Gateway Was Good Racing Trapped Inside a Bad Race

The Cup cars were difficult to drive and the green-flag racing had real intensity. The problem was getting enough green-flag laps to actually enjoy it.

There’s a strange question coming out of Gateway.

Was that actually a good race?

Depending on which member of the Here For The Speed crew you ask, the answer ranges from absolutely to absolutely not.

And somehow, both sides have a point.

The Enjoy Illinois 300 produced a track-record 18 cautions covering 87 of 247 laps. There were also two red flags and two overtime attempts before Kyle Larson finally crossed the finish line. More than one-third of the race was run under caution.

That sounds terrible.

The weird part is that when the race was actually green, portions of it were pretty damn good.

That contradiction dominated our post-race discussion. Some of us came away believing the cars were exactly what we want to see on a shorter, flatter track: high horsepower, low grip and visibly difficult to control. Others thought the Cup field spent the afternoon making overly aggressive decisions and turning what could have been a strong race into an exhausting four-hour caution festival.

The HFTS flag ratings reflected that disagreement. We had everything from a Checkered Flag to a Black Flag.

That almost never happens.

It also tells you everything about Gateway.

The basic racing product wasn't necessarily the problem. The Cup Series used NASCAR’s 750-horsepower package, and the cars looked difficult to drive. Drivers were sliding, fighting rear grip and struggling to put power down. Even people on the show who hated the race acknowledged that the green-flag racing itself was generally good.

What made it frustrating was how quickly the passing window seemed to close.

The crew noticed that the field could race aggressively for the opening handful of laps after a restart, but once everyone became single-file, clean air took over and passing became dramatically more difficult. That created an incentive to attack immediately, which in turn may have contributed to some of the aggression and wrecks we saw throughout the afternoon.

In other words, if everyone knows they might only have five laps to make something happen, everyone starts trying to make everything happen at once.

That gets messy.

Gateway was messy.

The first caution flew only six laps into the race. Another came on Lap 15. A third arrived shortly after the next restart, and by Lap 28 the field had already seen four yellows. The race eventually settled down long enough for Logano and Larson to show what their cars could do, but the rhythm never lasted.

Then the mechanical failures started becoming part of the story.

Brake rotors were already a concern entering the weekend because of Gateway’s heavy braking zones and the additional demands of the higher-horsepower package. Ryan Blaney’s right-front rotor exploded while he was running sixth, ending what looked like a legitimate opportunity to contend. Crew chief Jonathan Hassler later acknowledged the team had attempted to be conservative with cooling but still did not give the brakes enough.

Blaney wasn't alone. Buescher suffered an apparent brake-rotor failure on Lap 238, sending the race into overtime. Elliott had another failure that sent his car out of control and collected Briscoe. NASCAR’s own race recap described exploding rotors as one of the defining features of the afternoon.

Those failures matter when evaluating the race because there’s a difference between a caution caused by equipment being pushed to the limit and one caused by somebody making a move that never had a chance of working.

Our crew was much more forgiving of the mechanical failures.

The frustration came from the accumulation of everything.

The spins. The contact. The aggressive restarts. The brake failures. The late wrecks. The red flags. The overtime.

Eventually, even entertaining chaos stops feeling entertaining.

One of the most telling comments during the show came when the race was described as good racing but a bad viewing experience. That sounds contradictory until you sit through a race where every promising green-flag battle seems to end with another yellow.

There is also an uncomfortable comparison with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race from the night before. Several members of the crew thought the lower-series cars produced a better race because drivers could use the air on the left rear of another car and create more opportunities to complete passes. In the Cup car, once the field settled, that option appeared far more limited.

That doesn't mean NASCAR needs to panic and completely rebuild the Cup package based on one insane afternoon at Gateway.

There was plenty to like.

The cars looked difficult.

The drivers had to work.

Larson and Logano demonstrated that genuinely fast cars could still separate themselves.

Restarts mattered.

Tires mattered.

Equipment mattered.

Those are good things.

The issue is finding a way to keep the aggression without forcing drivers to believe every restart is their last chance to pass anybody.

Gateway gave us good racing.

It just kept interrupting it.

Maybe that’s why everyone on our show watched the same race and came away with completely different ratings.

It wasn’t boring.

It wasn’t clean.

It wasn’t necessarily bad.

It was just a lot.