NASCAR President Steve Phelps appeared on the Weekly NASCAR Thursday Night Podcastgranting its four hosts a vast 30-minute interview.
The conversation covered several noteworthy topics after a historic month in which the league became one of the first national sports to return from the coronavirus shutdown and marked the beginning of significant change with the banning of the Confederate flag.
Phelps also addressed a controversial claim that 80% of NASCAR fans support the current high-downforce, low-horsepower Cup Series competition package. for its larger tracks, and the addition of Nashville Superspeedway to the 2021 calendar.
The most important points from the interview have been transcribed below.
THE DECISION TO BAN THE CONFEDERATE FLAG
In 2015, then-NASCAR CEO Brian France moved to ban the division symbol, eventually launching a program in which fans could exchange a Confederate flag for a new American flag. This policy has not been entirely successful, and the current administration has taken the idea to its limits by banning the Confederate flag outright.
Phelps said NASCAR events should not make potential or current fans uncomfortable or unwelcome.
“We don’t want to stop anyone from coming,” Phelps said. “And if there’s a group of people who feel like a flag makes them uncomfortable, that’s not something we want in our racing.
“This sport should be about fun (and) should be about family, should be about community.
“I think we want it to not only be welcoming, but we want people to share their NASCAR experiences with each other…I’ve been a NASCAR fan for over 50 years (and)…for me, when I bring I am a fan of this race for the first time and I am proud of this sport. “
TRACKS IN STATES WHERE FANS CAN ATTEND
Texas Motor Speedway revealed plans Friday to welcome fans back for the July 19 NASCAR Cup Series event.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 will be the first major sporting event in Texas with spectators since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued guidelines that currently allow sports venues to hold up to 50% of their maximum capacity. Texas Motor Speedway’s current maximum is 130,000. However, fans will not be required to isolate in small groups. Masks will be issued but not obligatory.
The state of Texas reported 3,516 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, surpassing the previous record for new cases set the day before (3,129), June 17.
Different states are handling the current crisis in very different ways. The All-Star Race was moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Bristol, Tennessee, primarily because fans are not allowed at race venues in North Carolina but are in Tennessee.
Where might fans be allowed to attend next?
“I think if you look at the calendar, it was announced that Pocono would be without fans. Governor (Tom) Wolf is a no. And when I talk about that, I’m not picking on Governor Wolf. That’s is what he believes. is good for his condition. So, I’m not throwing barbs at all. I promise.
“After that, we’re in Indianapolis. Indy is and has been a no. Kentucky? Gov. (Andy) Beshear has made it clear he doesn’t think we should race in front of fans.
“After that, it looks like we’re opening up a little bit, right? So the All-Star Race is moving from North Carolina, because Governor (Roy) Cooper wasn’t ready to give us the green light to run with the fans.
“Governor (Bill) Lee of Tennessee has decided he doesn’t care and would like us to race in front of fans, which is welcome… From there we’re looking at what other facilities we can go to. could go.
“I think Governor (Chris) Sununu and New Hampshire will say yes. And then before that we’ll be in Kansas (and) we’ll see. Hopefully we can race in front of fans in Kansas. Most likely we’ll cross the street here at Daytona International Speedway, hopefully in the originally scheduled time slot. I’m not ready to announce it, but I imagine Governor (Ron) DeSantis would also be a big fan of racing in front fans. So we’ll see, you know, the more we can race in front of fans, but do it safely and responsibly, that’s what we want.
NASHVILLE SUPERSPEEDWAY AND FAIRGROUNDS SPEEDWAY
Phelps was adamant that the decision to race at Nashville Superspeedway did not exclude Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville from future consideration for the Cup Series.
The Nashville market is important to NASCAR.
Music City has long been a leading market for NASCAR television audiences and was the site of the inaugural year of its awards banquet in December 2019. There has been momentum toward Speedway Motorsports Inc. securing a return to the national tour NASCAR at the legendary downtown short track these days. years.
It’s a difficult situation, because while the superspeedway experience (a four-year deal, with Dover International Speedway moving one of its races to the 1.33-mile concrete track it owns) doesn’t is not a success, it could condemn the short track to gain ground. traction never again.
If the superspeedway is successful, why would there be enthusiasm from the powers that be to move the event to the downtown short track?
