In the past few weeks, many NASCAR drivers have come forward to share their take on the lack of practice time in the Cup Series. The most common sentiment among drivers is that practice is necessary to get used to a racetrack for the big day on Sunday. However, Kyle Busch recently took the importance of practice a step further.
Advertisement
The Richard Childress Racing driver shared his take on this subject and claimed that when NASCAR had longer practice sessions, he had better results. Busch also pointed to the effects of simulator practice and how it can never compare to practicing in the real world, in a real racecar, on a real racetrack.
Kyle Busch claims when NASCAR had practice sessions, he had better results
During an interview with Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, the 2x Cup champion opened up on the subject of practice in NASCAR, and how the lack of it has affected his career. “It’s been well-touted that when we had practice, I was way better in results. I won a lot more because you’re showing up to the racetrack giving feedback to the team to fix the car to make it better,” Busch said.
“I know how to fix it. I know what I need in a car. I know how to drive it the way I want to drive it. But when you don’t have practice and you just show up based off of sim or a simulator, you don’t necessarily get exactly what I’m looking for.”
The #8 driver argued that on the simulator, the “true feel” is missing. He added that moving around to stimulate motion along with the actuators and other elements incites an inauthentic feeling inside him.
“It’s hard for me to give a lot of great feedback on sim sometimes. That’s why (feel) is probably the single biggest thing you need to have to be a good race car driver,” he said.
Denny Hamlin also shared his take on the subject of practice a few months ago
Along with Busch, a few months ago, his ex-teammate Denny Hamlin also pressed on the importance of practice sessions. But unlike the #8 driver, the #11 driver took a different perspective with which he made his point of why NASCAR needs more practice sessions.
He said in his podcast show Actions Detrimental, “We do miss out on some storylines in the build-up of the weekend. There’s always who’s fast in practice, what storylines came from practice. This team’s got an engine failure, they got to go to the back. What happened? What caused it? Was there a wreck in practice?:
Hamlin added that with a lack of practice, there are some things that drivers miss out on which ends up hurting them in the race, which sometimes ends up hurting the racing product, which is perhaps the biggest reason why NASCAR should re-consider changing their rules around it.
