Every race track in the NASCAR Cup Series has a special distinction. Martinsville boasts paperclip turns, Daytona is all about the draft, and Bristol shines hard with its rough battles. But the Michigan International Speedway is all about speed and momentum. The track’s latest winner, Denny Hamlin, spoke about it on Actions Detrimental this week.
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Hamlin secured his third victory of the season at Michigan on Sunday. On the podcast, he discussed how momentum is key in restarts at the venue. He said, “Michigan is one of the toughest tracks for that, where when you have a lot of corner speed it can be a negative thing.” The reason he says this is because drivers are not always able to execute their passes.
When they aren’t able to do so, they get passed easily by other cars that are riding down the straightaway because of lost momentum. He continued to note that Michigan was a hybrid between the Atlanta Motor Speedway and other one-and-a-half-mile tracks. “There’s more drafting, but handling does matter. It’s just perfect,” he added.
Not every track on the schedule compliments the Next Gen car this well. Michigan is wildly underrated for its ease of adapting to the characters of the Next Gen car. Hamlin detailed the same and lauded it for carrying a lot of drag and big runs down the straightaway. “It’s just a momentum game,” he concluded.
Exactly how fast is the Michigan International Speedway?
In the Next Gen era, the average pole-winning lap at Michigan has been set at a speed of 192.04 miles per hour. This is faster than most of the tracks out there. But interestingly, this is slower than what it used to be back in the Gen 6 car. The fastest qualifying speed posted between 2013 and 2021 was 200.50 miles per hour.
The combination of lengthy straightaways with relatively low tire wear and curvy 18-degree turns creates the perfect condition for drivers to build and maintain speed, particularly in the corners. This results in excessive speed even by the standards of NASCAR where racing fast is the entire objective. And Hamlin is not the only one in love with the track.
Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones says, “I just really enjoy the track. It’s come into its own here as it’s aged and widened out. Racing there with this NextGen car has been good. I’m looking forward to it. This one is high on my bucket list of tracks to win at one day.” Many in the garage would agree with this take.
