BRISTOL, Tenn. — NASCAR reversed course and added more resin to the lower groove at Thunder Valley.
Eighteen inches of VHT was laid down on the bottom lane in through turns 1 and 2 and turns 3 and 4 during the overnight hours in preparation of tonight’s Sprint Cup Series Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The substance is meant to give cars more grip so as to make the bottom lane equal to or better than the top lane that has been the preferred groove around Bristol the last four years.
“It was a collaboration between the track, (NASCAR) and the industry,” said Kurt Culbert, NASCAR spokesperson. “(The resin) seemed to work really well.”
It was announced two weeks ago that Bristol has laid down the VHT in advance of the triple-header weekend. Nobody wanted to touch the bottom during the first Camping World Truck Series practice of the weekend after overnight rain. But the trucks started running the bottom in final practice and were running lap times far faster on the bottom than on the top. The bottom continued to dominate through the UNOH 200, although drivers like William Byron tried to run the high line late in the race, and it appeared that the resin had brought back the Bristol of “old.”
By the time the Sprint Cup cars hit the track, more and more drivers were moving up the track to rubber in the top groove. The gap in speed from the top to the bottom was closing, but the bottom was still the quickest way around.
Just after the first caution flew in the XFINITY Series Food City 300, the top lane prevailed as the fastest way around the track.
Brad Keselowski said after the XFINITY race he wanted Bristol to work on the bottom groove before the Cup race.
“The whole point was to work on the bottom groove and make it so this isn’t a track you run up on top,” Keselowski said. “There was a lot of work to make that happen and it didn’t stick with running four series here over the weekend. It’s just a question on NASCAR, whether they want to let the track work on it and get it back.”
