By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
It was a pass of the eye test for Steve O’Donnell, executive vice president and chief racing development officer for NASCAR, on Saturday during the festivities of the Monster Energy All-Star Race.
Despite the eye test being a success, there are still some tweaks to the aero package that NASCAR, under the leadership of Eric Jacuzzi, will work on in the coming months. NASCAR will employ input from owners, crew chiefs, and drivers to see what the next steps for the package will be.
According to data provided by NASCAR, there were a total of 38 green flag passes for the lead with 12 total lead changes amongst seven different drivers in the 80-lap spectacle.
Where does NASCAR go from here? NASCAR had set up meetings that were contingent on what was seen during the All-Star race. Once those meetings take place NASCAR will put a timeline together to work towards 2019.
“Directionally you do like some of the things you see, now you’ve got to get together with the industry, debrief like we always do with the race teams, the drivers, certainly listen to the tracks and the fans, then the OEMs, talk about how do we continue to look at this and look at it in a smart way, look at it in an efficient way,” O’Donnell stated.
Could this package be used in future races this season? According to O’Donnell, it’s best to “never say never.”
“I would never say never, but our intent is we’ve talked coming into this, was to try this here, then really take a deep dive into how do we make this the best package possible for 2019 if we liked what we saw. Again, it’s still very early,” O’Donnell continued.
Could we have a different package at different styles of racetracks? NASCAR understands that the challenges will be having to create an entirely new engine package; however, that is not part of their intent. In an effort to continue to cut costs, NASCAR does not want to have three different engine packages.
“If we were to pursue this route, that’s one of the things we’d want to look at, is how do you keep potentially a restricted engine package, then just one other, not go to three different engine packages. Very similar to the rules for the racecars, what they look like. You want to be as efficient as you can but also put on the best racing possible. That’s something we’ve got to look at and make sure we can limit the number of packages, but certainly make it so that it’s the best racing possible for the race fans,” O’Donnell says.
At the end of the day, the goal for NASCAR is to keep the rules package simple and efficient to put on a great show for the fans.
The only reason the package looked good was because the segments were short which kept the cars close. On a long green flag run the cars would have strung out single file. They actually did this during the first segment. Why don’t they just go ahead and have mandatory cautions every thirty laps at every race. That will keep the racing close.
That’s what is going on with competition cautions and segments anyway. It’s time to stop this constant BS of expecting me to travel hundreds of miles spending a lot on money to see if their rule changes work. The crowd last night, which no one wants to talk about, was pathetic. And they wonder why. They know what to do they just won’t do it. What NASCAR has done to this sport is damn near criminal. they should have kicked Brian out years ago.