Attendance and temperatures dominate prerace conversations at Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Talladega Superspeedway might see something on a Saturday that it hasn’t seen in a long time - a packed house for its annual Nationwide Series race. The race weekend was moved from April to May during the preseason schedule shuffle and everyone in attendance can feel every degree.

That decision was made to avoid the April showers that have plagued the race over the last several years. Thus far, only a pop-up shower during Nationwide Series qualifying has halted the festivities.

But it’s also had a positive impact on attendance with the campgrounds appearing noticeably fuller and the traffic lines discernibly longer. NASCAR doesn’t release attendance figures and estimates won’t be made until the green flag drops but a packed house would be a welcome sight for Talladega president Grant Lynch who’s had to cover seats over the last few seasons to hide the mass of empty box seats.

An exciting tandem of races might be exactly what NASCAR needs to distance itself from the attendance woes from over the past few seasons.

A drawback to this weekend will definitely be the heat.

Temperatures were in the mid-80s for Friday’s twin practice sessions and are expected to reach 90 for this weekend’s Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup races respectively. Some teams have compensated by installing cooling fans on the floor for their driver’s feet.

“I’m not worried about it,” Tony Stewart said. “The hotter it is the better. I like it. I’m not worried about temperature inside the car. I’m more worried about the motor than myself right now.”

That’s because NASCAR mandated major changes to the cooling system prior to the Daytona 500 to help eliminate the tandem draft seen at Daytona and Talladega in recent years. NASCAR ordered smaller-capacity radiators and an overall reduction in system pressure. The changes resulted in a more traditional restrictor plate race. The last restrictor plate race was run at Daytona, at night, and featured temperatures near 68 degrees.

A daytime restrictor plate race at 90 degrees changes everything.

“It’s going to be a lot harder to keep your car cool enough and not let it get heat soaked,” Kyle Busch said. “It gives you a set amount of time you can push and you’re just kind of limited on what you can do based off the water temperature.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won here five times but none since 2004 and says this is how it used to be when his family here in July - yeah they inexplicably used to do that.

Not that you can tell in today’s weather - it may as well be July.