NASCAR Official Warns of “Problematic” Section of San Diego Street Course

What’s Happening?

NASCAR Official John Probst confirmed that the final layout of NASCAR’s street circuit at San Diego’s Naval Base Coronado is not without its unique features, citing a “problematic” section of the course that drivers will have to tackle during the June event.

NASCAR is just months away from its next street race, as all three NASCAR National Series set out to tackle the sport’s first-ever street circuit on the West Coast and the first on an active US Naval base.

NASCAR unveiled a preliminary, 16-turn, 3.4-mile layout for the track at Naval Base Coronado in October, and since then, there has been little word about any potential changes.

During a recent interview with NASCAR’s Hauler Talk podcast, NASCAR EVP Chief Racing Development Officer John Probst confirmed that the sport has its final layout after months of drivers testing out simulations of different layouts.

“We’ve had drivers running various versions of this course for months now, back into last year,” Probst said. “Hats off to SVG and [Austin] Cindric, [Christopher] Bell, [William] Byron, drivers like that have been working with Jerry Kaproth here at the R&D center to finalize the course layout.”

Nonetheless, Probst says that the sport is going to have to do some work on the track.

Of course, it’s nothing new for street courses, with other series dealing with their own issues from public or private infrastructure affecting their desired race layout, such as Formula One’s loose manhole cover at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

When asked about San Diego, Probst jokingly pointed to one portion of the street circuit at Naval Base Coronado, turn 4, as particularly troublesome. Probst says there is little NASCAR can do, as the obstacles, rails used for loading aircraft carriers, are essential to the base’s infrastructure.

“I can report that we do have a final course layout at this point that will require some paving of the track. There are areas of it, particularly turn 4, where we have to do some work. There’s some tracks that they use to load the aircraft carriers that are probably a little bit problematic for the cars, but certainly something that will be unique to that racetrack, something that we will have to sort of mitigate.” — John Probst

Turn four, a right-hander heading to turn five, which NASCAR calls “Carrier Corner,” runs with the North San Diego Bay to the right-hand side of the cars.

The aerial shot from Google Maps below shows where these tracks intersect and run with the portion of Quay Road used for the circuit.

While Probst says the sport will have to mitigate these issues, the sport will have on-track time to figure things out, as each series will host pre-race sessions and multiple races to get a feel for things.

Nonetheless, Probst does not seem to be worried about the tracks, saying that it is just a portion of the circuit, and it is an honor to be able to host a race at the historic Naval Base.

“We’ll mitigate what we can, but. . . the drivers will have to deal with some unique features that a course like that will throw at us,” Probst said. “But certainly, it’s an honor for us to go out there and race in June.”

The race weekend at Naval Base Coronado is scheduled to take place June 19-21, with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and Cup Series all competing on their own race day.

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