Reactions aside, NASCAR’s new policies package brings game a step towards its roots

On its website, Ford advertises its 2019 Mustang GT Fastback to generate 460 horsepower from the auto’s 5.0-liter V8 engine. Better but, according to Car and Driver, the 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 and its five. The 2-liter V8 engine can produce 526 horsepower. When Joey Logano won Sunday’s Pennzoil four hundred at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the V8 engine in his 2019 Ford Mustang changed into pumping out the kind of 550 horsepower. This is relevant due to the fact, as Logano positioned it, “No one’s buying cars with 800 horsepower, for the maximum component.”

The Las Vegas race, the primary for the NASCAR Cup Series underneath its complete new rules bundle for 2019, received mixed reactions (certainly) from lovers, media, and race groups. But Logano reiterated an important point because it relates to the bundle that decreases horsepower from 750 to a target of 550 in Cup motors at certain tracks. “It makes feel to be greater applicable to the cars which can be on the road,” Logano instructed Sporting News on Tuesday. “We need to live proper to our roots, of what NASCAR is constructed on, going to the neighborhood dealership and shopping for a vehicle and going racing.

“We’ll in no way get lower back to that — and precise component, because our cars are a lot more secure — however, it brings us one step towards being more relevant to what you spot on the road.” Of path, that reality is impartial of the early criticisms surrounding the new package. On the one hand, the winner of the first race of the season featured automobiles jogging both a smaller tapered spacer and aero ducts ought to approve of the changes. But Logano is in his 12th season as a Cup Series motive force. And even as he admits this is the “maximum giant policies alternate” NASCAR has pressured “in a completely long term,” he does now not bear in mind poor reactions warranted.

Among the goals NASCAR had with its new aero package deal, which in addition to reducing horsepower additionally targets to growth downforce and drag, changed into diminishing the possibilities of lead vehicles riding far from the field, mainly at mile-and-a-1/2 tracks, and allowing extra chances for passing. The Vegas race becomes a smashing fulfillment in that regard. According to NASCAR.Com, 3,341 inexperienced flag passes Sunday, without problems, the maximum in a Vegas Spring race over the last five years. There were forty-seven green-flag passes for the lead; ultimate year’s Spring race in Vegas featured merely nine.

“When you observe that, you’ve got to say it is higher,” Logano said. “The leader didn’t have a bonus, and from time to time, early inside the run, the chief becomes even at a drawback. It was surely, genuinely difficult to preserve off the automobiles behind you.” (This is wherein we mention how few appeared to care about the range of lead adjustments in a race back in 1990, as an instance, while Dale Earnhardt led the closing 262 laps of a run in Phoenix on his way to his fourth of seven championships. Alas …). Logano additionally challenged an assumption associated with NASCAR’s new policies package. Given multiplied downforce, are the motors easier to force? Some have counseled that’s why there have been no crashes in the last Cup races. The verdict (granted, after only a couple tracks) …

Yes and no.

“If you’re using yourself and there are no cars around you, yes, the vehicles are quite easy to pressure in contrast to ultimate 12 months,” Logano explained. “But when you’re in site visitors, the dirty air is unpredictable. The automobile merely takes off in different directions. So your reaction instances have to be faster. “The other piece that’s even tougher is you gotta have a superspeedway mentality. You’re constantly looking inside the mirror; you are continuously searching wherein different cars are, what your surroundings are. Mentally, you have to be engaged perhaps greater than the remaining yr while you’re racing through traffic. I wouldn’t say it’s less complicated or more difficult. It’s simply special. Especially proper now because we’re all looking to discern everything out.”

And that is a crucial factor. This is all new. Hence cause NASCAR govt vice chairman Steve O’Donnell, like Logano, chalked up the Vegas race upon its conclusion as a step within the right route. O’Donnell reminded anyone that NASCAR will evaluate the package deal after the season, now not after a couple of races. But for now, if there’s one element NASCAR officials, race teams, and lovers can agree upon as it pertains to this bundle, it might be Logano’s factor about reliability. That Shelby GT 350 at the Ford showroom ground still won’t appear exactly like the No. 22 Penske Racing Mustang that Logano drove to victory lane Sunday. But now, at the least it produces similar strength.

Joey Logano spoke to Sporting News on behalf of Panini America, the world’s biggest certified sports activities and amusement collectibles agency. Logano will serve as the Driver Ambassador in Panini’s NASCAR VIP Experience at the 2020 Daytona 500. By buying pick-out Panini 2019 formally certified NASCAR buying and selling cards, fanatics will acquire the right of entry to codes that they can use to go into the sweepstakes for a threat to win an experience for 4 Daytona and meet Logano.