Tony Stewart’s driver claims SMI made ‘a bad track worse’ with Roval reconfiguration
Changes to the Roval has not gone down well with drivers, especially with Tony Stewart's Riley Herbst.
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Riley Herbst, image via NASCAR
After the Coca-Cola 600 race, SMI took the job of changing certain sections of the track to improve racing. These changes were unveiled a few days before the race, which were not welcomed by drivers owing to the vastly different characteristics. Subsequently, SHR’s Riley Herbst added his name to the list of drivers, who are against the changes made by SMI and claimed the owners worsened the track even more.
Roval made its debut on the NASCAR calendar in 2018. Despite getting huge backing from its owners and NASCAR, drivers were never fond of this track and often glanced over it. In an attempt to make this track even more eye-catching and entertaining, SMI took the bold risk of making further changes to the track before the elimination round. However, veteran drivers like Denny Hamlin strongly opposed these changes and labeled them chaos ensuing.
On the other hand, Xfinity Series drivers were not also far behind in track criticism as Riley Herbst asserted that SMI made an already bad track worse. This was the usual consensus of the drivers during the media day, which depicts the discontentment of the drivers.
I don’t know if you’ve seen it but they’ve taken a really bad race track and made it worse. That’s not good English but that’s how I feel about it. I’d feel better if it were the old layout but the new Turn 7 is dismal.
Riley Herbst said in an interview as quoted by Sportsnaut
However, NASCAR has supported the changes made around the Roval and is expected to keep the same track layout going for the subsequent iterations of the race in the coming years. Thus, drivers would have to bite the bullet and keep driving around its new configuration until NASCAR or SMI has a change of mind.
What makes the Roval so chaotic?
Before the changes, the circuit was already not popular among the drivers or fans. On the contrary, the changes have made the track appear overtake-friendly due to long braking zones which encourage drivers to make lunges. However, the race at Roval this year is the last chance for multiple drivers to earn their passes to get into the R-8.
This has inadvertently made the possibility of a wreck happening at turn 6 or the last series of chicanes a real possibility. Subsequently, Alex Bowman explained that turn 6 is a blind corner, which can make drivers misjudge the gap they have and drill into the rear of their opponent or have a similar outcome down in the last series of 90-degree chicanes where two drivers could collide easily.
I’ve just run it at the sim, but yeah, Turn 6 is like 100 percent blind. You can’t see it until you’re there, which is pretty interesting. At least in the sim, your lift mark is before you can see the corner, so that’s definitely different. And Turn 7 is like making a U-turn on a one-way street, so it’s going to be chaos, for sure.
Alex Bowman said in the same interview
Despite the concerns, the race around the 2.28-mile track would go on without any interruptions. This could mean an exciting race for the fans at least as the likelihood of a late-race caution happening has increased multiple-folds.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)