DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – With Harrison Burton and Wood Brothers Racing grabbing headlines for Burton’s first NASCAR Cup Series win and WBR’s 100th at Daytona International Speedway, a more sinister storyline emerged under the lights on Saturday night, Aug. 24.
After the previous week’s race at Michigan International Speedway, NASCAR implemented a new aero fin on the right side of the back window of Cup cars. This action was taken as a direct result of Corey LaJoie‘s flip the previous week.
In theory, the aerodynamic properties of the fin were supposed to keep the cars on the ground in the same sort of scenario that LaJoie was in.
They did not accomplish that goal.
Several drivers caught air during the Coke Zero Sugar 400, with one crash sucking the air out of an energized Daytona International Raceway. Josh Berry‘s flip during the closing stages of the race was the worst look, but Michael McDowell also went airborne during the race in a situation where both cars should have been more planted.
Berry was the only one that landed on his roof, but if the idea is to keep the cars from lifting up off the ground, that was nowhere close to accomplished.
After that same crash that ended his day, McDowell shared his experience during the fiasco.
“I don’t know what it looked like,” McDowell said. “I closed my eyes. Any time you get turned in front of the field while leading it, you know somebody is going to hit you. There’s no way you’re getting out of it.”
McDowell’s commented on the aero addition and its aftereffects, or lack thereof.
“The fin has been kind of tried and tested to help (against) the lift off, so I don’t feel like that would be (the reason we’re flipping),” he said. “They’ll study it and look at it. I mean, it’s so hard to plan for every situation. The easiest thing to do is just slow us down, right? And as the drivers, we don’t really want that because it changes the feel of the race. … I’m sure they’ll look at all the options.”
Meanwhile, McDowell’s teammate at Front Row Motorsports, Todd Gilliland, had his own concerns about the flipping issue from the unique perspective of one of the tallest drivers on the grid.
“(The flipping) is obviously not what we want,” he said. “It’s always something I worry about too, being one of the taller guys. I never want to be upside down, so that’s definitely unfortunate. The work never stops, though,…
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