Ready or not, NASCAR garage set to take on temporary San Diego course

Shane van Gisbergen got a brief look at the still-in-progress San Diego course when he was on location last week for an event, and there were a few immediate takeaways.

“It’s going to be really rough and technical,” van Gisbergen said. “When there are bumps, it’s all about the car. You have to have a good suspension setup … when we went there, it was kind of like Sebring, it reminds me. Big gaps in the concrete, and it looks difficult.”

It's no surprise that a street course, and in particular a new course for NASCAR, means van Gisbergen is the odds-on favorite. Over the next two weeks, in fact, van Gisbergen is expected to either win in San Diego and Sonoma, or at least bank a bucket of points to further help his cause in making the Chase.

The course on Naval Base Coronado will be 16 turns and 3.4 miles in length when it’s done being built over the next few days. It is expected to be one of the toughest tests for drivers, regardless of experience level.

“Turn 1 is pretty high commit, high speed. Turn 2 is very downhill. And then it gets pretty rough through (Turns) 3, 4, and the exit of 5 is super rough,” said Ryan Blaney. “They’ve worked on a couple of patches, like the railroad tracks and stuff like that. They said they would pave it some to help it out, but it’s going to be bumpy, and it’s going to be tight. It’s going to be a lot like Chicago.

“Chicago was narrow, bumpy, things like that, so we’ve dug into it a good bit, the best we can. I’m just looking forward to seeing it all put together. It will be challenging. It’s a big racetrack and something like three-and-a-half miles, so there are a lot of corners to do well in or mess up in, but it’ll be a unique challenge.”

The drivers will not see the full course for the first time until it is completed ahead of Friday’s activities. All three national series are in action this weekend.

The course has been available to drivers on simulators, and as of last week, iRacing has added it to their system. NASCAR and iRacing worked together to create the course that is coming to life this weekend.

“I don’t have a lot of thoughts on the racetrack because I haven’t really seen it other than knowing you will have to be aggressive without crossing the line,” AJ Allmendinger said. “I was shocked to see how long the lap is already. I know they are trying to repave parts of it and make it smoother, but it’s going to be rough. We’ll find out when we get out there."

Some of the characteristics of the course include elevation changes through Turns 1 and 2, racing through a residential part of the base at Turn 5, and using part of the active tarmac for Turns 8 through 13.

There are rail tracks near Turn 4, but NASCAR could only do so much to smooth that area out. Those tracks are essential to the base and cannot be modified. And like in Chicago, NASCAR did weld manhole covers and other such things to ensure they don’t affect the vehicles and racing.

“It's a street course, so it is going to have a lot of character,” said Michael McDowell. “The track itself will have a lot of similar characteristics to Chicago, tight, twisty, technical, with high speeds, and some bumpy sections, transitioning from streets to an airfield, with a lot of different textures and different aggregates. It's going to be exciting.”

A few other notes to be aware of ahead of the weekend:

• Drivers can pass once they take the green flag in the restart zone, such as on other road courses. They don’t have to wait until the start/finish line.
• NASCAR will work to have quick cautions to reduce the number of caution laps and time under caution, given the course size.
• The restart zone will be near Turn 16.
• The entrance to pit road will be near Turn 16, and it will be to the driver’s right like Watkins Glen.
• The choose location will be before Turn 8.

“I think it will be the hardest road race that anybody in this garage has ever run, just from the standpoint that there are so many corners,” Chris Buescher said. “I think we have labeled 16, but if we labeled like some other tracks, it would probably come out to 30. It’s going to be very difficult. It’s very narrow in places. It’s extremely wide in others, to the point where you’re almost trying to figure out where in the world you should be in that 100 feet of racetrack to set up for a corner. Trying to figure out what our spotters are going to be able to see and what we’re going to be left on our own to do. Everybody in this room knows that’s dangerous if you leave it up to the steering wheel holders to decide if we’re clear or not, but it’s going to be rough in a lot of places.

“I’ve laughed about it. It’s fitting to be near aircraft carriers. We’re going to be in the air quite a bit, and I think that it’s rough in a lot of ways. It’s going to be tricky. It’s going to be very difficult to go in there and figure out how to get that thing right from the get-go."