1.5-Mile Tracks’ Renaissance Dominates Round Of 8

Remember how — in years past — mile-and-a-half NASCAR circuits were among the most-criticized on the schedule?

All six tracks around the 1.5-mile mark faced backlash for lackluster racing, but the advent of the Next Gen car has marked a turning point for them — or, at least, some of them.

With such tracks making up two-thirds of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs’ Round of 8, let’s check out how each has found a renaissance this year (with the exception of Homestead-Miami Speedway, which hasn’t held an official Cup race with the new car yet).

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Okay, this is admittedly a bit of a special case.

Atlanta’s reconfiguration switched the racing into more of a superspeedway-style event, with close-quarters pack racing featured throughout much of both races and some Talladega Superspeedway-esque crashes.

That said, the racing was a unique blend of the normal 1.5-mile action we were used to with pack racing mixed in. It gave us the potential for underdog winners, last-lap passes and consistently two-wide (and sometimes three-wide) action.

Corey LaJoie threw his No. 7 into the trail mix bag of contenders a few months back in the ATL, appearing to be in position to make a move on Chase Elliott in the closing laps until circumstances sent his car around and ended the race under caution.

Charlotte Motor Speedway

Though the Coca-Cola 600 is now the only Cup race we get on Charlotte’s oval circuit nowadays, this year’s edition was one for the ages.

In the 11 races since the start of 2015 at Charlotte, four of them — more than a third — featured the winner leading more than half the race. Dominance was key in North Carolina, yet this spring’s race was one of the wildest of the year on any track layout.

It featured the most cautions in any oval Charlotte race since 2005, a flip in the infield from Chris Buescher, a four-wide pass attempt in the trioval (spoiler: it didn’t go well) and a ton of on-track action that never wavered in entertainment value. Added to that were 3,821 green-flag passes, which ranks near the top of the past decade’s races on the North Carolina oval.

True, it was a five-hour slog to some degree, but it got me excited for the next year’s 600 in a way I haven’t been for quite some time.

Kansas Speedway

After a long stretch of mediocre races at Kansas, 2022 put on…