With several seconds of tire falloff, some cording, and wildly slick conditions, drivers will have a lot of work to do on Sunday.
In practice, teams and fans reacted as several cars struggled to find grip, with drivers complaining over the radio. Roval favorite Shane van Gisbergen wasn’t happy with the balance of his car in his practice, and his teammate Daniel Suarez quipped to PRN’s Alan Cavanna that the most treacherous section is “anywhere from Turn 1 to 17.”
A.J. Allmendinger — who led practice — was shocked to find himself atop the speed charts after fighting the car constantly and skating around the course.
“Let’s put it this way: It’s way different than it’s ever been,” Allmendinger told USA Network. “It is slick, it feels like an ice rink. It feels like after half a lap, the tire is completely gone. It’s about three seconds off (from the sim) … It’s definitely different. We’re going to have to go do our homework. I’m going to have to figure it out, but I wasn’t ready for it to be that slick. I was kind of shocked. I ran my first lap and I was like ‘wow, that is quite off, you’re terrible.’ And I looked up the board and saw P1 — interesting. If it’s like this tomorrow, it’s going to be crazy to watch. So everybody at home, you’re going to have fun watching. I don’t know if we’re going to have fun.”
Allmendinger is one of the most successful drivers at the Roval, winning the Cup race here in 2023, as well as winning four consecutive Xfinity races at the Roval between 2019 and 2022.
“I feel like we’re on the wrong tire”
Kyle Busch, who has a new crew chief this weekend, could hardly believe the lack of grip and even questioned the tire choice.
“I can’t say that it’s the car’s fault because everybody’s is driving just as bad as mine is,” Busch told USA Network. “I feel like we’re on the wrong tire. Holy cow. Very poor decision, but it is what it is — same for everybody so we got to deal with it. We got to figure out what works best for our Chevrolet. We tried a few things there (but) nothing made a difference. That just goes to show that no matter what you try, you’re just so lacking grip, that you can’t make any grip with how hard the tire is. I feel like we’re just struggling with that.”
Practice and qualifying also featured several ill-handling race cars with drivers spinning out, locking up, and tagging the wall as they tried to keep their machines under control. Tyler Reddick went on to earn pole position, besting SVG by just 0.032s.
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