After some small but significant changes to the road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR drivers are letting their frustrations be heard.
Ahead of Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400, the final playoff race for the Round of 12, NASCAR opted to sharpen the corner around Turn 7 while also tightening the Turn 16 frontstretch chicane just ahead of the start/finish line.
The intended result is to introduce more passing – or more chaos – just before the checkered flag. But other consequences have been hard to ignore, especially with such harsh criticism from drivers over the weekend.
NASCAR drivers complain of head pain at Charlotte ROVAL
Amid Saturday’s qualifying rounds, former NASCAR champion Martin Truex Jr. – who is retiring after this season – complained to reporters about the new “turtle” curbs on the final major turn of the redesigned Charlotte ROVAL.
“It feels like you get a concussion every lap basically if you hit them,” Truex said Saturday amid qualifying. “Not much fun.”
Kyle Busch echoed those statements later in the day, saying he’d have to see the data on Monday but felt like Truex wasn’t exaggerating about the impact of the new curbing.
“It’s not overblown, it’s 1000% correct …” Busch said of Truex’s comments. “My head hurts.”
Busch on NASCAR changes: ‘I signed my rights away’
This isn’t the first time that drivers have complained about excessively violent collisions at a road course in recent years.
Busch compared the bumpy ride at the ROVAL to the previous issues at Watkins Glen, where NASCAR removed elevated rumble strips around the “Bus Stop” after drivers complained about safety concerns.
The former two-time champion said it was a “sharper, faster hit” at the ROVAL and “more violent” than the old setup at Watkins Glen.
It’s too late to make any revised changes to the course ahead of this weekend’s playoff race, which determines which four NASCAR drivers will be eliminated ahead of the Round of 8.
When asked if the impact of those turns worried him ahead of Sunday’s race, Busch had a terse response:
“I signed my rights away,” he said with a smirk.
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Truex and Busch both failed to make the postseason after going winless in the regular season, but they’ll try to play spoiler at a track that promises chaos on Sunday.
Busch is one of six Chevrolet drivers in the top 11 of the starting grid for the Bank of America ROVAL 400, while Truex will try to work his way back from a 30th-place starting spot after a tough showing in Saturday’s qualifying.