NASCAR News: Six Cup teams headed to Phoenix to test (Update)

The two-day, six-team exhibition ran through multiple aerodynamic configurations and Goodyear tire combinations, focusing on the racing on short tracks in the upcoming season. While no immediate determinations were made on-site as to what combinations may end up on the Next Gen vehicles in a couple of months, progress was made to help add clarity to the picture.

–By Zach Sturniolo/NASCAR–

“I think our goal is to have some direction coming out of here,” Dr. Eric Jacuzzi, NASCAR’s vice president of vehicle performance, told reporters Tuesday. “I’ve never gone to a test and walked out like, ‘Oh my god, this is great. This is what we’re doing.’ It’s a tough thing to do, right? It’s only six cars and there’s no money and points on the line. But I think for us, it’s coming out of here with direction on the tire, coming out with direction on the aero package that, yes, this is going to be neutral to positive. And then any other things that we’ve learned along the way. And then (Wednesday), we’ll be running mufflers, so making sure (when) we go to LA, we’re not going to have anything unexpected.”

The aerodynamic changes included a new splitter design in addition to a diffuser with two aluminum rakes, all implemented in hopes of reducing the effect of dirty air on vehicles in traffic. Those adjustments were met with positive feedback, notably from defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, who returned to the site where he was honored just one month earlier.

“Yeah, a big difference,” Blaney said Tuesday. “We unloaded exactly how we were here in the fall with this car, ran a couple of hours on it and the different splitter, big difference. Massive. Like the way it drives. With that, there’s so much downforce taken off of it. Yeah, the first laps I had, I was like, man, this thing drives way different.

“It should. I mean, it’s a massive aero loss when you do that. And then the simple diffuser wasn’t as big of a change as the splitter, but it was still something to feel. But that front splitter was a huge change, and hopefully we can continue to tweak it a little bit, get it a little better.”

That feedback was notably different from a summer test at Richmond Raceway, where the introduction of a “lift splitter” was met with sentiment that “it wasn’t quite enough” change. Testing at Phoenix left officials more optimistic.

“When we came out of Richmond and were changing aero packages, they felt the same. We could have told them it was the same (package),” Jacuzzi said. “And today, everybody said I definitely noticed the downforce. Like I said, we got some interesting comments to kind of parse through of it was easier to cross the wake or different things. So it seemed like definitely the faster speeds here manifested more of what we expected at Richmond. Again, ultimately, Richmond wasn’t really where we wanted to do that test, but (a rainout at) New Hampshire happened. So it’s definitely a difference. Nobody’s saying, ‘Hey, I didn’t notice your aero package.’ “

Most positive reactions seemed to stem from the different tire combinations Goodyear provided. According to RFK Racing, Chris Buescher went through 24 different sets of tires on the No. 17 Ford over the two-day session. Goodyear aimed to bring tires with thicker treading, similar to what was utilized at Martinsville and which was received well.

“Tire stuff was really good,” Erik Jones of Legacy Motor Club said. “I thought we learned a lot with that in the beginning of the day. I think Goodyear’s got some good notes from that and probably is gonna apply to a lot of places.

“This isn’t really a tire test, but of all the tires I’ve tested over my career, by far probably today was the biggest I’ve noticed a difference.”

NASCAR additionally tested new ductwork to aid cooling using the existing muffler, which have previously been used to lower decibel levels at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Chicago Street Course.

“I haven’t felt, really, a heat difference. I could definitely tell a sound difference, which I like,” said Kyle Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion and a winner at Phoenix. “I definitely think our race cars are way too loud — and probably are still too loud with the mufflers. … I think the cars could be quieter to help the fan experience.”

Plans to test gearbox changes intended to address limiting shifting at short tracks were scrapped Wednesday after feedback from a driver debrief signified shifting was less of a concern at Phoenix, therefore resulting in a pivot toward higher focus on aerodynamics and tires instead.

Drivers also pondered after Day 1 how the car would react using the 2023 splitter in addition to the new simplified diffuser, leading to on-track tests Wednesday after officials performed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) testing overnight to eliminate issues with spoiler heights and imbalances.

NASCAR held a similar test session in late January at Phoenix, nearly 11 months ago — six teams set to test different aerodynamic configurations and mufflers. Moving the test to early December provided a longer runway for more meaningful evaluation before jumping into the 2024 season headfirst.

“Especially with The Clash being essentially at the end of January, it wasn’t ideal last year for us to be doing the muffler work,” Jacuzzi said. “We had basically a week, so we weren’t gonna have a ton of time. We did actually respond and do a bunch of cooling stuff before The Clash. This, we figure, would give us more time to process things, and it gives us more time to look at the short-track package next year and what we’re going to do. So it’s really just to get it done early and not waste a month.”

Team Penske’s 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney and 5 other drivers are headed back to Phoenix to test Next-Gen car improvements for 2024.

