MOORESVILLE, N.C. — With apologies to NBA Hall of Famer Allen Iverson, whose May 7, 2002, rant about practice remains meme-worthy, “We talking about practice.”
Richmond (Va.) Raceway, site of Saturday night’s Cook Out 400, will be the final time NASCAR Cup Series drivers have to split a 50-minute practice session, with two groups each getting 25 minutes of track time the day before the race.
Beginning next weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, all Cup Series drivers will get to use the entire 50-minute allotment.
It won’t be the pre-COVID glory days of three-day race weekends when teams had two to three hours of practice spread across Friday and Saturday before the Cup race on Sunday, but the added track time will still be massively valuable. Just ask Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Rocket Doctor Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing.
“The added time will allow us to do mock qualifying runs and work on the car’s balance. That’s something I’ve never really had,” Ware said.
“My first full-time season was back in 2021, and that was during COVID when we had no practice or qualifying. We just went straight into the race. There were tracks where my first lap was in a Cup Series race.
“So, qualifying is where I feel like we can make some progress. The added practice time gives us the chance to make a mock run on our second set of tires. And just having that experience before we’re on the clock in qualifying will make us better.”
Ware and his Cup Series counterparts got a taste of the full 50-minute practice session last weekend at Iowa Speedway in Newton. With Goodyear introducing a new left-side tire compound at Iowa, NASCAR deemed it prudent to give teams the full breadth of practice.
“Saturday at Iowa was a positive day for us. The team brought a really good car to the track, and we had one of the most productive Saturdays that we’ve had in a long time. It showed what we can glean from these extended practice sessions,” said Ware, who turned 80 laps around the .875-mile oval.
“We got to do a 30-lap run and an almost 40-lap run with a couple of short runs in between. To be able to go to bed Saturday night after looking at the data and what we learned from those longer runs, it helped me as a driver and helped our team. Our notebook was bigger and our confidence was higher.”
When there are 1,440 minutes in a single day, how much of a difference can 25 extra minutes make?
“Everything matters. The field is so tight everywhere we go that nothing can be overlooked. You can miss things when you’re rushed. Fifty minutes compared to 25 minutes makes you a little less rushed,” Ware said.
In last year’s Cup Series race at Richmond, the difference between the fastest qualifier and the last-place qualifier was .703 of a second. And toward the sharp end of the spear, just .162 of a second separated the 10th-place driver from the pole winner.
The ability to shave those tenths of a second from one’s qualifying run begins in practice. The more practice you get, the better you can make your racecar and the faster you can go. That matters even more when you’re holding your breath for a lap against the clock.
“You have to go out and get all you can in qualifying,” Ware said. “You need to extract all the speed you can and find the car’s limits, all in a single lap. To better understand where the car’s limits are in practice just makes you more prepared for that white-knuckle lap.”
Since hosting its first Cup Series race in 1953, Richmond has evolved. It began as a half-mile dirt oval, transitioned in 1968 to a paved, .625-mile oval, and then underwent a massive reconfiguration in 1988 that created its current D-shaped, .75-mile layout.
Richmond is unique. Like all short tracks, it features close quarters and requires heavy braking with controlled use of the throttle. But it also rewards smoothness, as Richmond is a momentum track, akin to intermediate-style ovals.
“Richmond is a difficult race track because you have two corners that are wildly different. Finding a rhythm there is very tough,” Ware said. “It’s a place where I would definitely welcome a full 50-minute practice session.
“Going into turn one, you’ve got a lot of banking holding you into the corner. Then as you’re coming off the corner and getting down to the back straightaway, you transition onto the flat pretty aggressively. Your entry into turn three is completely different. It’s very flat, not a whole lot of banking. You’re braking very early and lifting very early because you can’t carry speed into the corner like you can in turn one. You don’t have that grip and that banking to hold you into the corner.”
