NASCAR Nationwide Series drivers spent more time in drafting practice than did their NASCAR Sprint Cup Series counterparts during a marathon test session Friday — and with good reason.
Though NASCAR hasn’t finalized the format yet, NNS qualifying will abandon the single-car approach in favor of some sort of group time trials. Accordingly, single-car test runs at Daytona have less relevance to NASCAR Nationwide than to NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers, who will qualify for the Daytona 500 one at a time, as usual.
“The only reason you see us out here doing single-car runs is just working on speed things,” Trevor Bayne said during Sunday’s lunch break. “You can see a bigger difference in your car when you’re by yourself versus being in the pack, because there’s just so many other factors when you’re [drafting]…
“Obviously, single-car runs aren’t going to matter much when we come back, because qualifying is going to be a group effort, and, obviously, in the race it’s all about how you do in the draft.”
According to NASCAR Vice President of Competition and Racing Development Robin Pemberton, single-car qualifying will not be used this year for any NASCAR Nationwide or NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races.
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