What’s Happening?

The Daytona 500 race weekend left a lot of people talking due to the speed of the cars, but, not the reason fans may expect. It was how slow the race was that got many talking. With Talladega being Daytona’s sister track, will we see more slow racing this weekend at Talladega?

• Talladega and Daytona are slower than normal due to two factors. One is the Next-Gen car itself, and the other is fuel saving, which has become quite common at superspeedways.
• However, Talladega does have some fundamental differences from Daytona. Are those differences enough to keep the speeds up?
• Fans and drivers alike are not fans of the slower speeds at Daytona and Talladega. However, the speeds are restricted for safety reasons.

Will Qualifying Speeds Be as Slow?

The way the Next-Gen car is designed causes the single-car run speeds to be much slower than in the past. We go into detail about this in the article below, but, the cliff notes version is that a mixture of reduced horsepower and aerodynamic changes makes these cars slower in a straight line. Daytona and Talladega see the drivers full throttle for an entire lap, so, taking away top speed makes the tracks slower.

Why This Daytona 500 Will Be the SLOWEST in Nearly 50 YEARS

Now, Talladega is a bit different than Daytona. The track is slightly longer, with slightly steeper banking, and a slightly wider surface. As a result, speeds throughout history have generally been faster at Talladega than at Daytona.

However, in the Next-Gen era, that trend has not continued. Talladega has been, generally speaking, slightly slower on qualifying day than Daytona.

Year	Daytona Top Qualifying Speed	Talladega Top Qualifynig Speed
2022 Race 1	181.159 MPH	180.928 MPH
2022 Race 2	No Time Trials	180.591 MPH
2023 Race 1	181.686 MPH	180.751 MPH
2023 Race 2	181.822 MPH	181.656 MPH

The size and shape of Talladega does not make the cars go any faster. The cars are restricted so much that 180-181 MPH is about as fast as they can go on these track types. Qualifying speeds will probably be about the same.

Will Race Speeds Be as Slow?

During the Daytona 500, drivers were racing at slower speeds during the early portions of the race to save fuel. The idea is that the slower a driver drives on track, the less fuel they consume, meaning they don’t have to take on as much fuel when they do pit. This means less time on pit road which gains time on the track.

Drivers DID NOT Like This Aspect of The Racing Product at Daytona

We will probably see fuel savings once again at Talladega. Tires do not mean much on superspeedways, so, strategy is all about fuel. All three stages are longer than a fuel run, which means that drivers have an incentive to save fuel. They know they have to pit at some point before the stage ends, so, they must save fuel to limit the amount of time on pit road.

Fuel saving may not happen if the race is a wreckfest. With enough caution flags, drivers can pit and take care of the fuel mileage issue there rather than saving fuel under green flag conditions. Drivers can also save fuel under caution by coasting at caution speed.

Will we see fuel saving at Talladega? As long as it remains the best strategy, then, we probably will. Will it be as extreme as it was in stage 1 at Daytona when drivers were going 175 MPH? It may not be to that degree, but, it could happen.

Talladega will likely be a very similar race to Daytona, and the speeds will likely be about the same. The same slowdown that occurred at Daytona may occur once again at Daytona.