What Happened at Lowes Motor Speedway in 2005
Up until last year's event the record for cautions during the 600 was fourteen set in 1980. Last year the race shattered that record with an astounding twenty-two cautions for a total of 103 yellow flag laps.
The Busch and Truck series also set records for number of cautions in 2005.
The problem was that the track was ground down to smooth out the bumps. But the resulting higher speeds were too much for the tires that Goodyear had on hand. Tire problems lead to caution after caution and a marathon race that took over 5 hours and thirteen minutes.
Big Changes for the 2006 Coca-Cola 600
NASCAR and Lowes Motor Speedway made changes to avoid another mess like they had on their hands last year.
Here are the three big changes for the 2006 event:
- Lowes Motor Speedway has been completely repaved
- Goodyear brought an extremely hard tire compound
- NASCAR mandated 14 gallon fuel cells instead of the regular 22 gallons
These changes were in place for last weekend's All-Star Challenge. This was a good preview of what to expect this week in the 2006 Coca-Cola 600.
The Track and the Tires
The new track surface and harder tires reduced the grip available to the cars. We especially saw this on restarts when the tires were cold. Kasey Kahne caused a big mess when he lost it on cold tires while leading. Plus we saw a number of other drivers spin, slap the wall and crash because of the low grip.
Drivers are going to have to be aware of the lower grip and use their heads. The All-Star race rewards bravery and forces drivers to push beyond their limits. The 600 rewards patience. Hopefully we'll see more give-and-take this week and the lower grip levels will be less of an issue.
The Smaller Fuel Cells
The smaller fuel cells didn't come into play as much during the shorter All-Star Challenge. Between the cautions and the mandatory yellows teams had plenty of time to keep the fuel tanks full.
During the 600 hopefully we will get some long green flag runs. This will will bring the smaller fuel cells into play as teams will have to pit more often. More stops puts more pressure on the pit crews to get their jobs done quickly.
More frequent pit stops also opens up the opportunity for more strategy. Two tires or four? None at all?
The End Result
It would be hard to imagine that these changes won't help improve the quality of the racing that we saw in 2005. NASCAR is pretty good at correcting problems when they become obvious. This problem was very obvious.
The slippery racing conditions will likely cause at least one multi-car wreck like we saw during the All-Star Challenge. Hopefully, damage will be minor and injuries none.
Overall, I'm hopeful that the 2006 Coca-Cola 600 will be vastly improved over last year's yellow flag carnival.
