When asked about the potential of using the 750 horsepower tapered spacer on intermediate tracks in addition to its return to short tracks this season, Joey Logano looked as if he had been asked the stupidest question in the world.
Of course he wants more power, literally everywhere
“I want more falloff,” Logano said with the most indignation in the world. “I mean, more fall off puts on better racing, right? We all have the same cars, like for the most part. We have the same chassis, same suspension components and it’s how you put them together but we all start with the same box of parts. …
“It’s just the bodies and engines that can be a little better or a little better or worse but outside of that, if you look at qualifying we are all running the same speed. We have got to throw in variables somewhere or we are just going to follow each other.
“We have to be a tenth to two-tenths faster to make passes these days, so how are you going to find that? Maybe if someone burns their stuff up early, they pay the price later, and then you see the difference come in, but yeah, fall off is always better.”
That’s what happened on Sunday at Darlington, with that track now using a higher horsepower and lower downforce configuration from previous years with this car. Lead changes increased and green flag passes increased but there’s been a lot of debate about race quality because the field did spread out a little bit more, even if there were gains in terms of dirty air.
There was less falloff than predicted in the Goodyear 400 but mostly because teams and drivers also managed it during the course of the race to optimize lap times from run-to-run without crashing each other.
So basically, that is the argument for more power on intermediate tracks that Logano would make too, that it is a variable in a discipline that has so few of them these days. On the other hand, as his former teammate Brad Keselowski pointed out over the weekend, the current intermediate package is arguably the most compelling Cup has ever had so why change that?
“Um, you’re right, we do have a really good package right now, and there are a handful of tracks that you could argue would benefit from it, but a handful of tracks where I could argue it would make the racing worse,” said the 2012 champion. “So, I guess it’s really situational to me.
“Like, I think this package (750-spacer, reduced downforce) would make the Brickyard 400 better and then I look at a race like Kansas, and I think it would make it worse, so I kind of hem and haw on this one.”
William Byron was really intellectually honest in the sense that he says increases power for intermediates would only create more separation for a team like his to be even better and concedes is not something fans would want.
“Hendrick Motorsports would welcome it because it would give us more of an advantage over time, but I don’t think it would be the product you’d want to see in terms of closeness,” Byron said. “If you have to get out of the gas more, it comes down to who can make their car handle better, and that would mean fewer cars on the lead lap and less passing in the top-five.
“It’s going to be more spread out, which would be great for racers, because we want to see who can develop the best car … so great as a driver, but I don’t know if that makes the product better.”
Chase Briscoe echoed those sentiments.
“If you start going faster, it probably makes the field even more spread out, I feel like,” Briscoe said. “Just the difference in the top teams and the bottom teams are going to be even more extreme. So maybe it just is one of those things where the rich kind of get richer, where right now, like we are not underpowered, but like we’re all relatively the same speed for the most part, right?
“At least from 1st to 30th and in qualifying is only a couple tenths where I think as you add more power, like the setups, everything is just going to become more and more important. So, I don’t I don’t know. I could see it going either way. I think it could make it maybe a little bit better. Maybe it makes it worse.”
Briscoe conceded that selfishly he would rather drive these engines unrestricted, which makes over 900 horsepower, but agrees with Keselowski that it’s probably more nuanced.
“You always want more but on the mile-and-a-halves, I don’t know what it would do, to be honest with you,” Briscoe added. “I think some tracks, we could definitely use it, but there’s other tracks where maybe the product’s as good as it’s going get right now. So yeah, I don’t know which way it would go if I’m being honest.”
The industry faced a similar question in 2018, with fans lamenting the existence of The Big Three drivers and an intermediate package that had reduced dirty air but spread out racing with comers-and-goers.
This is what led to the creation of the NA18D rules package, also called the 550 package, which kept cars packed up and full-throttle around the race track but created tremendously dirty air that stifled passing and minimized driving talent.
Where the Cup Series landed with the NextGen car was something of a compromise of sorts as detailed by Michael McDowell.
“My opinion is probably very unpopular,” McDowell said.
He asks what is some of the best racing, to which the answer he gave, was underpowered spec Mazda Miata racing.
“We need to know what we’re asking for, right,” McDowell said. “So, the worst racing for the drivers was when we went to the high downforce, low horsepower package, but fans would tell you that was some of the best racing.
“So I think I need to know what we’re chasing.
“Our mile and a half package has been good. The racing’s been good. The dirty air’s been good, right? Could it be better? Yeah, it could always be better. So, but we just have to be careful that we don’t ruin a good thing by chasing something that we all feel like would be more fun.”
And make no mistake, McDowell did find running 900 horsepower engines and then 750 more fun than 550 and now 670, but there’s an asterisk.
“It’s going to separate the field though too,” McDowell said. :It will separate the field. You’ll have people win by 10-15 seconds. You’ll have blowouts and you’ll have big gaps between cars and I’m okay with that as a driver.
“I’m okay with that because the best car is going to win. The best team is going to win. The guy that earned his money that day is going to win. I’m just not sure it’s going to be as well-received as we’re painting this picture because it’s easy to go the wrong direction, which we’ve done before.”
And then there’s this from Chrstopher Bell.
“I love where we’re headed,” Bell said. “I always think that we can use more, and I would love to get more horsepower, and hopefully this is an indication that we’re turning the right knob, and I think sky’s the limit. If we continue to add horsepower, I think we’re going to get right to where we need to be.”
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