At 11:30 this morning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series took to Charlotte Motor Speedway to have their practice session ahead of their race later tonight to kick off the Memorial Day weekend of racing. As per usual the last few years NASCAR has been laying down a traction compound called PJ1 on a few of their tracks to add grip to a different line and give drivers another path through the track instead of the usual preferred racing line. PJ1 works by heating up and as it heats up it adds grip to the surface and drivers can run in it to pass cars. The main part of how it works however is heating up, which it was not able to do before the trucks started their practice, which caused Chaos. The big story coming out of practice is that many drivers, including the fastest man on the track John Hunter Nemecheck were running business as usual and moved up to get around slower cars, hit the compound, and then took their trucks on a ride to the wall. “You’re along for the ride” was part of a quote from the broadcast after we saw a replay of John Hunter hitting the wall and saving his car from worse damage.
This could be a major problem for the truck race if they do not find a way to heat up the track beforehand, the field will have no choice but to train up on the bottom, as they would rather finish the race than be in the wall trying to pass someone. We will have to see if xFinity practice will add some heat to the track to benefit the truck drivers as they kick off a great weekend of racing tonight.
The Slow Restart 