During his career, Kevin Harvick would put on a show at Texas Motor Speedway. The track has become a very unique venue in NASCAR. With the reconfiguration in 2017, the track has had a lot of criticism, but it is still challenging for these drivers.
Even with the great racing the Next Gen has provided on intermediate tracks, Texas falls short. That has nothing to do with how easy and bland the track is. On the contrary, it is one of the more difficult ovals on the schedule.
Kevin Harvick talked about the difficulty of racing at Texas on his Happy Hour podcast. The Closer gave a great explanation of the two ends of the track. Turns 1 and 2 are nothing like Turns 3 and 4.
“Very unique track though. You’ve got a really flat corner, they changed turns one and two, it’s really wide and really flag, they’re going to put the PJ1 down in the third groove like they normally have,” Harvick said. “Turns three and four they’re super banked, super bumpy. They ground the bump a little bit in three and four, but it’s still pretty bumpy. So, the way that you drive it is just completely different from one end to the other.
“Turn one is just one of those corners where you just have to get that thing in there, it’s unsettled because the race track is flat. With the Cup cars, it’s a really tricky balance in the heights of the car because you want the car to be as low as possible in one and two to get as much grip as possible, being low to the ground, and in turn three and four the car wants to hit the ground because it has so much more load than turn one and two.
“So you have to balance keeping it off the stops and keeping it off the ground to keep it as low as possible in turns one and two but cars want to get really tight in turns one and two there, the way that the wind blows always blows pretty good there towards the exit of turn two so you never know what you’re going to get there. But really difficult track to make your car handle good.”
Kevin Harvick knows a thing or two about Texas. After the reconfiguration in 2017, Harvick owned Texas in the fall. From 2017 to 2019, he won three straight Fall races at Texas. It was just one of those tracks he took to in the latter part of his career.
Let’s see if this unique track can put on a good show. I’m not optimistic, but at least the Texas track can provide a little chaos and test the skills of these drivers.
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