Treacherous track conditions and a hard tire compound didn't lend themselves to creating the most compelling race of the season.
When drivers left Kentucky Speedway a year ago they were excited about the direction NASCAR was heading. After much lobbying and some public arm twisting, they finally had been given an aerodynamic rules package that not only allowed them to exhibit their skills but also a style of racing that would help recapture fans' attention.
The configuration featuring a shortened spoiler and low downforce would become the template NASCAR used for its 2016 rules package, which has been met with rave reviews throughout the course of the season. More often than not, good racing has transpired on the kind of tracks where exciting moments largely have been lacking, with drivers encouraged that they can race side-by-side and complete passes.
Yet as teams worked to recapture the lost downforce and sideforce NASCAR took away, it became apparent additional rules were needed to counteract the gains crew chiefs and engineers have made since the beginning of the season. Thus, just as it did last year, Kentucky on Saturday night became a de facto guinea pig, a way to test potential rule changes under live conditions.
How did the latest experiment go? Were drivers as enthused about what's to come as they were last year at this time?
Meh.
Unlike 12 months ago, drivers didn't leave Kentucky lauding the even lower downforce package or imploring NASCAR to immediately implement it full-time. But there also wasn't overall condemnation of the package in the same fashion as when NASCAR tried a high-drag setup with near disastrous results twice last summer.
"Kentucky last year was an incredible race," said race winner Brad Keselowski. "It would be tough to beat that ever on a mile-and-a-half racetrack.
"We're still facing and fighting the same dilemmas in our sport of the lead car having a significant advantage over other cars in the field, but that advantage seemed to go from maybe on a 1 to 10 scale, from an 8 to a 6 or a 7 here, which I think is good."
The biggest difference this go-round wasn't so much the rules package itself, but that Kentucky had undergone a significant makeover -- including greater banking in Turns 1 and 2 and a complete repave of its surface. These changes necessitated that Goodyear bring a harder tire compound to prevent excessive blistering, which occurred in a test a month before at the 1.5-mile oval.
And as evidenced by how the proceedings played out Saturday, few elements can affect the quality of racing like a tire that has little to no wear.
With the exception of Martin Truex Jr.'s late inspired charge from 22nd to third, drivers ran single-file for much of the evening, unable to pull alongside and complete passes. The track conditions, combined with a tire compound Tony Stewart compared to giant hockey pucks, proved to be so challenging that the first half of the Quaker State 400 resembled more of a demo than a typical race on an intermediate speedway.
"I don't know if [hard tires, repaved track] is a great combination," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. "... You can't even run side-by-side. Guys who run side-by-side were a second slower. What the hell? That is awful. We have a problem, man. That is no good."
There were encouraging signs, too.
Earnhardt believes if NASCAR used this lower downforce package on a track with an aged, worn surface, and Goodyear brought a tire that showed wear over the course of a green-flag run, the results would be overwhelmingly positive. And had the package not been used Saturday night, almost universally drivers say the racing would have in fact been worse.
"Until the track widens out and gets multiple grooves, I honestly think this is the best race you're going to see on a repave," Keselowski said.
NASCAR doesn't have any plans to incorporate the most recent version of the low downforce package with an eye toward 2017. Officials don't want teams to spread themselves thin focusing on multiple rules packages, and with eight regular season races remaining before the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoffs begin, opportunities are limited.
"We'll go back and we'll sort of reconvene with the drivers and the owners and the [manufacturers] and decide where we're going," NASCAR vice president of competition Scott Miller said. "We're open to a lot of different options, and if something like that bubbles up and we have industry support for it, nothing right now is out of the question.
"One thing that I think we won't do is change the Chase around. We'll stick to our guns and run the regular 2016 package in the Chase races."
Don't take NASCAR's hesitation as an indication that downforce won't be reduced further -- whether for the balance of this year or next. Substantial change takes time, and NASCAR is reluctant to commit to anything that hasn't been vetted fully. Kentucky ideally would have dictated which direction the sport should continue to head, just as it did last year.
Unfortunately, sometimes there are mitigating factors even NASCAR has little control over. In this instance, a track requiring brand-new asphalt and Goodyear's insistence on supplying hard tires due to safety concerns confounded this year's experiment.
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