For the third time in a month, Cup teams will have a 50-minute practice session and that could help former series champion Joey Logano score his first points victory in more than a year.
Cup teams have an additional 30 minutes of practice Friday at Iowa Speedway because this is the first time the series has competed at the ⅞-mile track.
Logano enters the weekend 16 points outside a playoff spot with 10 races left. There’s no need for panic, crew chief Paul Wolfe tells NBC Sports, because several upcoming tracks are good for the team.
Wolfe and Logano have excelled with extra practice lately.
Logano’s team was among three that did a tire test this spring at North Wilkesboro Speedway ahead of last month’s All-Star Race. That event also had 50 minutes of practice. Logano won the pole and led all but one lap to win that race.
Last weekend, Cup teams had 50 minutes of practice at Sonoma because the road course had been repaved. Logano won the pole, led the opening 16 laps but was collected in an incident and finished 21st.
Every team likes more practice but Wolfe explains why it is important to him, a former driver.
“I think it’s huge for us,” Wolfe told NBC Sports. “Maybe some of that just goes along with kind of how I approach things from my seat. I’ve got talented engineers on my team, but for myself personally, that’s not how I was brought up. I was just racing by the seat of your pants-type style.
“When we get those opportunities … back to ‘real-life’ changes and not making changes through simulation and those types of things, I think that allows me to understand some things better and get our cars in a better place.”
This will only be the fourth time that Cup teams have had a 50-minute practice session this season. The other weekend was at Phoenix in March. Most practice sessions are 20 minutes. Only two 50-minute practice sessions remain after this weekend — Indianapolis in July (Cup returning to the oval) and Phoenix in November (championship weekend).
“From what we get normally, it seems like a lot, but it’s still pretty limited,” said Wolfe, who won the 2012 Cup title with Brad Keselowski and the 2022 crown with Logano. “You’ve got to be careful not to get caught up in what we used to call ‘Happy Hour changes.’”
He notes that making several changes to the car before a final run can produce the desired result, but if the team doesn’t know which change mattered the most, it could prove costly in the race.
“You really have to be disciplined at how you approach these practices and/or a test session like we did at (North) Wilkesboro, which we were able to collect a lot of good information for our company and we’ve been able to see the rewards from it,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe became Logano’s crew chief ahead of the 2020 season. They’ve never gone this long without a points victory to secure a playoff spot. In three of the previous four seasons, Logano had won by the seventh points race of the season. Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway (7 p.m. ET on USA Network) marks the 17th of the season. Logano is winless in the last 47 points races.
Wolfe says not having a points win won’t change the team’s approach.
“The biggest change I would say for us not having that win is probably more to do with our race strategy,” Wolfe said. “I think our approach to how we build our car, what we’re going to do in practice, the overall philosophy, I can’t feel like that really changes because obviously you go to every track and you’re pretty much trying to make the most speed that you can.
“We’ve had this conversation — and we had it in our meeting (Wednesday) with Joey — how we approach the strategy in the race is the biggest thing.
“You have to sit back and evaluate where we’re at from a speed perspective when practice is over going into the race and understand ‘OK, is this a day where we need to maximize points or is there an opportunity to win this race?’”
Wolfe said that based off information from wheel force testing at Iowa, this weekend’s race could be similar in strategy to the race at World Wide Technology Raceway and also last week’s race at Sonoma — races where tires didn’t wear as much. That created multiple pit strategies.
Logano and teammate Ryan Blaney remain winless this season. Austin Cindric is the only Team Penske driver with a win after his victory earlier this month at World Wide Technology Raceway.
It would seem as if Team Penske is following what it has done the past two years — few wins in the regular season and then win the Cup title. But it has not been by design.
Logano has been best at the short tracks. He finished second at Richmond and was sixth at Martinsville. With Iowa this weekend and New Hampshire next weekend, Wolfe said he feels good about those tracks with how well the team has performed on tracks 1 mile or less this season.
“It’s just making the most of those opportunities, and I preach that to my guys all the time,” Wolfe said.
2. Cutting it close on fuel
The past two races have seen cars run out of fuel before the finish, costing Ryan Blaney a victory at World Wide Technology Raceway two weeks ago and Martin Truex Jr. a runner-up finish last weekend at Sonoma.
With track position critical and pressure mounting to either win to make the playoffs or score playoff points, crew chiefs could face more daunting decisions in the next 10 weeks.
With the Next Gen car’s single-lug wheels, it’s quicker to change four tires than to fill a car with fuel, so teams have to decide if to wait on fuel during a stop or not fill the car and have a faster pit stop.
Last fall in the Talladega playoff race, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was running at the front when he ran out of fuel on the last lap of the stage. That triggered an incident that collected Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain.
“That was over a quarter of a gallon of fuel,” Mike Kelley, crew chief for Stenhouse, told NBC Sports. “We thought we had a quarter of a gallon to spare. So we’re talking a half a gallon of gas over a 40-lap run. … That’s what we’re up against. This series, and I love it, I love the challenge of it, has gotten so aggressive on every part. … We’re counting the gas (being used) on pit road based on the temperature pushing the fuel out of the fuel neck now. We have to know how much do we think did we lose as the fuel cell expanded sitting on pit road pre-race because that’s all got to be figured into it.
“When NASCAR says we’re going one more caution lap this time, that’s all figured into it. So your fuel mileage isn’t just that last 40-lap run … it’s from the time you push to pit road. Every fuel stop if you spill anything when the fuel can is engaged. Now you’ve got to say was that a quarter of a gallon he spilled? … That’s the world we live in now.”
Paul Wolfe, crew chief or Joey Logano, admits the decisions are difficult on if it wait on fuel during a stop.
“Most of the time the yellow flag stops are the tough call because it’s like alright, we want to be full here but if we wait on fuel, we could potentially lose five spots,” he said.
“Is the five spots worth being full, or am I willing to roll the dice under a yellow flag condition to go on the jack, go when the tires are done and worrying about figuring out how I’m going to protect my fuel later?
“Those are definitely tough calls and to the point with this weekend if the tires don’t have the fall-off, that could be the decision you make at some point in this race as well.”
3. Iowa’s new look
While drivers and fans have clamored for NASCAR to send the Cup Series to Iowa Speedway, what they’ll see this weekend will be different from years past when the Xfinity and Truck Series raced at that track.
NASCAR, which owns the track, repaved portions of the racing surface but not all of the track.
The bottom and middle grooves were repaved in Turns 1 and 3. The bottom, middle and high grooves were repaved in Turns 2 and 4. Everything else was left as is.
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, explained this week on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio why only part of the track was repaved.
“The winters are hard there in Iowa and it took a toll on the (racing) surface,” Sawyer said. “Our goal all along, as we announced this race back in October of last year, was to not repave, but as we started scheduling events, whether it be a tire test, and looking at the facility once we got into the early part of the calendar this year, it was apparent there were some areas we were going to have to take a look at and do some repaving.
“Our goal all along was not to do that. We wanted our fans to be able to see that track in a race where all of the surface had been worn. But that just wasn’t going to be the case. Then, as the calendar unfolded and when we had to schedule a tire test, there just wasn’t enough time to go in and there and completely do a repave.
“So, we just took the next best option and identified the areas that needed to be addressed and we did that. Now, aesthetically, it looks a little different than what we would normally go into a facility, but we’re confident that the repairs are to a high level and that’s not going to be an issue and we’re still going to have some multi-groove racing around the racetrack.”
4. Looking for work and wins
Chase Briscoe and the rest of Stewart-Haas Racing are trying to have success on the track while employees look for work with the organization closing after this season.
Briscoe enters Sunday night’s race at Iowa Speedway 27 points behind Bubba Wallace for the final playoff spot.
Briscoe, who won the most recent Xfinity race at Iowa in July 2019, knows he and his team face a big challenge to make the playoffs while also looking for work beyond this season.
“I’d be lying if I said we’re not at a disadvantage when we show up at the racetrack,” Briscoe said. “Every other team that we’re racing against, all they focus on week in and week out is how to make their race car go fast that weekend. At our place, we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to provide for our families next year, where we’re going to work next year, and on top of all that, how am I going to get a fast race car to the racetrack.
“So, it’s 100 percent a real thing. I would say that it’s going to go in ebbs and flows. I think these first three to four weeks post the time we got told will be telling because I think people, I know every single guy on my team right now is taking interviews, so I think it will be hot and heavy these first three or four weeks, and then I think if we can survive that four or five week stretch, I think if they stay those first five weeks after, then they’re probably in it for the long haul.
“But then I think towards the end of the season it’s going to kind of ramp back up and guys are going to be trying to make sure they have something, so I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a concern that I do think it’s going to be really hard for us to potentially get cars to the racetrack how we want to, just from a people standpoint.”
5. A memorable finish
One of most memorable moments at Iowa Speedway came during the August 2011 Xfinity race there.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was leading when his engine expired on the last lap. Teammate Carl Edwards couldn’t avoid Stenhouse and ran into the back of Stenhouse’s car, shoving it across the finish line first. Edwards finished second.
Mike Kelley, crew chief for Stenhouse in the Cup Series, was Stenhouse’s crew chief back then and recalls that crazy finish.
“Ricky comes across the radio with two (laps) to go and says, ‘Man, we’re blowing up.’ I almost thought, ‘Man, this young punk kid is saying this on the radio to mess with (the team) because the lap time didn’t show any degradation or anything different.
“So the next lap when he comes by and said it, I could hear it on the radio. I could hear the misfire. … Going down the back straightaway, I just thought it was over and we’d lose the race.
“The thing that was probably the most impressive was he kept in mind that Carl was behind him and he looked in his mirror the whole time that the engine was blowing up and he just did everything he could to put as much oil on the track between him and Carl and that’s why you see him swerving. He’s trying to cover as much track as he can.”
It worked. It was the second of three consecutive Xfinity races Stenhouse won at Iowa Speedway.