Editor's note: NASCAR on NBC broadcasters will offer opinions on upcoming races the remainder of the season. This week, analyst Kyle Petty explains what to expect in Saturday night's Quaker State 400, which airs on NBCSN starting at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
This weekend's race at Kentucky Speedway will offer a unique challenge for Sprint Cup drivers. The 1.5-mile track was repaved since the 2015 race, cars have an altered aerodynamic package aimed at further reducing downforce, and Goodyear is bringing a new tire to the track.
Any of the three changes could be difficult to handle. All three in tandem present drivers with an extraordinary situation.
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Kentucky Speedway not only repaved but also altered the track, increasing the banking in turns 1 and 2. It also made drainage improvements to eliminated "weepers," places where groundwater seeped through pavement cracks. And, the track increased its SAFER barriers.
Earlier this season, NASCAR announced it would reduce the spoiler height by one inch and reducing the splitter by two inches for two races. The first was June 12 at Michigan; the second, at Kentucky.
And finally, Goodyear says Sprint Cup teams will use the left-side tires that were run at Las Vegas and also changed the right-side tire selection since a recent test at the track, opting for a right-side tire that is similar to that at Michigan but with a single tread.
Kyle Petty with Krista Voda and Dale Jarrett (via Twitter)
What will all of these changes mean when it comes to racing on Saturday night?
"It's a strange thing," Petty said. "You go to Michigan and they repave the place. You go to Kansas and they repave the place. You go to Darlington and they bring a different tire or a different aero package or they bring something. But there's always three or four constants, even though they changed things. You're coming up here, it's aero, it's tire, it's track. It's a reconfiguration of [turns] 1 and 2 with grooves in a different place than it was before. There's different banking. It's almost like a brand-new racetrack. And then a week before you get here they change the tire compound on you, go to a different tire from what they had.
"There's so many unknowns, it's hard to outguess or to guess, what it's going to do. … You go to Kansas, and you say, 'OK, they repaved the racetrack, we've got a book on the racetrack but they repaved it and it's the same car, the same stuff.' There's so many things different here, I don't even know where to start."
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Teams must adjust and do so quickly. Here's what Petty sees ahead of Saturday night's race, scheduled to begin about 7:30 p.m. ET.
Is one change more challenging than the others?
"There are just a lot of issues that they're going to have to deal with all at one time," Petty said. "If there was just the tires or just the track that would be one thing. But I think the issues it creates are multiple, not single issues. It's going to be the team that compromises or finds the solution that encompasses all those problems" that is successful."
How has downforce on racecars evolved?
"If we go back to the (19)60s and the '70s, the cars were mechanical. Everything was about the mechanical aspects of the car; you didn't really pay that much attention to the aero," Petty said. "Although we did, there was a period there in the late '60s and early '70s where the Superbird and the Cyclone and the Torino came out, but really aero was a horse that was still in the barn; it had not escaped yet.
"And then we go through the '70s and into the early '80s and aero was beginning to be something people talked about but it still wasn't a big issue.
"Somewhere in the '90s we hit that perfect balance of probably a car that was 50 percent mechanical and 50 percent aero. Since that time, the needle and pendulum has swung over to where it is as much or more aero, week in and week out than it ever was mechanical. You go back and Richard Petty's car didn't drive good in '68 so he didn't win; you come to 2016 and Kyle Busch's car has a bad aero package, he doesn't win. That's how simple it is.
"There's not a spring or shock in the truck that will fix that aero package," Petty said. "But used to there were springs and shocks that would overcome an aero package years ago. It's a different era in the sport."