FORT WORTH, Texas –Sprint Cup cars running 215 mph approaching the corners at Michigan International Speedway?
As fast as that might seem, it doesn’t concern Matt Kenseth, who participated in a Goodyear tire test at the two-mile track last week.
“I don’t think we were going too fast, as far as the cars being out of control or not having a good race or anything like that,” Kenseth said. “I don’t really know the magic number on the speed. I know there is a point where they worry about the cars flipping over when they turn sideways, and they need to keep them slower then that or figure out something to keep the cars on the ground if they get out of shape. I think that is the biggest concern if something happens toward the end of the straightaway and corner entry or something, that none of the cars go flying up in the air. That is a little bit of a concern.
“Other than that, I don’t think it is a big concern. They are big numbers, but I don’t know if you would realize you were going that fast if you didn’t have all that telemetry on the car. It’s about what we expected. It was a ton of grip, and we’ve been getting faster at all the tracks in the last year or two. . . . When we’re in race trim we were almost four seconds faster than we were racing last year. That’s quite a bit.”
That’s also quite an understatement.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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