"Multi-groove racing on steroids": Dale Earnhardt Jr. uses Homestead's example to make a point about Next Gen racing
On the latest episode of Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up on the technical side of racing at Homestead. The NASCAR Hall of Famer touched upon the infamous 'wall-riding' aspect of racing at the Miami-based racetrack.
Junior revealed that when his Xfinity team prepares for Homestead, the drivers get in the sim and practice running the wall, and they repeat it again when they get to the racetrack as well. He added that running the bottom could lead to a driver being a couple of tenths quicker, but 99 percent of the focus in sim or practice or in the race is at the wall.
Earnhardt Jr. also remarked that the Cup drivers are smart enough to know that all drivers can't run the wall, because otherwise, there'd be no passing. He then touched on Ryan Blaney's pre-race comments where the Penske driver claimed he wants to practice running different lines.
"If everybody's on the fence then I've gotta find somewhere else to be. And we see that with the Next Gen car at a lot of mile and a halfs and I believe that's what makes the car incredibly good at those tracks is with the diffuser, they can't follow each other. They need to be always funneling air, getting air under the car to the diffuser in the back. So they have to run off-line with the car in front of them. So if you send 10-20 of them down in the corner at Kansas and Homestead, they all have to choose different lines to get away from the car in front of them. And so it really kind of does present multi-groove racing on steroids," Dale Earnhardt Jr. described. [12:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the differences between Next Gen and Gen 5 car
Highlighting the differences between the Gen 5 car and the Next Gen car, Dale Earnhardt Jr. claimed that the old car wasn't as dependent on clean air. He mentioned that 'dirty air was a bad problem', but getting clean air under one's car wasn't one.
"With the Next Gen car you have to have it. We see the field go down the corner and fan out more aggressively, using as much as of racetrack, everybody trying to go where someone else isn't just to get the clean air. And so it kind of makes it where, the whole field can't run the wall. If they all ran the wall, they'd be all five-ten car lengths apart from each other because they couldn't get any closer because they start to lose air under the diffuser," Dale Earnhardt Jr. described. [13:50]
Because of this, Earnhardt Jr. concluded that drivers have to race off the wall and make their cars work on the wall.
As for Ryan Blaney's decision to take the line he took before Tyler Reddick passed him on the outside, Junior speculated that it was because Blaney felt good about his car and how it was running in that area of the racetrack.