Since the advent of the NextGen model at the beginning of the 2022 season, the NASCAR Cup Series consistently puts on good races at intermediate race tracks.
Jeff Gluck’s Good Race Twitter Poll is not an exact science, but in 2022, intermediate tracks earned an average of 72.26 percent over 11 eligible races (85.61 percent if you remove the two Texas races). The 2023 season boasted a 78.72 percent average over 10 eligible races while 2024 followed with a 76.6 percent.
I would argue that these poll results are at least indicative of the racing quality of those race tracks being higher than say a road course (65.74 percent over four races) or a short track (56.96 percent over nine races) in 2024.
As a result of this increase in popularity, some fans have floated the idea that some facilities of the past should make their grand return to the NASCAR Cup Series calendar.
While Chicagoland Speedway remains high on the list for many along with Rockingham Speedway and Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, another track I’ve seen enter the fray is Kentucky Speedway.
Located in Sparta, Ken., the 1.5-mile circuit hosted the NASCAR Cup Series from 2011-2020 as well as the Trucks and Xfinity Series dating back to 2000 when Kentucky Speedway opened its gates.
Traffic flow miscues and a botched 2017 reconfiguration of the track led ownership to move the Kentucky date to Atlanta, rendering the speedway useless.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Since the pandemic, the Bluegrass State’s big attraction covers overflow for the Ford Motor Company as a holding place (parking lot) for their inventory.
Even still, Kentucky Speedway’s ardent supporters won’t back down, so I’ll explain why this track doesn’t stand a chance in returning to Cup.
(Note: I am from southwestern West Virginia, so Kentucky Speedway was at times in my life one of my closest tracks. This is the “home track” of many people I personally know, so I’d like to make it clear beforehand that it brings me no joy in saying any of this.)
The first thing to point to is the other properties of Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI), which owns the following tracks: Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Dover, Las Vegas, Nashville, New Hampshire, North Wilkesboro, Sonoma, and Texas.
Of those tracks, there’s not a single date that justifies replacement because Kentucky is an inferior race track with an inferior on-track product to all of these tracks, which all happen to be better options when markets become a topic of conversation.
In addition, there exists a big misconception that I alluded to earlier where fans seem to believe that every intermediate track (save for Texas) puts on great racing with the NextGen car.
What the NextGen car actually performs well at are multi-groove courses where racers can spread out in the turns to avoid getting trapped in dirty air while they’re in traffic.
Excellent examples of this reside in Kansas, Homestead, and Darlington. This trio of tracks forces competitors to drive their cars on the ragged edge to eke out as much speed as possible. Wherever their car takes them to find speed is where they stay, whether that’s against the wall or on the apron.
In a way, it’s poetic to watch drivers setup a pass on these tracks with relative ease, sometimes picking off more than one car at a time.
Another important element that makes these tracks stick out comes from the very asphalt that makes up the track itself. The NextGen car puts on great racing when tire deltas matter, so track surfaces that act more like cheese graters than satin offer a better racing product more often than not.
These same attributes don’t apply to Kentucky Speedway, though.
Due to the 2017 reconfiguration, SMI attempted to fuse a novel concept from another facility to improve the racing in Sparta. What track did they try to emulate? You’re never going to believe this.
But, it was Darlington.
Taking the track from its original grade of 14° in both turns to 17° in turns 1 & 2 while narrowing the width of the turns from the apron to the outside wall from 74 feet to 56 feet failed to make the track’s racing more dynamic and competitive.
Instead of being scaled like a wider version of the original Kansas Speedway layout that offered multiple grooves to get around, SMI opted to make the the first half of the course narrower and faster before diving into turns 3 & 4 where the bumps on the entry to the turn make riding in higher grooves untenable.
Track ownership sprayed PJ1 traction compound on the track in an effort to elicit multi-groove racing that simply didn’t stick.
Location and a poor reconfiguration firmly stand in the way of Kentucky Speedway’s return as well as its fellow SMI race tracks.
Recent reports coming out of the race track claim that it’s falling into a state of disrepair, which is a real shame because the race fans of Kentucky deserve to have a top-flight facility to call their own, one they can have pride in when they call it their home track.
If SMI CEO Marcus Smith gets serious about re-opening this facility, it’s better to do it under a step-by-step plan to bolster its standing among fans.
My best advice for Kentucky Speedway and its fans would be to petition for an Xfinity or Trucks race with ARCA supporting the weekend for additional on-track activity. If the track finds success returning to its roots, it can invite back other racing series over time (looking at you, IndyCar.)
In the event of the feeder series and IndyCar bringing in consistent and strong crowds, I see no reason why SMI wouldn’t give Kentucky Speedway another shot, but at best, that’s five years away.
As we’ve seen since 2020, five years can be a profoundly long time.
One other gambit they could pursue lays in the track’s configuration. If the management wants to alter the track in a significant way, they could trim the track distance down to one mile to reflect something similar to Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs.
By shrinking the layout, the cars carry less speed through turns 1 & 2, giving them more opportunities for contact through turns 3 & 4 that won’t necessarily end someone’s day. It could be a perfect storm for a track in need of a fresh attitude and feel.
Overall, I don’t hate Kentucky Speedway. I would prefer a track close to where I’m from succeed because it gives me a really easy reason to go back home!
With that said, its SMI sister properties, its poor configuration, and lack of a significant surrounding market all contribute to this track remaining nothing more than a parking lot for Escapes and Mustang Mach-Es.
(Top Photo Credit: Getty Images)
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