By Jerry Jordan, Editor
SONOMA, CA – As if Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch needed an advantage over the rest of the NASCAR field but that is exactly what they have heading into this week’s race at Sonoma Raceway.
It may have been years ago, but Harvick and Busch are the only two active drivers on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series circuit who have driven what is know as, The Carousel. It’s a part of the course that has been closed off in NASCAR races since 1998 but both former champions raced it in their early years and are looking forward to doing it, again.
“I am and I feel like this is my idea,” Harvick said. “I had this conversation with Marcus Smith and the next thing I know, he’s picking up the phone, um, calling the racetrack. ‘Hey, is this something that we can do?’ And the next thing I know, we’re running the old racetrack. So, there’s probably only a couple of us that have ever made laps around The Carousel. But, you know, I think when you look at Sonoma and the corners that we’ve been racing, there are two 90-degree corners basically. You know, Turn 7 turns into, you know, a little bit different scenario when you run The Carousel. But, I think people just, they like different. And, you know, I think different is something that the SMI Group has done a really good job with here lately.”
The guy on the other end of the phone when Smith made the call was Steve Page, Sonoma Raceway’s general manager. He explained to Kickin’ the Tires that a lot has changed since 1998 and he was all-in on bringing back The Carousel. It’s just part of the continued improvements at the track and there is also a new fan area that will allow unprecedented viewing as drivers make their way through the newly-reopened section of the track. Page added that hew as well-aware that Harvick had reached to Smith about the change but the discussion of bringing back The Carousel had taken place for several years.
“We’ve debated it back and forth, the pros and cons and as we came into our 50th Anniversary year, and after all of these years we have changed the whole logistical set-up of the racetrack of where we store equipment and keep it out of the way and The Carousel was always convenient,” Page said. “But in going through the exercise of figuring out if we could go back and make the logistics work, we decided this was the right year and the feedback and just been overwhelmingly positive.
“Almost 99.9 percent have been positive. I think we had a couple of random comments of people who had a particular seat they liked and don’t feel like it will be the same. It really is one of the most iconic corners in racing and the more we thought about it, it just makes so much sense to get it back into the mix.”
But having an iconic section of racing come back from the proverbial dead isn’t only good thing about bring back The Carousel. It will also allow fans a unique viewing point of the action on the track that they haven’t had before. The new section will be called “The Point,” according to Page.
“There’s this little island that sits out where our scoring tower is that we have really focused that much attention on because you could see the cars come through start/finish but now you will be able to see the cars come through start/finish, head up the hill towards Turn 2 and then walk about 100-feet and see the cars come barreling down through The Carousel right on the other side … we think it is going to be a really popular place for people to hang out.”
Page said The Point will be fully-equipped with concession areas, games and an area to watch the race.
“Since then (1998) we’ve cut down the whole mountain in the middle of the racetrack and made it, made it more viewable and people want to see something different,” Harvick said when asked about the area. “So, throwing it back to the original course to me is gonna be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to it.”
For Harvick, running The Carousel means he has more places to overtake a driver in front of him but isn’t sold on the idea that his past experience on The Carousel will give him an edge over the rest of the field and confessed he’d be making laps in the Ford simulator before heading west.
“These are more technical corners and I feel like Sonoma is a technical racetrack so, you know, coming down the hill and having to make the right and going back up to The Carousel and making a left and when you get to, I guess, we would still call it – now it’s back to Turn 7, um, you know, the shape of that corner is much slower,” Harvick said. “It’s not much slower but it’s much – it’s a little bit different than what it has been for us in the past. I don’t remember exactly when the new course started but it’s been, it’s been a while so I don’t, I don’t really feel like I’ll have any advantage.”
Those sentiments are shared by Busch, who hadn’t really thought about running The Carousel until it was announced earlier this year that it would make a return. He also admitted he’d probably be running simulations to refamiliarize himself with the old course but joked that he believes the end-result could be good, or bad, depending on what happens when he gets on the track.
“I probably will,” Busch said, of running the full track with The Carousel in Toyota’s racing simulator. “I’ve been to the simulator before and I’ve been to the racetrack and it’s hurt me and I’ve been to the simulator before and been to the race track and it’s helped me. It can go either way, just kind of depends.
“The Carousel coming back, it’s kind of interesting, I thought back about it earlier or when they made the announcement. You look back to 1998 when they added the chute and, that was a lot of wasted money because now we’re going back to what it was. Overall, just having The Carousel coming back, I don’t think it’s going to change the racing dynamic a whole lot from what that race looks like.”
Asked what he remembers about the full course and how it could play out during this weekend’s race, he said, The Carousel could add a different dynamic because of the way drivers have to set-up for the turn.
“It’s just going to add in – there’s a ramp almost kind of getting into the carousel, you have to be out of the gas before going up and over that hill,” Busch said. “Then throttle back into the turn and that’s what I remember when I ran the course back in 1998 with Legends cars, but these cars are entirely different from Legends cars so we’re definitely going to have some new learning to do. At least I know where I’m going when I’m down there.”