4 Burning Questions: Should NASCAR Race in Death Valley to End Its Drought?

1. Should NASCAR Race in Death Valley to End Its Drought?

If you build it, they will come.

And if NASCAR builds it, rain will come.

In all seriousness, it has been a month of comedically awful luck for NASCAR and NBC, as the last three NASCAR Cup Series races and the last four weekends have all seen lengthy delays due to weather

The Chicago Street Race last Sunday (July 7) failed to reach the scheduled distance for the second consecutive year, as only 58 of the 75 laps were completed by the time NASCAR pulled the plug at approximately 8:20 p.m. local time due to impending darkness.

No matter where NASCAR goes, those clouds of doom, gloom and precipitation always seem to follow. And the while the forecast for this weekend’s races at Pocono Raceway isn’t absolutely dire, the series and its fans will be on rain watch yet again.

This weekend looks to have the clearest weather (knock on wood), as the current forecast from The Weather Channel predicts just a 15% chance of rain on Sunday for Long Pond, Pa.

On the other hand, Friday (July 12) currently has a 61% chance of rain concentrated in the evening, which may interfere with running the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race that is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. ET. Saturday (July 13) then shows a 56% chance of rain, and while most of the storms are predicted to pass by in the morning (leaving the afternoon relatively clear for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race), the storms will likely throw a wrench into Xfinity and Cup practice/qualifying.

If it wasn’t the middle of July with scorching heat (Las Vegas set an all-time record of 120 degrees Fahrenheit on July 7, while Death Valley has had temperatures flirting with 130 all week), it would be really nice to have a race weekend in the desert without any threats of rain. But knowing NASCAR’s current luck, we’ll probably get rain showers there as well.

2. Could NASCAR experiment with a timed race?

In a change from past protocol, NASCAR amended a rule concerning races threatened by darkness after the Cup Series just barely beat sunset in the rain-delayed event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Those changes were experienced firsthand in Chicago, where NASCAR gave a set time (8:20 p.m. CT) when the white flag would be waved due to darkness, regardless of how many laps were left in the race.

It created unique strategy in the closing laps as the teams had to race the clock and not the lap count for one of the first times ever. The teams that pitted before the end of stage two with just over 30 minutes left in the race knowingly took risks in doing so, as an abundance of cautions in the final stage would run the clock dry and hinder them from making forward progress.

The racing and strategy we saw was a pleasant surprise, and it all came to a head in the closing laps as the cars that pitted for slick tires had made their way through the pack but had come just short of leader Alex Bowman — who stayed on wet tires — as time expired.

The ending made me think about sports car racing, where timed events are commonplace all around the world. The 12 Hours of Sebring, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, to name a few, are races run on the clock without a set time limit.

Instead of having a 90-lap race, what if NASCAR mixed things up by having the 3 Hours of Watkins Glen?

It’s not something I’d want on any oval or on every single road course, but it would be cool if NASCAR experimented with the idea. The stage breaks could be at the 30- and 90-minute marks, and the limit would change the game of strategy and add the element of time in at a place that struggled with the racing product one season ago.

Will it happen? I’d put the chances at next to no. But it’s a fun idea to think about for down the road.

3. Is Shane van Gisbergen poised to make a deep title run with all the playoff points he’s racked up?

Since taking the NASCAR world by storm at Chicago last year, Shane van Gisbergen has been nothing short of an automatic win on road and street courses in Xfinity, with three wins in his last three starts. And if wasn’t for an overtime restart and late-race shenanigans at Circuit of the Americas, he could very well be batting 1.000 on left and right turns this season.

The hardware is starting to rack up, as van Gisbergen leads the entire Xfinity field with three wins, all as a rookie. He has the most playoff points to his name of full-time Xfinity drivers with 17 — 15 from his wins and two from stage wins at Sonoma Raceway and Chicago. The series still has another road course race in Watkins Glen International before the start of the playoffs, which presents yet another opportunity for him to acquire up to seven additional playoff points.

With at least 17 playoff points at his disposal, van Gisbergen looks to poised to make a run to the Round of 8 at the absolute minimum. The Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL is the cutoff race for the Round of 12, and a win would guarantee his advancement.

The ovals may be his weakness, but if there’s one thing that van Gisbergen has been great at, it’s been maximizing his finish. His final position has been better than his average running position on 10 of the 14 oval races this season, and he has eight top-15 finishes and 11 top 20s on those types of tracks. His average finish of 14.9 ranks ninth among full-time drivers, and the only times he’s failed to finish were due to a blown engine at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and a blown tire at Iowa Speedway.

However, if van Gisbergen wants to have a fighting chance to make the Championship 4, Kaulig Racing will have to improve its speed. The No. 97 team has only scored a grand total of four stage points on ovals this season, all of which came at Talladega Superspeedway in April. The team typically hovers around 15th to 30th in qualifying, which means van Gisbergen has to spend the entire race biting and clawing his way to solid finishes, missing out on the coveted stage points in the process.

That will have to change in order for van Gisbergen to make it all the way to the season finale. The playoff points in the bank will certainly help, but a lack of stage points will effectively eliminate the team from making it to Phoenix Raceway without a win in the final round.

4. Noah Gragson joins Front Row Motorsports for the long haul. What’s the future of its lineup?

Noah Gragson became the third of the four departing Stewart-Haas Racing drivers to find a home for 2025, as it was announced July 10 that he inked a multi-year deal with Front Row Motorsports.

What was interesting about the move is the fact that Gragson was given a multi-year deal in the first place. FRM has been known to sign its drivers for only one-year deals, and the inability to sign a long-term contract was one of the reasons Michael McDowell gave for his departure from longtime home FRM to Spire Motorsports next season.

With a new third charter, FRM is making the long-term moves to set itself up for the future. That includes going young in its driver lineup, as team owner Bob Jenkins said that the expectation is for the team to hire another young driver for the third car.

Who could that be? One of the names out there is Zane Smith, who won a Truck championship with FRM in 2022 and made part-time Cup starts with FRM in 2023. He was signed away to Trackhouse Racing (and by extension, Spire) for 2024, but the current logjam in Trackhouse’s lineup makes his future with the organization uncertain unless it acquire a third charter itself.

When asked about the possibility of Smith returning, FRM GM Jerry Freeze was open to the possibility, saying that Smith would have been in the third car if it had possession of the charter last year.

Other names that have been in the rumor mill are Sam Mayer and Christian Eckes, both of whom are tearing it up with multiple wins in the Xfinity and Truck circuits, respectively.

Regardless of who gets the call, it’s an exciting time for FRM, and the team is on its way to becoming one of Ford’s premier programs.

Stephen Stumpf

Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.

Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.