There are now details to go with this month’s historic three-race NASCAR weekend at Naval Base Coronado.
Start times and distances have been set for the races on June 19-21.
The featured Anduril 250 will start at 1 p.m. on June 21 and cover 75 laps of the 3.4-mile, 16-turn street course. That’s a total of 255 miles.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race will take place at 2 p.m. the day before and cover 60 laps for a distance of 204 miles. The Craftsman Trucks Series race will start June 19 at 4 p.m. and cover 50 laps for a distance of 170 miles.
The first car and equipment haulers will start arriving on the base on June 17, a Wednesday.
The trucks will test the course June 19 at 9 a.m., part of a 40-minute practice session.
One of the key sessions of the weekend will come at 2 p.m. that day, when the featured Cup cars take the track for a 50-minute practice session.
“Our sport is half car, half driver,” three-time series champion Joey Logano said earlier this week.
“We have no track data going into a new race like this. So almost everything the crew needs to work with before the race comes out of that one, 50-minute practice session. That’s when decisions on car setup and strategy will be made.”
Some drivers who have come to Naval Base Coronado as part of pre-race sessions with Naval personnel have driven rental cars across sections of the street course.
“It’s rough and bumpy,” was the assessment of seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson.
“If Jimmie says the course is ‘rough and bumpy’ in a street car, imagine what it will be like in a race car,” said Logano, who said tire strategy is going to be a major component of success at Coronado.
“The length of the course presents several challenges. During most weeks, our 50-minute practice session is on a course where we’ve run before. And if it’s an oval, we’ll get in a lot of laps.
“This is a long road course with a lot of turns. I’m not sure how many laps we’ll get in. And we’ll be making stops to check tire wear.”
And the length of the course is going to affect tire strategy during the race.
“We’re not going to want to risk going a lap too far on tires,” driver William Byron said after visiting Coronado. “Say you decided to risk it and go for an extra lap. If a tire blew on the other side of the pits, you’d have to limp around for more than three miles, lose two or three laps, and take yourself out of competition.
“There are a lot of unknowns about this track. And we’re going to be learning on the fly.”
Which is one reason why Johnson also entered the truck race — to run as many laps as possible to gain as much information as possible.
Under NASCAR rules, regular drivers in one series are not permitted to run in a second event at a new track as a way to equalize the competitive balance. But Johnson is seen as a part-time driver and is eligible to run multiple races at Coronado. When the event was first announced, Johnson said he wanted to run in all three races.
“It goes without saying that being in the truck race will give me track information other drivers might not have,” Johnson said. “But the other Cup drivers have much more time in these cars, which gives them a huge advantage.”
The Trucks will be the only class with two practice sessions before qualifying at 11 a.m. Friday.
The O’Reilly Series cars will have a 50-minute practice session the day before the race, starting at 12:30 p.m. Qualifiers are the day of the race, starting at 10 a.m.
Friday’s truck race will be run in 12-, 12- and 26-lap stages. The O’Reilly race will have stages of 15, 15 and 30 laps. The Cup race will be run in stages of 20, 20 and 35 laps.
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