The demand to increase the length of practice sessions before Cup Series races has been a growing voice in the garage. The latest person to add their argument to the cause is the seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. Currently the co-owner of Legacy Motor Club, Johnson spoke to the media in Texas and answered questions regarding limited practice runs in the Next Gen car.
Advertisement
Back when Johnson was still a regular face on the track on race days, there were multiple practice sessions on a weekend and each of them ran longer than they do now. The COVID pandemic altered the course of things and forced NASCAR to shorten the runs. The promotion reasoned that reducing the time spent on the track before the main race was saving money for the less resourceful teams.
From Johnson’s point-of-view the pros of having more practice outweigh the cons. “The practices are not long enough to make a meaningful change to the car,” he said. “I certainly understand and appreciate the effort for cost savings. We are not going to sit still, you know? Now we’ve put so much reliance on our simulation.”
He continued, “What’s tricky with simulation is trying to feed the pipeline of data and the pipeline of information so that your simulation works correctly and crosses over to the real world and that the simulator that you drive crosses over to the real world. It’s just really tough with how little track time there is for all teams to benefit [from] that.”
Johnson contends that the less resourceful teams aren’t able to translate the data from their simulations to real-world performance because of the shortened track time they get. While NASCAR’s intentions with cost savings might be sensible, it could paradoxically be causing more harm to the bottom dogs of the points table.
Jimmie Johnson’s solution to tackle the problem of limited practice sessions
Continuing, the former champion also stated that new and inexperienced drivers could benefit from having longer runtimes before the main race. He clarified that things need not have to reverse to times when the practice sessions were four hours long and that just doubling up to 40-45 minutes could do the trick.
He concluded, “I think you could, you know, really help the field in its entirety be more efficient with their spending because, right now, it’s… Man, you’re just throwing darts hoping you’re spending the right way on different things.” Johnson’s demand will be a strong consideration when the topic is on the NASCAR table. However, a change isn’t visible in the immediate vicinity.
