Bid to improve racing at 1.5-mile ovals continues for NASCAR - MotorSportsTalk

Still searching for ways to improve the on-track product on intermediate ovals, NASCAR staged a second test session today at Charlotte Motor Speedway that featured a series of simulated races for different aero packages in addition to traditional single-car runs.

“One of the things that we learned and the reason we’re back here with so many cars is it is different when you have 30 cars or 25 cars out there versus the six,” NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said this morning.

“It was important for us to come back here with a field of cars that we did. It gave us a little bit different view on some of the answers. It’s put us in some different directions.”

Five different sets of configurations were tested in the aforementioned races. Race 1, with Configuration 1, was “won” by Kevin Harvick by almost five seconds, with Harvick posting a best lap of 194.868 mph.

But Race 2, with Configuration 2, had Kyle Larson take P1 by a much smaller margin of .844 of a second and with a slower quick lap of 191.755 mph. In Race 3 (Configuration 3), Harvick was quickest again at 192.692 mph and beat Larson by 3.8 seconds.

The final two races saw things slow down further. Race 4 (Configuration 4) featured Larson returning to the top with a quick lap of 190.921 mph and the closest margin of victory (.219 of a second over Harvick). Finally, Harvick paced Race 5 (Configuration 5) at 189.907 mph, beating Larson by 4.5 seconds.

It’ll be a lot of data to sift through for NASCAR but its vice president of innovation and racing development, Gene Stefanyshyn, said multiple types of feedback, objective and subjective, would be taken into consideration in regards to the final 2014 aero packages.

“We have to take all that, triangulate it, try to find the alliance and what makes sense,” Stefanyshyn said. “It’s just a matter of looking at it all. If the data says this, there’s somebody that says something totally different, we scratch our head, see what other people said. You kind of balance it all.

“It’s not a perfect science, but we try to take all those inputs and utilize them in the triangulation to find the right answer. You will never get 100% agreement on everything. So really, you’re kind of looking for the 70% answer here that kind of leads you in the right direction.”

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INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports