LDN - Sports

Glen, Mid-Ohio events prove road races should be in Chase

[August 16, 2016] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

After one of the most entertaining and demanding races in this year's Xfinity Series at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, the question continues to be begged. If a road circuit presents a major challenge to drivers -- especially in the rain -- why not include one in the Chase for both the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series championships?

On an off weekend for the Sprint Cup, Justin Marks won the Mid-Ohio race in a Chip Ganassi Chevy. He faced just about every condition a driver could possibly encounter in a race. It started in the rain with cars running on grooved Goodyear rain tires. After the track gradually dried and teams switched to traditional slick tires, the rain resumed. Just before the final re-start and a two-lap sprint to the finish, the skies really opened up and the heaviest rain of the day descended on the 2.258-mile track.

Given the challenges presented when Sprint Cup drivers raced on the road circuit at Watkins Glen, N.Y., the previous week under sunny conditions -- where Denny Hamlin was the winner driving for Joe Gibbs Racing -- it is clear that NASCAR's premier championships should include tracks with right turns as well as left turns, plus elevation changes. If a championship represents all around ability, drivers need to win one while racing on more than just ovals.

NASCAR, which announced its 2017 Sprint Cup schedule in May, has recently concluded a five-year agreement with all its promoters. But there's scant reason why the sanctioning body cannot change the order of its existing schedule to move Watkins Glen into the Chase for 2018. The sanctioning body has previously moved a summer race into the Chase when it took the Chicagoland Speedway date out of July and placed it in September as the first round of the Chase in 2011.

NASCAR could advance the current Watkins Glen date in August into the Chase in September by moving the race at Dover's Monster Mile, which this year falls in October, back to an earlier date. Moving a track out of the Chase is not unprecedented. Previously, tracks in Fontana, Calif., and Atlanta have been moved back to earlier dates.

This year's current schedule sequence moves from Watkins Glen on the first weekend of August to the off weekend followed by this weekend's appearance in Bristol, Tenn., then Brooklyn, Mich., Darlington, S.C., and Richmond, Va., the final race in the regular season.

The Chase begins this year at Chicagoland Speedway on Sept. 18, followed by the race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and then a trip to Dover International Speedway. It would not be a major displacement for either Watkins Glen or Dover to switch the dates, or to put Dover into the schedule one race before the traditional Darlington date on Labor Day weekend. If a road race is too much of a wild card to end the first three-race segment of the Chase, then it could be scheduled the week before the New Hampshire round.

In its earliest days, the course at Watkins Glen hosted one of the later rounds of the Formula One World Championship, which meant a major race was held when the fall colors were blazing in upstate New York. Selling tickets was hardly a problem then and an autumn race for NASCAR's championship is likely to do very well at the Schuyler County facility. As for Dover, the track has had difficulty filling its grandstands for several years and a change in date is not likely to drastically alter its fortunes. In addition, it is one of three one-mile tracks in the final 10 on the schedule. Does the Chase need that many?

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This summer's Glen race was a marvelous blend of strategy and hard driving on the track's new asphalt, which proved tricky for leaders Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch, who both managed to get off course in Turn 1 in the late going. There was a three-car tango in the final corner before Hamlin won. The racing was similar to the 2015 event and once again the track officials announced all grandstand seats had been sold. The fans, apparently, dig the road racing action.

When Hamlin won aboard his Toyota, it was the Virginia driver's first road course win at the Sprint Cup level after one in the Xfinity Series in Mexico City. He was rightfully lauded as having completed his racing resume.

NASCAR has had rain tires standing by at Watkins Glen since last year in order to race in the rain if necessary. What if drivers are forced to race during the Chase on treaded rubber with windshield wipers clicking like at Mid-Ohio? Admittedly it might make life difficult for drivers who have not raced in wet weather conditions before, which are extremely difficult due to the cars carrying so much weight on relatively small tire contact patches.

In the case of Mid-Ohio, drivers ran off course regularly, albeit more slowly than in dry conditions. It made for a lot of position changes, but generally not very many damaged cars. Only four of 40 cars failed to finish due to crash damage, and three of them were knocked out during one late-race restart. Sam Hornish Jr., Ryan Blaney, Ty Dillon, Justin Allgaier, Erik Jones and Andy Lally, who finished second through seventh, all spent time in the grass before recovering.

Nearly half the race was run under caution due to rain, off course excursions and one yellow for debris. But the amount of overtaking at the front and the contesting of positions throughout the race at corners such as the Keyhole and in Thunder Valley provided some outstanding entertainment. The decisions by drivers and crew chiefs on when to switch from grooved tires to slicks -- or back -- threw in some difficult strategic challenges.

At the finish, there was little doubt Marks, winless in 25 previous starts in the Xfinity Series, deserved the victory. He led 43 laps, including the last 10 after pressing the issue against Dillon at the Keyhole.

"These are as tough conditions as you can put drivers in," Marks said. "It's just really hard on everybody. And you don't really know what to do, so strategy plays a key role in it."

The Xfinity Series will run three road races this year and is in the first year of its own Chase format. There are three road races on the 2017 schedule in August and two bye weekends during the Chase. How difficult would it be to move a road race to the postseason in 2018? The understudy series should also be a place where drivers have to prove they can road race, especially if they intend to win a championship.

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