Superspeedway Racing Still Evolving In Next-Gen Era

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Since the inception of superspeedway racing in NASCAR, the high-speed style of competition has been either revered as an art or loathed as luck – with no in-between.

Ahead of the 67th running of the Daytona 500, some of the sport’s most successful drivers provided their takes on the evolution of execution on drafting tracks with the current iteration of the NASCAR Cup Series car.

Long gone are the days of Cale Yarborough, Buddy Baker and Dale Earnhardt Jr. ripping off three consecutive wins at Daytona Int’l Speedway or Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. It’s similar to how the “sprint-not-a-marathon” mentality has flipped and led to more reserved on-track complexion at times.

Instead of drivers going full throttle and fighting their way to the front at the drop of the green flag, teams take a much more calculated and technical approach in order to be in contention at the end.

Additionally, where many used to abide by the saying, “It doesn’t matter where you qualify” at superspeedways, the opposite is more accurate in this day and age.

Three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin is often regarded as one of the best drivers on drafting tracks at the premier level of the sport.

Although he’s won a total of five superspeedway races, he has yet to find victory lane in the Next-Gen era – something he feels has been elusive because he’s failed to qualify well, on top of other intricacies.

“Where I really feel like we’ve lost results on superspeedways, it’s because we qualify in the back, and once the track gets log jammed two-by-two or three-by-three, there is nowhere to go, and then it is executing on pit road,” Hamlin said. “All of the things that I grew up trying to learn to be really, really good at — foot on the gas, trying to figure this thing out, get to the front at all costs — that is the opposite of how you become successful in the Next Gen superspeedway racing.

“Simply because the way these cars punch holes in the air, there is just not the ability to drive from the back to the front,” Hamlin added. “The last year of the Gen 5 car, I restarted 29th at Talladega on a green-white-checkered and won the race. That day is over with. You have to be well up front [to win].”

Since the seventh-generation car was introduced in 2022, there have been 12 races between the two traditional superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega.

Over those three seasons, there have been 11 different winners, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. being the only driver to score multiple drafting track victories during that span.

Even with the increased parity that was already standard with superspeedway racing, one driver yet to win on a drafting-style track in the current car is 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson.

In fact, for a driver who has seemingly won everything there is to win and is often praised by many as the best in the world, it’s the only discipline he has yet to win in at NASCAR’s top level.

In addition to normally being able to wheel anything and win anywhere, what makes this statistic more bizarre for Larson is the fact superspeedway racing has gotten much more strategic with the seventh-generation car, and he has one of the brightest minds atop the pit box calling the shots in Cliff Daniels.

It’s now common to see drivers line up single-file and ride around the high-banked tracks for a majority of the events in an effort to conserve fuel, while also coordinating synchronized green-flag pit stops with teammates and manufacturer allies.

“I think there’s a lot of strategy that goes into these races now in the Next-Gen era that I do enjoy,” Larson said. “Fuel saving, the green-flag pit stops, working together with your teammates and others – I enjoy that. I do think there’s a group of drivers that are always up front at the end of these races, so … there is skill, for sure.

“Whether that’s the driver or it’s just the team or manufacturer as a whole, I don’t know.”

One of those always in contention at the end is 2015 Daytona 500 winner and reigning series champion Joey Logano.

Surprisingly, the four-time superspeedway winner has also yet to find victory lane on a drafting track in the Next-Gen era, but he’s consistently found himself at the front of the field at almost every such event over the past three seasons.

While a lot has changed in regard to superspeedway racing, there is one constant that remains: chaos.

Even with the style of competition becoming slightly tamer and more calculated, there will always be an inherent amount of uncertainty, which is why many consider success on the high-speed tracks to be attributed to luck.

However, Logano argues drivers are almost completely in control of their own destiny on superspeedways – like on any given week.

”I think you can control all of it,” Logano said. “I mean, if you understand the probabilities and the chances of what’s going on around you and who’s around you and what they’re most likely to do, you can control most of your destiny, right?

“I kind of look at it as a card game. You can win with any hand if you play it correctly. Maybe you don’t have the best hand, but you can probably figure out how to do something with it. That’s kind of how I see it.”

Regardless of how much it has changed, superspeedway racing still has the ability to incite anxiety and entertainment for those watching at home or in the grandstands. Even with slight on-track reservations due to strategy, the “Big One” still looms, huge runs form, and literally anyone can win.

As The Pretenders said back in 1986, “some things change, and some things stay the same.”

That will ring true Sunday afternoon when 41 drivers take the green flag for the Great American Race.

The 67th Daytona 500 kicks off at 1:30 p.m. ET, live on FOX, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90. In-car cameras are available for streaming exclusively on MAX.