In The Know – COTA
This weekend marks NASCAR’s second appearance at COTA. The 3.426-mile, 20-turn road course was constructed in 2011 and has been America’s home to Formula One since the global motorsports series returned to America with the 2012 United States Grand Prix. Get up-to-speed on everything you need to know as we head to Austin, TX to take on our first road course of the season.
The Details
NASCAR Cup Series Overview
● Event: EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix (Round 6 of 36)
● Time/Date: 3:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 27
● Location: Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas
● Layout: 3.426-mile, 20-turn road course
● Laps/Miles: 68 laps/231.88 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 15 laps / Stage 2: 15 laps / Final Stage: 38 laps
● TV/Radio: FOX / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
The BRODCAST
The boss is back in the booth for COTA! Catch all the action on Fox.
SHR FAST FACTS
Kevin Harvick:
Harvick has made a total of 49 NASCAR Cup Series starts on road courses. He has 20 starts at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, 20 at Watkins Glen, four at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval, two on the road course at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, and one apiece at COTA, Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He has scored two wins – Watkins Glen in 2006 and Sonoma in 2017 – along with 10 top-fives and 24 top-10s with 195 laps led.
Harvick has two starts at COTA – one in the NASCAR Cup Series and one in the NASCAR Xfinity Series – and both came last year in NASCAR’s inaugural visit to the track. Harvick finished a strong fourth in the Xfinity Series race before suffering a DNF (Did Not Finish) in the Cup Series race due to an accident 19 laps into the 54-lap race, which was shortened 14 laps from its scheduled 68-lap distance due to heavy rain.
When Harvick scored his first road-course victory at Watkins Glen in 2006, he had to beat his current team owner to do it. Tony Stewart – the “Stewart” in Stewart-Haas Racing – had won the past two NASCAR Cup Series races at the seven-turn, 2.45-mile road course and was poised to capture a third straight win as he was leading Harvick with four laps to go in the 90-lap race. But Harvick, who had already led once for 24 laps, passed Stewart on lap 87 as the two drag-raced down the frontstretch and into turn one. Harvick held onto the lead despite Stewart in his rearview mirror, earning a margin of victory of .892 of a second.
Aric Almirola:
Aric Almirola is the only driver in the NASCAR Cup Series who has finished on the lead lap in every race this season.
Almirola’s average finish of 10.2 through the first five races places him second among all drivers this season. It’s his best average finish through five races in 10 fulltime Cup Series seasons.
Almirola is the only NASCAR Cup Series driver to finish in the top-10 in this year’s opening three races. He finished fifth in the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, sixth at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, and sixth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Almirola’s top-10 streak ended with a 12th-place finish at Phoenix Raceway despite running inside the top-10 throughout the race.
Chase Briscoe:
Chase Briscoe and the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) head to Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, for the sixth stop on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. The 27-year-old driver is fresh off a frustrating 15th-place result at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Briscoe started on the pole and led five of the first six laps of the race before getting hung out of the pack and falling toward the back of the field. The No. 14 team worked its way back into the top-five before Briscoe and Ford Performance teammate Ryan Blaney got loose while making a run for the lead and made contact with the outside wall on the final lap.
With five races complete, Briscoe currently holds a spot in the 16-driver playoff field by virtue of his win two weekends ago at Phoenix Raceway. He has two top-five finishes and sits third in points, 15 behind leader Chase Elliott.
In last year’s inaugural event at COTA, Briscoe earned his first Cup Series top-10, finishing sixth after starting 27th. He went on to earn two additional top-10s, both coming at road course events – sixth at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and ninth at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. When the Cup Series took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in August, Briscoe qualified second and led 12 laps, nearly earning his first Cup Series victory before going off track with two laps to go and incurring a penalty that ended his bid.
Cole Custer:
This weekend’s 68-lap, 231-mile race marks Custer’s 81st career NASCAR Cup Series start and his 10th on a road course. His best road-course outing in the Cup Series was an impressive ninth-place run on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval in October 2020. In February 2021, he rallied for a 13th-place finish on the Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway road course after dropping back as far as 24th while avoiding a multicar accident in the closing laps.
In his 11 road-course outings in the NASCAR Xfinity Series from 2017 through 2019, Custer finished outside the top-10 just once with a best result of fourth in the 2018 race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
Custer has top-10s in all three of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series outings on road courses, all three occurring at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. His best was his most recent, a second-place run from the pole with a race-high 39 laps led in the No. 00 JR Motorsports entry in 2016. He also made three starts apiece on the road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen in NASCAR K&N Pro Series competition, with best finishes of third in the 2016 East Series race at Watkins Glen after having qualified on the pole there the previous year, and fourth in the 2019 West Series race at Sonoma.
