A Beginner's Guide to NASCAR

It's fast, it's loud, and it's about as American as it gets. I'm talking, of course, about NASCAR. To many people over here in Europe, NASCAR seems somewhat impenetrable as a series. I mean, stages? Playoffs? Competition cautions? But, with the NASCAR Cup Series off-season in full swing, I thought it would be a great idea to try and introduce it to some of you folk who may not be so familiar with the series. This is The Beginner's Guide to NASCAR. The NASCAR Cup Series held its first race on June 19th, 1949 in Charlotte, North Carolina, which makes it officially older than Formula One. Since then, a lot has changed in the sport, going from nearly showroom-fresh street cars that still had the bench seats and the AM radios installed, all the way to today's high-tech space-frame chassis monsters. Modern cars feature a 358 cubic inch naturally aspirated V8 engine, which transmits power to the rear wheels through a four-speed H-pattern gearbox. Up front, double wishbone suspension is featured with a live rear axle at the rear. Driving aids such as traction control and anti-lock brakes are prohibited. The space-frame chassis is covered in a 24-gauge sheet metal body that has to conform to strict templates for each manufacturer and is customised for each type of track visited. The NASCAR Cup Series visits four main types of track, each one with entirely different requirements in terms of setups and racing style. The most common is the Speedway. These are between one and two miles in length and can vary in shape, from the D-shape of Charlotte in Kentucky to the more paperclip shape of Homestead, Miami. These are seen as the standard track in NASCAR and boomed from the late 1990s to today. Despite being the most modern tracks, fans often lament the fact that the tracks are somewhat samey and offer less interesting racing than the other circuits. Wait, cookie-cutter tracks that produce mediocre racing replacing classic venues we all know and love? CF1 fans, we aren't alone after all! Next up are the short tracks. These ovals of less than one mile in length include Martinsville, Speedway and Richmond Raceway in Virginia, as well as Bristol Speedway in Tennessee. NASCAR short track racing offers close contact racing and a very high level of intensity from start to finish, which often leads to drama both on the track and off the track. Up third are the road courses, because yes, NASCAR does feature right turns and yes, it does race in the rain on these tracks. Although not on the ovals because, well... The series mixes up both oval-derived road courses like the ones at Daytona and Charlotte, as well as the likes of Watkins Glen, Sonoma Raceway and, as of 2021, the Circuit of the Americas. Finally, there are the super speedways. The super speedways of Daytona and Talladega are probably what you would think of first when someone mentions NASCAR to you. The circuits are high speed and are all about staying in the draft from the car in front. The result is incredible pack racing with huge lines of cars going two, three and sometimes even four wide for lap after lap and then occasionally causing a massive pileup. On a side note, you may notice something different about the cars when they compete on the short tracks. On ovals over 1.3 miles in length, the cars will run at 550bhp and have a large rear spoiler. At 8 inches tall, it is so high that at the top a transparent section has to be included so that the drivers can see something other than their own car in their rear-view mirror. This large spoiler creates lots of drag and aids drafting and overtaking of the bigger tracks. In contrast, at the short tracks, the rear spoiler is reduced to 2.75 inches in height and power is increased to 750bhp to ensure that dirty air doesn't become an obstacle to good racing at the tracks without the large straights to allow for drafting. Right then, with that out of the way, it's finally time to throw the green flag and start the race. If you're coming straight from watching Formula 1 it's worth remembering that the excitement in the race tends to be the reverse of Formula 1's. The most exciting laps tend to be right towards the finish so just settle in and enjoy for now. Okay, so we're a short way into the race. The order has settled for the time being and what's this? A caution? Is there rain on our speedway? No. Is there debris around? No. Has a car crashed somewhere? Nope. This is a competition caution. The competition caution has been seen a lot through 2020 thanks to the scrapping of qualifying and practice sessions but in a normal race it is only really thrown if there's been a change in the track conditions since qualifying usually brought about by overnight rain. It allows the teams to come in and adjust the setups of their cars to suit the new conditions and to change tyres. Ordinarily, cars would lose a lap to the leader in most tracks if they pitted under green flag conditions so teams would be hesitant to come in and make the changes. Under all cautions, the first car that is a lap down is allowed to unlap itself which is known as the free pass. So the caution period's all sorted and it's almost time for the restart. On the final lap, under caution, the choose cone comes into effect. This is a painted v-shape on the track just after the start finish line. Drivers will need to make a tactical choice on whether to take the preferred racing line on the restart or take the worst line but perhaps start in a higher position as a result. It's only a minor rule introduced in 2020 but so far it's actually really mixed up the running order and produced quite a lot of excitement on the restarts. Now, every motorsport fan around the world has experienced the same conversation with someone at some point in their lives. You know, the one that usually comes to an abrupt end when the other person says something like I don't know, I only watch the first and last laps because they're the only interesting ones. Well, a few years ago in a NASCAR meeting in some swanky hotel no doubt they were having a big discussion about that exact thing. So, how do we get people to watch more of the race if they're only interested in the first and last laps? I know, you've just got to have more of them first laps and last laps, ain't ya? You know, if you excuse me I'm off to the bar on the company credit card. Wait, that's absolutely genius! Jenkins, you're a madman! I love you! And that's kind of how we ended up with stage racing. The race is broken up by the green and white chequered flag two times in every race apart from the Coca-Cola 600. The caution is thrown out, everybody pits and we go through the whole restart period again that I just mentioned a bit ago. At the end of each stage, points are awarded to the top 10 finishers along with a playoff point to the driver who was in the lead at the end of the stage. But we'll get to the playoff points in a little bit. So, we've navigated our way through the race. We've survived cautions, restarts, the stages and the inevitable big one if we're dealing with the super speedway. That just leaves us with one final piece of NASCAR oddity to deal with. The championship format. Worried about how audiences tend to turn off after the championship is sealed NASCAR introduced a system for the championship that guarantees that the title will be decided at the final race of the season. The first 26 races of the season form the regular season where drivers are trying to qualify for the playoffs. Quite simply, win a race and you are in to the 16 car playoff field. So, if we take the winners for the 2020 regular season you'll get this as your playoff field. But hang on, only 11 drivers won a race during the regular season. So, what now? Well, the top scoring drivers for the season so far fill out any remaining places and then your playoff field is set. Now, only one of these 16 drivers can win the championship over the next 10 races. Once the field is set, everybody's points are reset and then any playoff points accumulated throughout the season are added in which gives drivers who've already booked a spot in the playoff right at the start of the season an incentive to keep on pushing. The round of 16 lasts for three races and once again you win a race and you advance to the next round and then everybody else fights for points. After those three races are up, the bottom four are dumped out of the playoffs and can no longer win the championship. We repeat this after another three races and then again and so on until four drivers are left ahead of the final race of the season. Whoever out of these four drivers finishes highest up the order is your NASCAR Cup Series champion. Well, that kind of just about covers it for now. I hope you enjoyed our little stateside journey together. If you did, then give it a like, let me know and in the comments, let me know if there's any other series that you would like to have a little beginner's guide to and see you next time.