Why Is Nashville Different Than Other Street Courses?
Nashville is the equivalent to INDYCAR for what the likes of Daytona or Talladega are to NASCAR. Why?
The series races also on the streets of St. Pete, Long Beach, Detroit and Toronto and none of their races look like this one.
The two races so far run on these city streets were messy ones. Out of the 160 combined race laps turned, 43% of them were under caution periods with 38% of the cars being loaded back on the haulers early after crashes.
The inaugural race saw 9 cautions for 33 laps. Last year’s was one less yellow (8) but more caution laps (36).
St. Pete this year had five cautions for 26 laps (26%) and last year one caution for eight laps (8%). Long Beach had just two cautions for seven laps (8%) this April and four for 14 (16.4%) last year. Detroit had seven cautions for 32 laps (32%) this year but last year on Belle Isle it was one caution but for no laps as it happened at the end. Toronto last year was four cautions for 15 laps (17.6%) and three for 16 laps (18.7%) last month.
Why is this one so vastly different?
A tight street course is customary no matter where you’re racing. St. Pete (1.8-miles) has slippery due to new paving, Long Beach (1.968-miles) is Long Beach, Detroit (2.5-miles) is just as tight and just as bumpy, if not worse, than Nashville while Toronto (1.786-miles) is your typical street circuit too.
Nashville is also bigger than 3 of the other four at 2.1-miles too, so why the carnage?
Is it due to the nature of this track. 10 cars were listed as DNF a year ago due to “contact” but more like upwards of 14 or more cars collected damage at some point during the race. A season low 15 cars saw the checkered flag.
“Other than that, it’s not terrible to have a crazy race every now and again,” notes Herta. “And this might be INDYCAR, some of the races are snoozers and some of them are really amazing, and some of them are amazing for this reason, because there’s cars going off all the time, you never know who is going to win.”
Sloppy? Sure. Fun. Absolutely. The drivers liked it and hope the fans did too.
“Obviously, there was a lot of cautions and the red flag, and it’s not ideal, but I don’t know from a fan standpoint,” said Palou.
“As long as they had fun watching it, it’s one of those things that I think the atmosphere here in Nashville and the race event itself, it’s amazing. So as long as the fans are happy, I think it’s good if we continue here.”
We all thought Detroit was going to be that way but proved otherwise. Can the drivers finally find a rhythm and sing the right tune in Nashville?
Can Honda Go Perfect On Street Courses In 2023?
Chevy is a perfect 4-for-4 on ovals. Honda though, is a perfect 4-for-4 on street courses. Not only that, they’ve also won all four poles to go along with scoring 9 of the 15 podium spots as well. Also, if you go back to last season, they’ve won each of the last 6 street races. Why do they have such an advantage and is there anything that Chevrolet can do to close the gap?
Honda stole the show in Chevrolet’s backyard in Detroit and has won each of the two races in Nashville.
Chevy did have three cars finish in the top five in Detroit including 2 of the 3 podium positions but has just one top five finish in Nashville with Honda taking 5 of the 6 podium spots and 9 of the 10 top fives.
Ganassi has had at least one car on the podium in each of the last nine street races run. Last year, they went 2-8-9-23 at St. Pete, 3-6-20-22 in Long Beach ,3-6-7-22 in Detroit, 1-5-6-21 in Toronto and 1-3-14-18 in Nashville.
This year, they’ve gone 1-3-8-11 in St. Pete, 3-5-8-27 in Long Beach, 1-4-8-9 in Detroit and 2-4-7-11 in Toronto.
Andretti has three podium finishers this season with McLaren having scored 2 and Penske and Rahal each with 1.
They’re 2-for-2 in Nashville and had the top four finishers in the inaugural race in 2021 and 4 of the top 5 a year ago.
Josef Newgarden just swept the weekend in Iowa the last time out. Can Honda sweep the streets on Sunday?
Is This A Better Time Slot?
The inaugural event in 2021 was at 5 p.m. ET. Last year was a bit better (3:30 p.m. ET). This year, the green flag is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET. Is that a better time slot that later in the day?
The crowds have been jammed packed here, but by going earlier, you can allow for more out of town visitors. With so many major cities being in a close proximity to Nashville, a 12:30 p.m. ET start gets them all likely home by dinner which as a result, could help the attendance even more.
However, 12:30 ET is also 11:30 a.m. locally. Is that too early?
The crowds on Sunday will show us.
Is Nashville INDYCAR’s Chicago
NASCAR hit a home run with the Chicago street race addition. INDYCAR has hit one with Nashville but moving even further downtown next year and even ending the season here could spark an even bigger event than it already is.
