The private jets of Cup Series drivers will once again fly to Florida this weekend. The second race of the Round of 8 is on the cards at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and it will play a crucial role in deciding who the four drivers who compete for the championship in Phoenix will be. Away from the obvious, there are particular reasons why this track is a preferred destination.
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The 1.5-mile intermediate speedway opened in November 1995 and served as the official destination of the Cup Series finale for nearly two decades. The asphalt surface that it sports with variable banking allows drivers to have a lot of choices on how and where they choose to run. This means there is a lot of space for teams to craft strategies and they would all work to the extent of their brilliance.
The 2022 champion Joey Logano detailed this in an interview before the recent race in Las Vegas. He said, “You can run at the very bottom. You can run at the very top. There’s a lot of tire fall off. It makes it very challenging to set up your race car because do you want to be good on the short run or the long run? I always pick both. Can we get everything?”
At times, drivers have to compromise and pick one racing method over the other. The challenges that this presents are what makes the affair so enjoyable and thrilling from behind the wheel.
When drivers have a good time on the track, so do the crews and the fans. The 55,000 fans who are expected to be in attendance at the venue and the millions watching from home can expect good entertainment.
Why Homestead-Miami still feels like the finale for some drivers
A peak era of stock car racing came to an end when NASCAR decided to move the Cup Series finale from Homestead to Phoenix in 2019. It was cut from the playoffs for two years before being brought back in. However, these transitions did not cause drivers to lose interest in it.
Martin Truex Jr. told the Miami Herald last year, “It’s just always been a place where I feel like we go there, we can run good, I feel comfortable and I have fun. It’s always nice to come to a track that you’re not dreading.” Set to retire at the end of the season, he will be visiting the track as a full-time driver one last time this Sunday.
His teammate Hamlin added, “The driver really can do some things to manipulate the car to work in a certain way by his driving style if the car’s not handling exactly perfectly. Any time drivers can have a bigger factor in your performance, I think that they all like it for that reason.”
The fact that Homestead has a lot more character to it than other tracks is what appears to pull drivers to it. It gives them a lot of options based on their racing style and strategy. The love that is being showered on the track begs reason from NASCAR for the decision to cut it out as the end of the season’s road.
