By David Morgan, Associate Editor
FORT WORTH, Texas – To reconfigure or not to reconfigure, that is the question.
With the NASCAR Cup Series in town this weekend for Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, the attention has focused on the 1.5-mile track and what the future of the facility should be.
While the drivers have a myriad of opinions on what they would like to see happen, the consensus is that it should be anything other than what it is now.
Texas first joined the circuit in 1997, but back in 2017 went through a reconfiguration, which has not panned out thus far in its effort to spruce up the racing at the track for not only NASCAR, but also IndyCar.
The reconfiguration dropped the banking in Turns 1 and 2 from 24 degrees to 20 degrees, as well as widening the racing surface from 60 feet to 80 feet. Meanwhile, Turns 3 and 4 remained banked at 24 degrees and 60 feet wide, giving the track two distinct corners that the drivers have to navigate.
Since it’s debut, the reconfigured track has fell well short of expectations, leading us to where we are today and talk of the track getting another facelift. Whether it happens or not still remains to be seen, but the drivers certainly have their opinions on the track and what, if anything, should be done.
“It needs more than a repave,” defending Texas fall race winner Kyle Larson said. “I would like them to demolish this place and then start over from scratch. For one, they did a very poor job with the initial reconfiguration.
“I would like to see them change it from a 1.5-mile track to something shorter. I don’t know if that means bringing the backstretch in or whatever. If I could build a track, it would probably be a three-quarter mile Bristol, basically; pavement, progressive banking, all of that. But I don’t know if that’s even possible here.
“I’m not sure what they have in mind, but anything would be better than what they did.”
Ryan Blaney would simply turn the clock back, resetting the track to it’s original configuration before the construction equipment rolled in five years ago.
“Find a time machine, go back a few years, and just let it live,” Blaney said. “You’ve got to tear up this asphalt and see if the old stuff is still underneath. Get the banking back in [Turn] 1 and 2. I don’t know. It is what it is. It’s unfortunate what happened to this place, but it still puts on a race. It’s just…
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