In late April, the NFL published a piece that the Tennessee Titans conquered the final piece of the puzzle to get the deal for a new stadium solidified. According to the linked article, “The Metro Nashville City Council finally approved by a 26-12 vote early Wednesday morning on the final reading to allow its sports authority to issue $760 million in bonds. That combines with $500 million in state bonds for $1.2 billion in public financing committed to the Titans’ enclosed stadium.”
The hope is to break ground by mid 2024 to open for the 2027 season.
That played a role in how the Music City Grand Prix is run. See, the third and final year of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the contract for this race is this weekend. While both sides wanted to continue this deal on past 2023, this new piece to the puzzle obviously changed things.
According to the plans that are out there for the public to view, the new Titans stadium is slated to be built on the parking lots between the current stadium now and Interstate 24. That’s exactly where the paddock currently is and where the backside of this track runs.
If this race is to continue on past this current contract, a new layout/design will be needed. Hence comes the vision.
The issue there was, how can they utilize the bridge still? That’s an iconic part of this track and to what makes this event stand out.
I mean the current track is 2.17 miles in length, but the 3,578 foot Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge is what has been talked about more than any other portion of the track.
The bridge runs over the Cumberland River and one of the only tracks in the world that goes over a larger body of water.
“It’s one of those things, it’s a signature thing that everybody thinks about,” said Dario Franchitti. “I think it’s cool. It’s nice to have a signature for the circuit. That’s going to be Nashville’s signature, is that bridge.”
One of the main questions coming into this deal was, can Nashville work past this initial contract? Can they stick out from a field of other past failed endeavors on street courses and become along the lines of Long Beach and St. Pete instead?
The Titans deal was another bump in the road. However, the alternative is a much better route.
See, putting on street course racing is hard. You do get a lot of support but also get a lot of people not in favor of the road closures in such a highly congested areas. I mean, street course racing is done in big metropolitan areas in order to gain the most exposure. These races are like downtown carnivals in a sense as the series hopes to gain attention for ticket sales of people that normally wouldn’t come to an INDYCAR race but chose to do so because it’s a main attraction in a downtown area.
On the flip side, it costs a lot of money to make these races survive too. Between sanctioning agreements, permits, setup, etc, you better have a lot of backing to pull it off.
You can have droves of fans coming in, but can the revenue outweigh the expenses? Street course racing has a lot of expenses. You have to have everything aligned perfectly to make it stick.
Baltimore showed up in 2011 but was gone after 2013. Houston came in 2013 but was gone after 2014. Boston was going to have a race but it never got off the ground. Same for China. Brazil once had a race but they’ve not been able to make it work to come back. Toronto is now in peril after not being on the schedule for two years.
What all of this means?
It’s extremely hard to make it work for a second contract. The first year is always met with excitement and anticipation. The fight is keeping the levels of these two from dipping year over year. It’s like trying to save your tires over a long green flag run at Darlington. There’s going to be a drop off, it’s natural, but can you minimize the drop off and sustain and good atmosphere?
Most street course races can’t. The attention dies down over the years and the obstacles grow too hard to keep the race around longer than a couple of years.
By spicing it up next year sparks a good debate on changing up a street course layout with new contracts.
The main question initially was would Nashville be any different and follow the steps of Long Beach and St. Pete or would this fall off like Baltimore and Houston?
We now have that answer and it was a great one.
Does Qualifying Mean Something on Street Courses Again?
Starting position is everything in an NTT INDYCAR Series race. More importantly, on street courses. The tight confines of a downtown circuit makes passing as difficult as anywhere on the annual schedule.
However, there were times that it didn’t matter on these tracks too.
In 2021, four of the five street races were won from 14th on back. Last year, 2 of the last 3 were also won from 14th on back. Both races in Nashville were won from 18th (2021) and 14th (last year).
- 2021: 15th (Belle Isle 1), 16th (Belle Isle 2), 18th (Nashville), 14th (Long Beach)
- 2022: 1st (St. Pete 2022), 2nd (Long Beach 2022) and 16th (Belle Isle 2022), 2nd (Toronto), 14th (Nashville)
- 2023: 4th (St. Pete), 1st (Long Beach), 1st (Detroit) and 1st (Toronto).
Qualifying hasn’t mattered here either.
Starting spot of Top 5 finishers in 2021: 18th, 2nd 10th, 14th, 13th
Starting spot of Top 5 finishers in 2022: 14th, 1st, 4th, 17th, 23rd
This year, track position is back. 3 of the 4 races were won from the pole and the other from fourth. In fact, 6 of the last 9 street races in general were won from the front row and 7 of the 9 from the top two rows.
Have teams gotten smarter on these tracks or have the drivers gotten better?
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