OUR WEEKLY WRAPS
We’re bringing some sharp schemes to our first road course race of the season. Check out the wraps. we’ll have at COTA.
What Our Drivers are Saying:
Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Last year’s race at COTA was your first at the track. How did you prepare to race on a track you had never been to before?
“My big thing is just memorizing what’s next on the racetrack. You’re never going to get a good feel for the elevation, but I think the Ford simulator gives the best sense of how our GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang will perform at COTA. You’re able to sit in your own seat and have your own steering wheel and you’re just in a more realistic surrounding. In iRacing, I spent a lot of time in the V8 Supercar just making laps and trying to make sure I knew the direction of the corners before I got to the simulator so I understood what I was getting into.”
Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil Delvac 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Do you enjoy road racing, and how do you continue to hone your craft?
“I have enjoyed road racing and I’ve strived to get better at it. Road racing is not something I grew up doing. I grew up racing go-karts on dirt ovals and then I went to stock car racing on asphalt ovals. I never did any road racing at all until I actually got to NASCAR. That was when I got introduced to road racing and I had a steep learning curve to catch up. I have really enjoyed honing my craft at road racing and trying to figure out how to get better. Having Ford Performance as our partner is so key to improving us on road courses, as well. I’m going to spend about four hours this week sitting in the simulator, logging laps at COTA to get as much practice as possible. That’s really our only chance to practice, so I’m going to put full focus on it this week and hope it pays off.”
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
What are your thoughts about COTA based on last year’s race?
“From the racetrack standpoint, I feel like I’m kind of going there for the first time, just because last year I don’t think I ever ran a single lap in the dry. I think we practiced, qualified, everything in the wet, so it’s going to be like learning a whole new racetrack this week. I know from a facility standpoint it’s pretty remarkable. It’s super cool to go out there. Even last year in the rain, there were a ton of fans out there, so I’m excited to see what it looks like this year. I didn’t get to do a ton of exploring in the city last year, but I know Austin is a really cool town. I’m going to try to do a little bit more this year while we’re there, just because we’re there a little bit longer than usual. I’m super excited to get back. I’m really excited, truthfully, just to get this Next Gen car on a road course. Based on some of the testing we did on the (Charlotte) Roval, they’re a blast to run on the road course. I’m curious to see what the racing will be like. I think it will definitely change the landscape of these road-course races. I think you’re going to see a lot more guys that are competitive than in years past because you can drive this car so much harder. It does a lot of things a lot better than the old car, so it’ll be interesting to see how that works out and plays out. It looks like the weather is going to be really good and it should be a great show.”
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 One Cure Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
In general, what is it like to race on a road course in a stock car?
“It’s like driving a bulldozer around. A lot of road courses are meant for small cars that can move around that are really agile, where a stock car is really bulky and we’re beating and banging around. But this new NextGen car should handle a lot better than what we’re used to. The body being more symmetrical is a huge benefit. The changes to steering and the sequential shifter will all make a difference this weekend. We’ve seen a lot of great racing with the new car but now we get to see what it does on a road course which should make for some really exciting racing.”
OF INTEREST: THE COTA TRACK
Contrast best describes a lap around COTA. High speed and rapid changes of direction comprise the layout between turns two and 10, with this first sector akin to the Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel complex at the famed Silverstone Circuit in England. The end of the lap from turn 12 through turn 20 before hitting the frontstretch features low-speed combinations. The long backstraight, however, is where drivers want to retain as much speed as possible to either attack or defend through the tight turn 12. This corner, along with the uphill run to turn one and the hairpin in turn 11, provide good passing opportunities.
One cure: helping to speed up the cure
Custer and the No. 41 Ford Mustang team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) will be joined for the first time this season by the One Cure project, which is led by the Flint Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University with a mission to find a cancer cure through research benefiting man’s best friend. It is founded on the principle that cancer affects all creatures and that treatment breakthroughs come through collaboration between scientists and doctors working with people and animals. This approach is known as comparative oncology and it is the guiding concept of One Cure and the Flint Animal Cancer Center. The center works to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer in pets, and teams with the human medical field to translate research findings that will help people with cancer.The center, located in Colorado State’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital, sees more than 1,500 new animal cancer patients every year, with approximately 130 of them enrolled in carefully monitored clinical trials specific to their cancer type. The canine and feline patients are helping pioneer cancer research, moving cutting-edge treatments out of the laboratory and into clinical practice, ultimately providing hope for the next generation of animal and human cancer patients. Learn more about their efforts here.
