Ahead of the 2024 season, Daytona International Speedway removed the grass on its backstretch in an effort to make high-speed NASCAR crashes safer.
The potential brutality of a crash was on full display at Michigan. In both the Xfinity and Cup Series, a car turned on the backstretch and quickly lifted into the air. While neither Kyle Sieg or Corey Lajoie suffered serious injuries, NASCAR has some explaining to do after years of research and design failed to keep the cars on the ground.
But crash safety isn’t just built into the cars, but instead includes the tracks themselves. The SAFER barrier, which cushions impacts on the wall, is so important to the sport that its inventor was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. And Daytona is changing up the surfaces on the apron.
In Corey Lajoie’s wreck at Michigan, the car did blow over, but it glided on its roof rather than spinning uncontrollably over most of the paved backstretch. Then, when it hit the grass, it dug in and started barrel-rolling. That’s exactly what Daytona intends to stop.
Daytona has its own horror story that was the impetus for the change. Last year, Ryan Preece went up and over in the summer race nearly a dozen times, which sent Ryan Preece to the hospital for a night and left him with very visible bruising around his eyes.
Preece’s flip was “one of the final factors to remove the grass on the backstretch,” explained Daytona International Speedway track president Frank Kelleher.
While he acknowledged that he had no special insight into what caused these most recent flips, he stressed that pavement is here to say. It matches some other tracks that have removed or limited grass in the past – most of Michigan’s backstretch is paved. Additionally, Charlotte put in turf to even out the surface and stop cars digging in.
Paving has continued despite some criticism from IMSA sports car drivers and fans. IMSA uses a chicane on the backstretch, and without the grass to provide a physical penalty for running off-track, the series has used more controversial raised sausage curbs that are more likely to damage the cars.
“That project is complete, it looks beautiful down there. We have had some IMSA cars testing – not that it changed the chicane, just the pavement around the area. It was nice to have some racecars on that, shaking it down,” Kelleher said.
“Was it going to change anything or change an opinion that we had in the past? Probably not, what’s done is done. The grass is gone, and the asphalt looks great.”
Even for a change that’s designed to improve the safety of NASCAR racing, it’s a collaborative effort with all the stakeholders who compete at the track, and IMSA certainly had a say, as well as motorbike racing.
“Definitely NASCAR, IMSA, cannot forget about the AMA – when you have those superbikes clocking over 200mph, hustling it through that chicane,” Kelleher listed off a few stakeholders.
“Any single sanctioning body that is going to race has a seat at the table, because what you might be making safe for one series, you might be creating a whole new variable for another series. So you can’t just look at it with blinders on, you’ve got to be eyes-wide-open to every racing series that’s going to hit the high banks.”
While the reworked backstretch might be the most visible change to the facility in Kelleher’s tenure, he says his focus as a track president is on track workers throughout the year and on fans on race day.
“I’ll think of just the staff,” he said when asked what he most wants to be remembered for. “There’s a lot of people that show up at the World Center of Racing to work every day, and I want the staff to feel appreciated, I want them to feel seen. I want them to know, regardless of how big or how small, they have a lasting impact on what Daytona International Speedway means to racers, to team owners, and race fans around the globe.
“So taking care of the staff, as well as our guests – I want them to be in the grandstands and have that hair-raising experience of the cars coming around the track. I want to make sure they feel that they got every penny’s worth of their race ticket coming here,” Kelleher added.
This year’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 has a lot on offer for the fans, from driver appearances and a massive fanzone. Plus, rock band Lit will be performing an hour-long show before the green flag.
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