Team Penske’s 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones and Spire Motorsports’ Corey LaJoie are headed to Phoenix to test as NASCAR officials hope to improve the Next Gen car in various areas for 2024.

“I would say we have a pretty long laundry list of items being tested,” Chris Popiela, NASCAR’s senior director of aerodynamics, told NASCAR.com. “It’s kind of just a collection of items that we’ve been working on throughout the year with feedback from the drivers and the industry. We’ve kind of categorized them into specific departments – we’ve got aero, some of the gearbox changes for handling shifting, we’re looking at design changes on our mufflers and some things that we can do to help control the heat inside the cockpit, and then we’re going to have an array of tire configurations that Goodyear is working with us on.”

Each of the four designated areas warrants its own checklists across the two days, with various goals to work toward – all in hopes of raising the quality of racing on short tracks over the next season.

“When we left Richmond (after a separate summer test), we were trying to make sure that we looked through all the data and if there was anything that we could improve upon,” Popiela said. “And we certainly did through CFD (computational fluid dynamics) testing and wind tunnel testing. And the hope there from an aero perspective is to make sure we bring the best possible package and improve on the short-track and road-course package.”

A significant portion of the test will be dedicated to determining the right steps to take with tires. Goodyear brought a tire compound with thicker treads to run at Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway at the end of the season using lessons learned from the aforementioned Richmond test, and that tire was received well by drivers and teams alike. Half of the first day at the upcoming Phoenix test will revolve around tires.

“We decided to use the initial baseline package – so essentially what we raced earlier this month as a baseline package,” Popiela said. “And then Goodyear is going to spend about three to four hours doing tire configuration changes. I think they were pretty successful on what they brought to Martinsville and Phoenix as well. We’re building off of that. So that’s a pretty important thing to do and in parallel with all the aero package changes that we’re doing.

“I think that’s why we have the tire test kind of leading the test and really getting some driver feedback and feedback from the technical people on the teams to get the best selection of tire and then move forward with the rest of the test afterward.”

Goals surrounding the gearbox include adjustments that would limit or eliminate the frequent shifting that drivers currently find necessary on short tracks. Separately, decibel levels were successfully lowered with the introduction of mufflers at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Chicago Street Course, but internal cockpit temperatures remained high enough to warrant further examination into making driving conditions more tolerable for the drivers.

“I think, overall, when I look at this test, I think it’s a really collaborative effort,” Popiela said. “It’s really worked with the cadence of these types of tests where it’s six cars from different organizations and two from each OEM, which is really helpful. It’s worked really well. And I think having the ability to do group runs and have a lot of driver feedback and a lot of collaboration has been really key in moving things forward.”

Blaney, who won the Cup Series championship at Phoenix one month ago, is eager to drive his No. 12 Team Penske Ford all over again with a clearer picture of what the sport’s officials are hoping to extract from the test.

“We had a pretty good run though of what they’re gonna do procedure-wise when we had our meeting with NASCAR before the season ended, so I have a pretty good idea,” Blaney said Thursday ahead of the NASCAR Awards in Nashville. “I don’t know if it’s changed or not, but I am ready to get back behind the wheel. I think that will be nice. It’ll give me a pretty good break. It will actually let me focus on doing productive things for a little bit, so I am excited. Hopefully, we find some good stuff at that test. I know we’ve got a lot of things to try, and hopefully, we can improve that package a little bit.

… “I think you’re just looking for what path we can continue to go down to try to help it out, so hopefully, we can find some of those things, and I think that will make it fairly successful.”

RFK Racing’s Buescher had a breakout season with three wins in 2023, one of which came on the 0.75-mile Richmond Raceway.

“I think the biggest thing we want is just to see how to get better racing, better opportunities,” Buescher said. “Looking for tire fall off. You’re looking for less dirty air. You know, we’ve gone through and talked about it throughout the last couple years plenty and what we feel is right. I feel like I’m still a proponent for more horsepower and still feel like that’s a strong candidate.

“There’s a lot of things that we want to try out and figure out if it can improve our product. Personally, I thought the last Phoenix race, passing was fairly decent there. I think that not spraying PJ1 down kind of let the track go back to a more natural state, and as it’s aged, that’s creating a little bit of racing in itself. So not gonna say that covers up some of the obvious races that we struggled at this year … but I do think that some of that will come just from us learning – learning race cars, learning these tracks and how to make these cars better at them. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to get the racing to where we feel like we can not be so (reliant) on clean air when we go short-track racing essentially.”

Indeed, that feedback made its way to NASCAR’s aero department, helping determine next steps in the journey toward better short-track racing.

“The package that we’re fine-tuning, the point of that is to improve the car when it’s in traffic,” Popiela said. “An ideal situation is if a car in traffic performs as if it was by itself. That’s always the number one goal. So the idea of this package – and I think we’ve gotten the backing from the industry of all the data and all the CFD data and all the wind tunnel data that we’ve shown them and that they’ve been a part of – is that this is a step in the right direction.”