IndyCar mapping out testing plan ahead of Nashville Speedway return
The NTT IndyCar Series is wasting no time in starting to plan for the change of its season finale venue from the streets of downtown Nashville to the nearby oval at Nashville Speedway.
Driven by the 16-year gap between IndyCar’s last visit to the 1.33-mile facility, the different chassis and engine package used at the speedway in 2008, and the unique cement track surface that’s unlike anything else found on the IndyCar calendar, the series and tire partner Firestone have a lot to learn what its turbocharged Dallara DW12 chassis needs to perform on the Tennessean oval.
“We’re getting with Firestone to see how soon we can go to Nashville,” IndyCar president Jay Frye told RACER. “Step one is we have a tire test, so we’re working on that we know. We don’t know when that will be yet, but we’re looking at the next month or so.”
High tire degradation was a factor teams had to contend with at Nashville in the 2000s. Along with picking the best tire for the championship closer, IndyCar will need to try a range of aerodynamic packages to determine which downforce settings will keep those tires alive while producing the best racing.
“We’ll go through a process for the next couple months to get it where we think it’s right,” Frye said. “And we’ll come up with whatever scenario we think is best and we’ll have a bigger test with a bigger group and even at that point, you can do final adjustments based off that before we get to racing there.”
For more information: www.racer.com
For more information: www.racer.com
