NASCAR announced that they laid down a general resin on the concrete track surface at Nashville Superspeedway, which has not been raced on in 10 years.
On previous occasions that races were last run on the 1⅓-mile oval in Lebanon between 2001-11, a frequent complaint was that drivers were hesitant to pass because the traction was not as good on the outside lanes.
NASCAR stated that the general resin they are using is not PJ1, which is often used on tracks with high-bank turns.
When defending Cup Series champion was asked this week whether his outlook had changed after hearing all the efforts that were being made to improve the competitiveness,.
Chase Elliott said, “I think they’ll have to get pretty creative.”
#NASCAR is set to return to Nashville in 2021, but Chase Elliott isn't happy about it.
"One snooze fest at that joint will put the nail in the coffin of the fairgrounds, bummer," he tweeted.https://t.co/b135XRZE0v
— FOX 5 Sports (@FOX5Sports) June 4, 2020
Nashville Superspeedway president Erik Moses was aware of the issue in the past and called for NASCAR officials to address it.
“If the resin didn’t help the racing they wouldn’t put it down,” Moses said. “I have made more than one phone call to the folks at NASCAR to say, ‘Please, please, please, please do any and everything you can to ensure the competition here is going to be good. Just do what you need to do to make certain that our fans get the best racing they can see.'”
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However other Cup Series drivers aren’t so worried as the Hendrick Motorsports man.
Martin Truex Jr. No.19 said vast improvements made to race cars over the past decade will make racing much better today.
“I’m sure the track’s different than it was; the cars are certainly a lot different than they were when we raced back then,” said Truex, who has wins this season at Phoenix, Martinsville and Darlington.
“Just so much has changed with the cars over that time. It was a long time ago in the racing world. Hopefully we’ll put on a good race. I think none of us really understand or know what it’s going to be like. We’ll have to figure it out and make good decisions, and that will make it interesting.”
Kyle Busch
“I just remember the concrete track,” Busch said. “As race tracks age, they kind of develop their own character, and Nashville was still a pretty new track when we were there. Since not being there in awhile, it’s going to be interesting to know and feel out what new bumps are there and what new little things that kind of come up over the years are there.”
“When I was there running trucks or Xfinity cars, there was some pretty high downforce racecars that helped you stick to the racetrack a lot better,” Busch said. “So I would anticipate there being some slick turns there when we get back.”