How To Prepare For Texas
This weekend NASCAR is headed to Texas. This won’t be your typical Texas race weekend. Early this year Texas Motor Speedway decided that they would repave and reconfigure the track. It was a last minute decision and Good Year didn’t even have time to conduct a tire test. The reconfiguration element of the track change is that turns 1 and 2 are going to lose 4 degrees of banking and will be 20 feet wider.
The repave alone was a game changer, but when you add in the reconfiguration then you can completely throw away your Texas track history book. What happened in the past is no longer relevant and the track should be approached as being completely new. Below is how I would navigate the weekend.
- The most important thing I would look for in drivers this weekend is recent intermediate track success. This year NASCAR has raced at three intermediate tracks, I would recommend you study those as a good starting spot. At the three intermediate tracks visited six drivers have finished in the top ten every race, 9 of them have finished in the top ten twice. These drivers have demonstrated that they are the best of the best right now with the new rules package on this track type. For 2017 intermediate track stats CLICK HERE. The intermediate track that has the highest level of correlation to Texas should prove to be Las Vegas.
- Next you want to make sure that you pick drivers who practice well. You want to pick drivers who like their cars. Since tire fall off will likely be minimal and the speeds will be close I would really be on the lookout for drivers who have positive things to say about their cars.
- Starting up front is important every week, and Texas likely won’t be any different. Repaves have been notorious in the past for being tough to pass and being “parades.” On Sunday I fully expect this to be a race of track position.
- Next I really want drivers who have momentum entering the weekend. Picking drivers who haven’t been performing well or have had lots of bad luck recently might just be asking for trouble this weekend.