Phelps addressed the need to create a partnership with local and state officials, while immediately rewarding a passionate market with an event as soon as possible.
“I understand it’s not in downtown Nashville,” Phelps said. “I understand that this is not the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds are not ready to host a Cup event. So significant improvements need to be made to the facilities to make them in any way worthy of the Cut. No disrespect to ARCA or other racing series. that go there. ARCA is one of our series and I love the ARCA series.
“But it is not ready to host a Cup event. Do I think they are mutually exclusive, as I have been asked before?
“It’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to go to Nashville Superspeedway and then you’re never going to come to the fairgrounds.’
“That’s just not a true statement. You know, Nashville has been hit hard, right? It’s been a tough year with the tornadoes and the pandemic and it’s just been tough .I hope that Governor Lee, the Mayor and the people of Nashville want to create this partnership and bring NASCAR racing to the city of Nashville by then.
“And maybe after this time, racing at Nashville Superspeedway will reward the great fans we have in the Nashville area.
“We did a ton of research on the Nashville fans and they are some of the best in the country, and shouldn’t they be rewarded with a race at a racetrack that hasn’t had a race in a decade and no should I travel 400 miles to go to a racetrack?”
80 PERCENT APPROVAL OF LOW POWER AND HIGH DOWNLOAD FORCE PACKAGE?
On the Michael Waltrip Unfiltered podcast, Phelps claimed that NASCAR fans have 80 percent approval of the NA18D package used for the 1.1-mile Cup Series tracks.
While not a cross-section of the fandom, Twitter’s contingent of fans continues to speak out against the shape of the package, a full-throttle, dirty-air racing product. The number 80 was doubtful from the start and this question was posed to Phelps.
“So I’ll start with the data itself,” Phelps said. “We have an (online) fan base of 25,000 people, which we call our Fan Council. Our fan council is mainly made up of passionate fans.
“So that 80 to 20 share percentage comes from our fan council. They are our most ardent fans. They take time out of their day to answer our questions.”
Historically, Fan Council questions have been somewhat leading or misleading, with a fan council segment from the summer of 2018 (below) used as a pretext for NASCAR’s decision to implement the high downforce package in 2019.
It should be noted that the current wording of the questions tends to go in the following direction:
Criticisms leveled at the package have been twofold.
1) Having so little power and so much neutral downforce talent, with drivers rarely having to let off the throttle, in an attempt to keep cars from separating on tracks 1.1 miles and longer.
2) Turbulence from dirty air coming from the huge rear wings is so severe that it prevents overtaking near the front of the pack once the cars line up after a restart. There’s a lot of passing in midfield because everyone is stuck in the dirty air.
NASCAR often highlights this data to justify the package.
“If you look at the data, not just the fan data, but you look at the data of, you know, green flag, green flag passes, green flag passes for the lead, margin of victory between first and second, second and third, third and fourth, the number of cars on the lead lap, all those things, indicate success,” Phelps said. “You know what we did, and I think this is getting lost, is we continued to reduce the downforce of our vehicles that compete in our races, and it got worse and worse and Worse and worse.”
“So you look at the (2016 Coca-Cola 600) where Martin Truex led 39(2) laps of 400. It’s kind of like saying, ‘Hey, that was a pitchers’ duel, wasn’t it? not? But if we’re honest, it’s not a very good race, is it? …The package we have on our intermediate tracks is simply better than it was when it was low downforce and high power. All the stats would look at that. So there are people who are missing there, and I understand, that would say, “Hey, from a purist point of view, this n It’s not what it should be.
“I’ll give you that. But I think the purists in this case would say the stroke isn’t as good. I even think it should have high horsepower. But I think the 550 (HP) package has produced the best racing engine that we’ve had in a long, long time. So I don’t see us going to a different package.
The full episode of the NASCAR Weekly Podcast featuring NASCAR President Steve Phelps can be viewed in its entirety below.
Matt Weaver is a former dirt race driver turned motorsport journalist. He is usually found perched on a concrete wall at a local short track on Saturday evenings and at world-class media centers on Sunday afternoons. There’s no type of racing he hasn’t covered over the past decade. He drives a 2003 Chevrolet Silverado with over 400,000 miles; although he has carried it on racing trips across both coasts and two countries, it is not yet dead. He also has a cat, Gotenks, named after a Japanese cartoon character.
