There would have been talk this summer, as there is every year, about repaving Kentucky Speedway when the Sprint Cup Series circuit descends upon the Sparta, Ky., track for its biggest race weekend. Kentucky Speedway general manager Mark Simendinger isn’t ready to give in just yet. There are no plans for a Kentucky Speedway repave unless track officials absolutely have to, and Mother Nature does that sometimes to asphalt. But in the meantime, Simendinger’s maintenance staff will continue maintaining the track’s original surface installed before it opened in 2000. ‘If you’re a real motorsports fan, you know you’re allowed to interchange the word ‘character’ for bumpy,’ Simendinger said Tuesday. ‘In that regard, we have a lot of character. And that’s a good thing.’ Drivers regularly discuss the difficulty in passing at Kentucky, though they’ve embraced the challenge of setting up a balanced car there. Simendinger said he hasn’t fielded a single complaint from one of them about the track’s, um, character. ‘In fact, I saw Kevin Harvick came to throw out the first pitch at one of the Reds games,’ Simendinger said. ‘He just walked up to me and didn’t even say hello. He just said, ‘Don’t repave that race track.’ The Quaker State 400, as the Cup Series race will be known through 2018, is set for June 28 during a weekend that includes Camping World Truck and Nationwide series events. The track then hosts the ARCA Racing and Nationwide series on Sept. 19-20. As with other Sprint Cup Series tracks, Kentucky Speedway will be equipped with NASCAR’s ‘Air Titan’ track drying system this season. The device sucks water off surfaces and into a truck, which NASCAR’s R&D Center estimates could decrease drying times by 80%.(Courier-Journal)
