tighter, it makes it really important that the [car] rolls through there free – not tight or loose. It’s a real important track in terms of balance.”