“The fuel-savings racing looks good”: NASCAR Insider presents dichotomy of modern era of superspeedway racing

Jeff Gluck, the NASCAR veteran, shared the stats from the Daytona 500 race, where they appear to suggest a good race with exciting lead changes. He posted the same on X.

NASCAR drivers have increasingly employed fuel saving strategies in affecting their race outcomes. The strategies jump up to be useful in long races like the recent Daytona 500 as they have been able to pose significant advantages for the teams. They use various techniques to extend their fuel mileage, like short shifting. This is where the drivers shift their gears before reaching their maximum rotations per minute, which reduces fuel consumption, and this also causes the engine to not operate at its full capacity.

Another effective technique that they have been using is rolling in and out of the throttle, allowing drivers to move into corners without braking hard, and by doing this, they are also maintaining the momentum to propel for the upcoming section of the track.

Jeff Gluck, the veteran NASCAR driver, posted the stats of the Daytona 500 where the fuel-saving strategies were employed in the Next-Gen cars.

"The fuel-savings racing looks good on TV and in the numbers, too. NASCAR says the Daytona 500 had: Most-ever Daytona green flag passes (16,389) Most-ever Daytona green flag passes for the lead (331) Most lead changes for a Next Gen D500 and fourth most in 500 history (56)"

Drivers during the race also employ additional minor strategies like shutting off their engines when they are rummaging through pace laps and coast fast through turns during the caution phase of the race (if a crash occurs). They stretch their fuel window and this helps them using their pit stops later more effectively and strategically.

Officials have been examining these strategies so that they don’t affect the intensity of the races and cause the excitement of a good NASCAR race to funnel down.

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NASCAR Insider Jeff Gluck defended drivers using fuel-saving strategies

NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi discussed the nature of superspeedway racing on The Teardown podcast, following the Daytona 500. They defended the drivers for using fuel saving strategies.

"To me the alternative to that, there's gotta be a part of the race where you log laps. Everybody has now figured out that you want to take as little fuel as possible so you can get your track position, so you can get up there. And yes, it's kind of weird because they all run the same half-throttle and they're all in three-wide packs and they're all burning laps, you kind of have a part where nothing is happening, they have a pit stop and they get clear enough that their crew chief tells them that they can now race. But that is strategy. I would rather have them doing that than running single file train against the wall like they used to for 50 laps and then still wrecking at the end." [13:00]

Gluck, initially skeptical, has come to appreciate the fuel-saving aspect, viewing it as a strategic component of the races.