With less than rave reviews of the ever-changing track surface at Lowe’s Motor Speedway from Chasers Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle and Mark Martin afer a test last week, NASCAR officials are considering running restrictor plates on the cars in the October 15 race at Charlotte. Stewart and Biffle wrecked two cars apiece during the tests. After plowing his car at 170 mph into the Turn 2 wall, Biffle felt the aftereffects last weekend at Dover. “From the eye, the track looks good,” Biffle says. But the tire compound doesn’t work well with the track’s new surface. NASCAR doesn’t expect any relief until the track is repaved after the race.(Sporting News/Lee Spencer)(9-26-2005)
UPDATE:After laser-grinding the Lowes Motor Speedway track to help get another year of wear out of the 1.5-mile layout, track President Humpy Wheeler says the surface will have to be repaved for 2006. Wheeler said I think what weve gotta do though is to study real hard, not just go pave over what weve got. I think we probably need to change some of the banking a little bit. Maybe put a different asphalt mix in to make it more stable and get ready for the new car NASCAR is going to bring out. That graduated banking has been around for a long time and it is affective in creating a second groove. What we want to do here is to make sure we have a second groove so you can have passing and lead swapping. As for a published report concerning the use of restrictor plates after the track is repaved Wheeler said “I’m all for it, let’s do it! It just makes better racing. You slow the cars down and you always have better racing. I don’t think they’re gonna do it…but…keep the rumor going! !”(PRN’s Garage Pass Radio Show)(9-28-2005)
UPDATE 2: NASCAR Nextel Cup Director John Darby would neither confirm nor deny rumors that the sanctioning body will mandate the use of restrictor plates at the October Cup race at Lowes Motor Speedway. #20-Tony Stewart and #16-Greg Biffle each crashed two cars at Lowes last week, as two rounds of computer-aided track grinding a process known as levigation have made the venerable 1.5-mile track extremely fast. We carry restrictor plates on our truck 38 weeks a year, Darby said Friday at Talladega. Theyre there for a lot of reasons, and if a situation ever creates itself that starts to look like its leading itself towards the direction that were going to have a tremendous amount of problems in the race or something that we cant predict or didnt expect to see, thats why we have the plates. If we ever get in a situation where we have to use them, well use them.(Speed Channel)(10-1-2005)
