Chris Buescher summed up Sunday’s Goodyear 400 in one telling sentence.
“I’m glad I’m not a crew chief this weekend,” Buescher said of the upcoming event at Darlington Raceway (3 p.m. ET Sunday on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The sixth race of the NASCAR Cup Series features a higher-horsepower, lower-downforce competition package that will be used for the first time at the 1.366-mile track for the first time in the era of the Gen 7 race car (2022 to present).
What that means with respect to tire wear on Darlington’s abrasive asphalt is anybody’s guess.
“To come here with more power and significantly less downforce, I just feel like we’re going to be out of control,” Buescher said. “And I think we’re going to be screaming and wanting tires a lot more than the physical allotment will allow us to put ‘em on…
“I know we’ve got a whole lot more questions than answers.”
Chase Briscoe, winner of the last two Southern 500s with a lower-horsepower, higher downforce rules package in place at Darlington, had a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the new configuration.
“I mean, I don’t know what was wrong with the package here at Darlington before,” Briscoe quipped. “I think this is the one race is probably more wide-open than any other, just because it’s the first time we’re doing it.
“Nobody has a notebook on anything right now, where as we go throughout the year, with Dover and Darlington 2 and all these things, teams are just going to start getting better and better at understanding what we need.
“Right now, nobody has a clue what this thing’s going to do. So, yeah, I’m excited for this weekend. I’m always excited to come to Darlington, but certainly the more power, slipping, sliding around—it’s going be a lot of fun.”
