This past weekend, NASCAR brought all three of its national touring series (Cup, xFinity, and Trucks) to the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) for the first time ever. The fun began on Wednesday with the fourth installment of the 2021 eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series; a race which was dominated by experienced road and sim racer James Davison. Thursday was quiet as the teams made the long drive from Charlotte, NC to the track in Austin, TX. COTA is a 20-turn road course which began construction in 2010. In its 10 year history, it has hosted the “Motorcycle Grand Prix of the Americas” every year since 2013 (excluding 2020 due to Covid-19), and is set to return in 2021, but no date has been announced yet as well as F1’s American Grand Prix.
In addition, COTA has also held one IndyCar race. It was meant to hold possibly many more, but the 2020 contest was cancelled and COTA was dropped from the 2021 IndyCar schedule. However, in September 2020, NASCAR revealed their 2021 schedule which featured a plethora of new circuits from Nashville Superspeedway to Road America to Bristol on Dirt, COTA, and plenty others. When FOX began promotion for their portion of the season, their “Best Season Ever” campaign put special focus on COTA.
Since the track was new to NASCAR, practice and qualifying made a triumphant return; practice for the first time since Bristol and qualifying since Daytona (Bristol was supposed to have qualifying heat races, but they were rained out). There was rain during Truck qualifying, the Truck race, xFinity qualifying, Cup practice, and the Cup race. Each series had one practice session and the timed group-qualifying format. Zane Smith was the fastest in practice and Tyler Ankrum sat on pole for the Trucks. Austin Cindric was fastest in practice while Kyle Busch claimed the xFinity Series pole, and William Byron had the top time in practice while Chevy teammate Tyler Reddick sat up front for the Cup race.
Saturday featured a doubleheader with Trucks running first and xFinity having the second race. The Truck race saw the return of Paul Menard but Todd Gilliland walked away with his second career win in the series. Meanwhile, the xFinity race saw the return of road course ringer Boris Said. Additionally, the xFinity race featured the return of many talents of the Cup Series after the conclusion of xFinity’s Dash 4 Cash series, Drivers such as Tyler Reddick, Cole Custer, Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon, and eventual race winner, Kyle Busch, suited up for an extra race. Another Cup driver in the field was Ross Chastain. Chastain was never scheduled to run the xFinity race, but normal driver of the 07, Joe Graf, Jr., was sidelined due to injury. Shortly after the news broke on Saturday that Chastain was in the race, Graf posted on social media that earlier in the week he had strained his knee and after the practice session, he determined the track was too demanding with all the braking and it aggravated his injury, causing him to sit out for the race.
Sunday arrived and it was Cup’s turn to grab this new track by the horns. Tyler Reddick won the pole in qualifying, but that wasn’t the only shock. Both Austin Cindric and AJ Allmendinger advanced to the second round of qualifying beating out Cup regulars like Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin and experienced road course driver Martin Truex, Jr., among others. While Allmendinger is an accomplished road racer (his only win in the Cup Series was at Watkins Glen), Austin Cindric has only been in competitive equipment for a handful of years and was making only his fourth start in the Cup Series.
Qualifying was dry, but by the time the parade laps began, rain was moving fast toward the track. As the race was beginning, NASCAR officials declared the track to be ‘damp’, meaning wet (grooved) tires were optional. All but five drivers came in for dry tires (slicks). The five that started on wets were Martin Truex, Jr., Bubba Wallace, Michael McDowell, and the JTG teammates Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. Almost immediately after the green flag dropped, the rain picked up. Many of the teams that switched to dry tires pit after lap one. More came down for wets on lap two. Soon, everyone except Austin Cindric had wet tires, but after five laps of slipping and sliding, Cindric came to pit road for wets.
The rain came and stuck around for the whole race. At points, the rain became so heavy it was a visibility hazard for drivers and spotters alike. Cars were sliding off track every lap. By my unofficial count, I noted 16 cars either spin, overshoot a corner, or end up in the grass/sand (excluding the two major wrecks). Due to the aforementioned rain and visibility issues, two major accidents occured. The first of which took three drivers out of contention. Kevin Harvick, Bubba Wallace, and the previous road course winner, Christopher Bell all retired from the race due to the accident. Ryan Blaney was also involved, but continued on in the race.
The second crash involved less cars, but was way more severe. The torrential rains resulted in “rooster tails” being kicked up behind cars and sending the water onto the trailing car. The signal lights mandated by NASCAR aren’t very big, and the mist of the rooster tails hindered the vision of the following car(s). Martin Truex, Jr. was approaching a slowing Michael McDowell and was unable to move out of the way in time. The indicating light wasn’t bright enough until Truex was right behind McDowell. After the contact between the two, Truex slowed a bit. In a bit of Deja Vu, Cole Custer slammed Martin Truex’s car, lifting it up and nearly flipping it. As Truex’s car sat back down on the pavement, Custer’s car veered hard left and hit an inside wall, causing the car to burst into flames. Both drivers exited their cars and were released from the track’s infield care center.
Among the drivers involved in the two wrecks, some called for change. Kevin Harvick was quoted saying: “I’ve never felt more unsafe in my whole racing career, period” as well as “we (NASCAR) don’t have any business being out in the rain, period”. After the Truex/Custer wreck, fans on social media called for change. As when the visibility got bad at the Bristol Dirt Race, NASCAR switched to single-file restarts. The rain lightened up briefly, but soon returned harder than before. With the rain the hardest it’d been all weekend and visibility becoming an issue, NASCAR was forced to stop for the second time and subsequently end the race early, giving Chase Elliott his first win of 2021 and his sixth road course win. Additionally, the win tied Hendrick Motorsports with Petty Enterprises at 268 all time and gave Chevrolet their 800th win.
Deluge, destruction, and debates led to one of the wildest race weekends as of late. The on-track product was something to marvel. The rain added to the wild factor and featured drivers like Ross Chastain and Michael McDowell scoring top-tens and leading laps. While some of the measures taken during the heavier rains could have been handled a little bit differently, NASCAR should definitely consider returning to COTA while also working toward better ways to handle rain racing. On a scale of ten, I’d give the race an 8.5.
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