Cars are good, especially when they’re loud and fast. And, believe it or not, us car bloggers actually leave our computer screens occasionally to go look at real, live cars. That’s why Jalopnik will be at Texas Motor Speedway for the NASCAR races this weekend, ready to soak up the noise of loud V8s making big circles.
It’ll just be me out at the track for Jalopnik this weekend, as our Stef Schrader is out racing her own car at LeMons. But I’m bound to get into some shenanigans by myself at the race track, and I’ll have Jalopnik stickers if anyone runs into me—so long as I don’t leave them in my office at home, as I’m prone to do.
But enough about my shortcomings. Let’s talk about the racing itself.
Texas Motor Speedway, which falls into the most common group of tracks in NASCAR, the 1.5-mile ovals, got a repave and reconfiguration before its first race of the 2017 season. A new surface means not a lot of tire falloff—levels of tire falloff create drama with pit strategy and differences in lap times on old and new tires—so the track borrowed a “tire dragon” from Kentucky Speedway to grind rubber into the track surface and hopefully make multiple racing grooves.
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There are only two NASCAR national series races at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, since the Camping World Truck Series always comes for its own date with IndyCar in the summer. The Xfinity Series and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will race on Saturday and Sunday, and we’ll be at the track for both. There’s also a sprint-car race hosted by Tony Stewart on Friday night, but the work week calls and I won’t be there for that one.
Anyway, if you’ll be at the track this weekend, come say hi. I’ll likely be the person trying (and miserably failing) to get people to put Jalopnik stickers on their foreheads. Bonus points if you play along.
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