The future of Texas Motor Speedway has been uncertain in recent years, but the future of the track has been brought into question again following an incident during a NASCAR playoff race on September 25.
Tyler Reddick won the race which became his third win in the season, Yahoo reported. The playoff race was delayed by an hour because of the weather, and when it started, several racers dealt with tire problems.
Three drivers – Kevin Harvick, Chase Elliott, and Martin Truex Jr. crashed due to flat tires.
Goodyear provides tires for NASCAR, but Elliott told Yahoo the provider was likely not to blame for tire issues.
“I’m not sure that Goodyear is at fault. Goodyear always takes the black eye, but they’re put in a really tough position by NASCAR to build a tire that can survive these types of racetracks with this car. I wouldn’t blame Goodyear,” Elliott said.
Since 2017, when Texas Motor Speedway underwent reconfiguration, the track has seen issues with drivers losing control, according to Sports Illustrated.
Kyle Larson, NASCAR reigning series champion, told Racer that the track, which is 1.5 miles long, should be rebuilt to address current issues.
“I would like them to demolish this place first and then start over from scratch,” Larson said. “For one, they did a very poor job with the reconfiguration, initial reconfiguration. I would like to see them change it from a mile-and-a-half to something shorter. I don’t know if that means bringing the backstretch in or whatever,” he said. “If I could build a track, it would probably be a three-quarter mile Bristol basically, pavement, progressive banking. But I don’t know if that’s even possible here. I’m not sure what they have in mind, but anything would be better than what they did.”
It is unclear what will be done to the Texas track, but Racer shared that there are rumors that the track could be reconfigured to be more like the new Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Fans would like a track similar to the Atlanta one while drivers would like something shorter, according to Larson’s teammate Alex Bowman.
“I think if you leave it up to the drivers, then you would have what Kyle said, a short track of some sort,” Larson told Racer. “If you leave it up to the fans, I’ve heard that some people want another Atlanta. I don’t think any of the drivers really want another Atlanta, but we are not here for us. We are here for the fans. It’ll be interesting to see if anything does happen. There are a lot of rumors flying around. The racetrack that we have now has not produced what we want. So, there are a lot of smart people working on it and thinking about how to make it better. Got to do something.”
There have been no announcements from Texas Motor Speedway or NASCAR on what could be next for the track if anything.
The Texas track will host four motorsports events in 2023, which include the Rattlesnake 250 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Race, Texas INDY 375 NTT INDYCAR SERIES Race, Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs Race, and the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Race.
