In the last couple of days, there has been some chatter about bringing in more of the mile-and-a-half race tracks in NASCAR. Most of these conversations began after the race at Kansas Speedway last weekend, with RFK owner-driver Brad Keselowski sharing his thoughts after the second playoff race. Now, JGR driver-owner Denny Hamlin also seems to have had the same thought regarding the race track.
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While speaking about the same on his podcast, Actions Detrimental, Hamlin urged NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Racing Development and Strategy, Ben Kennedy, to take note of this and make the necessary changes in the near future.
Denny Hamlin reiterates Brad Keselowski’s thoughts on tracks like Kansas
Discussing the topic on his podcast, Hamlin mentioned, “Kansas is a track that we have always kinda, I don’t know it took a long time to mature but now that it is mature, and that means the pavement is getting older. It’s a racy track man, gosh.”
He further expressed his appreciation for Kansas Speedway, stating that it is one of the best tracks on the racing schedule. He hoped that Ben Kennedy would continue to add more mile-and-a-half tracks to the schedule. The JGR veteran justified his point by stating that the Next-Gen car struggled on road courses and short tracks, but it performed really well on mile-and-a-half tracks.
“Man, they’re just some of the best racing. You know this, like the old Chicagoland Speedway would be awesome for the next-gen car now. Because it’s gonna be it would be a lot like Kansas.”
What did Keselowski say about Kansas prior to Hamlin?
After the race, the RFK team owner and driver also appreciated racing at tracks like Kansas, specifically the mile-and-a-half-long tracks, in reference to how the Next Gen cars performed there.
During a social media discussion, Keselowski mentioned, “We went from 1.5-mile tracks being the worst and road courses being the best races to watch with Gen 6 car: To now, 1.5-mile tracks being the best and road courses being the worst racing to watch with NextGen cup car. Interesting to watch this play out. We need more 1.5”
Now with several people urging NASCAR to consider adding more mile-and-a-half tracks like Kansas, what will NASCAR do about this? Will we see a resurgence of such types of tracks in the future, perhaps at the expense of road courses?
It will be interesting to see if NASCAR pays heed to the drivers’ requests anytime soon.
