{"id":589248,"date":"2026-04-08T01:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589248\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T01:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:42:07","slug":"nascar-announces-changes-for-talladega-to-combat-fuel-saving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589248\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR announces changes for Talladega to combat fuel saving"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR<\/a> is flipping the stage lengths at Talladega in an effort to combat fuel saving strategies that fans have often complained about. The governing body revealed the changes on this week\u2019s episode of the Hauler Talk<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n

NASCAR EVP John Probst joined the show to discuss the changes, which he thinks will help provide a more compelling race. NASCAR is also considering other changes to combat fuel-saving in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at generally how a lot of our speedways were laid out it was a short stage, a short stage and then a long stage to the end,\u201d Probst said. \u201cGoing into Talladega, we\u2019re going to flip that and adjust the lengths of the final two stages such that we\u2019re confident that the last two stages are short enough to be made without a fuel stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did NASCAR get there? Well, officials began examining two potential ways to attack fuel saving, which has become an immensely popular strategy for many teams \u2014 much to the chagrin of the fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that coming out of Daytona we have been working hand-in-hand with a lot of our race teams trying to largely break into two categories things we could do,\u201d Probst said. \u201cOne are sporting related things, things like rules around pit stops or stage lengths or things of that nature. The other being in a technical bucket, which would mean car changes: spoiler, power level, things of that nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

The changing stage lengths at Talladega will be the first step in addressing the sporting side of things. Changes to the car will come at a later date.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to car changes, we will likely right now plan to have a test in Daytona in January,\u201d Probst said. \u201cKind of how we used to do it in the past, where we\u2019ll go down there and try some different power levels and spoilers and maybe some other car type things to see what we can do there to mitigate it further.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for fuel saving, it\u2019s not likely to go away completely. Flipping the stages will just shift the emphasis toward the front half of the race.<\/p>\n

That said, there will still be stage points and valuable track positioning on the line. Someone will try something.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be interesting, as well, in that first stage, the length of it, if there\u2019s some that try to do it on one stop versus some that try to do it on two,\u201d Probst said. \u201cWe think that if there are some that try to do it on two, they may drag the group that tried to do it on one along with them to where they won\u2019t be able to do it in one, so it\u2019s got the potential there for some pretty interesting strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what was the impetus behind making changes? Fan feedback was a big part of it.<\/p>\n

And there seem to be pretty widespread complaints about the quality of racing when fuel saving becomes the primary factor in determining winners. This is the first of what could be multiple steps to addressing the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to point out that this is a tool now that the teams know,\u201d Probst said of fuel saving. \u201cThis is not something that I think is ever going to go away, because these guys will look for every possible advantage that they can get, and that\u2019s reasonable on their end.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think that what we can do is just take steps to mitigate that. And I think that looking at the sporting stuff that we can do quick and get a read on it this year, and then look at some car things next year, is our best chance for success there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR is flipping the stage lengths at Talladega in an effort to combat fuel saving strategies that fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-589248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}