What is typically a different race weekend from any other, has gotten off to an odd start. Typically the All-Star Race is a different format, length, setup, and type of race than any other. It’s held at Charlotte Motor Speedway each year but it is only 80 laps line length, and has a few stages to it, with the last one being a 10-lap sprint to the finish. The winner takes home $1,000,000 but no points for the season-long title. The field is made up of winners from the current season, previous season, previous All-Star Race winners, and past Cup Series champions to make up most of the field for the exhibition race. Seventeen drivers are automatically in the race this year, with four others qualifying on Saturday via the winner of the fan vote, and the winners of each stage of the Monster Energy Open, held preceding the All-Star Race.
Typically speaking the cars run a normal setup that the 1.5-mile quad-oval track requires, but this year it’s a completely different car setup. There are restrictor plates in the engines and big spoilers on the back of the car to reduce the horsepower and increase the downforce and keep the racing close. Kansas from last week aside, the 1.5-mile tracks usually produce races in which the leader and a few cars break away from everyone and in clean air the leader can set sail and, without a caution, may not be caught. NASCAR is trying something different this week with introducing restrictor plates on a non-superspeedway track in order to create closer and more exciting racing. The problem however is that the drivers have never raced in this setup before and still haven’t since most of practice was rained out. The most laps run on Friday in the session was five by Jimmie Johnson.
So it’s only a 80-lap race, the setup for the cars are different and much more like Xfinity cars in their horsepower and downforce, and there was practically no practice time. So what else is different? Qualifying. Yep that’s right, qualifying is also different for the exhibition event with a three-lap run including a four tire pit stop squeezed in the middle of them. The total time for all three full laps and the pit stop make up the qualifying time with a few penalties being added in for loose lug nuts or tire violations in the pit. Pit road speeds however were not enforced, though they will be during the race.
With four stages during the race, short-run speed will be key as the longest stage is 30 laps in length followed by two of 20 laps and the final being a 10-lap sprint.
All of this means the race on Saturday night will be unpredictable, close, and a nail-bitter in all likelihood, especially with a cool million bucks on the line. It also means that point total for the race should be a bit deflated from normal weeks because of the lack of dominator points available in the race with just 60 total dominator points (in DK) for the field to divvy up (40 fastest laps points and 20 laps led points)
I have provided a write-up for each of the drivers that are automatic qualifiers for the event below based on their past All-Star Race experiences, but keep in mind that each race has been different and this year’s especially, for all the reasons listed above.
Good luck!
Stacks
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