Remember Auto Club Speedway?
Two-mile speedway in California? Has wide, sweeping turns that haven’t been repaved since 1997 or raced on in two years?
Has a twin sister in Michigan?
If anyone should remember, it’s Alex Bowman.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver holds the distinction of being the last NASCAR Cup Series to score a win on the Fontana track. That came on March 1, 2020, just two weeks before NASCAR and the rest of the sports world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which kept the series from returning in 2021.
“It feels like it has been forever,” Bowman told reporters Thursday.
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Due to the two-year gap since that last race, this weekend’s Auto Club 400 will feature a few new elements: The Next Gen car and a track surface applied with resin.
“Nothing from 2020 is going to apply to 2022, I don’t think,” Bowman said. “I wish there was a secret. I think the secret is a fast race car that works really well. That’s what we had in ’20 and hopefully we have a similar thing in ’22. I think it is going to take a much different balance than it took back then.”
The resin, which will be applied in the turns, is intended to help with tire grip on a surface that hasn’t had rubber put down in 24 months.
NASCAR first experimented with resin last summer during the inaugural Cup weekend at Nashville Superspeedway.
Bowman said the substance has been applied to the surface in “a strange manner.”
“The way it is kind of tapered into turn 1, I feel like it might make passing harder on entry to one just because if you are inside of somebody you are going to be out of the resin, and they are going to be in it,” Bowman observed. “We haven’t been there in a long time, we need the track to rubber up quickly, kind of limited practice before we are on track.”
You can kind of see where the resin/tire dragon is placed going into Turn 1. pic.twitter.com/l5XmmSJxAs
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) February 25, 2022
This weekend features the debut of NASCAR’s new practice/qualifying format.
The field will be split up into two groups, with each getting 15 minutes to practice before single-car qualifying.
“The biggest thing is we really can’t make changes in that amount of time,” Bowman said. “We might have time make one change. So, kind of just getting a handle on what you have, and you know you can’t go through a normal practice agenda like that.”
When it comes to how the Next Gen car will race at Auto Club, Bowman said he doesn’t think the new car can be ran “as loose as you could with the previous gen car.
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“I was really loose that whole weekend, it was really fast,” Bowman said of his 2020 win. “I think kind of going a little different direction than we were then. This car is so different in every way so it’s hard to apply much.”
With a new car, resin and a lack of practice time, Sunday’s race (3:30 p.m. ET on Fox) obviously presents a “big challenge.”
“We’ve never been there with this car,” Bowman said. “We haven’t been there with a high horsepower, lower downforce package in a couple years, so just trying to know what I need to do to start practice. Lift points, basic stuff is a big question mark right now. Hopefully, I adapt to it as quick as anybody and I think it’s difficult from the team side too, right? Like you have your simulation and all that, but until you go do it who really knows?”