Aerodynamic car changes might make Kobalt 400 more exciting

After climbing out of his orange No. 2 stock car after the NASCAR race at Atlanta on Sunday, Brad Keselowski made another inimitable observation. This one had nothing to do with buying a tank. He said if racing with this new low downforce package is going to be like that all season, he might have to grow sideburns.

If you have followed big-time stock car racing for a number of years, you knew exactly what the 2012 Sprint Cup champion was talking about.

The cars were slipping and sliding all over the track — you could pass guys if you took care of your tires; they could pass you back after you used your tires up. The race looked like the ones of a bygone era, when NASCAR drivers sported long sideburns and you didn’t need a bogus yellow flag to bunch up the field to overtake somebody.

“That race felt like I was in 1975,” Keselowski said after loosening the safety belts. “That was kind of awesome. I should grow my sideburns out after that one.”

The Sprint Cup cars and drivers will be on the track today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to test the low downforce package in advance of Sunday’s Kobalt 400. By the end of the day, it should become more clear about the kind of race we’ll see — weather permitting.

The cars were difficult to drive in Atlanta, but that’s what the drivers wanted. The cars got strung out — only 12 of the 39 starters finished on the lead lap, and there were just three caution periods — but the driver was part of the equation again.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke with supercharged exclamation points after finishing second to Jimmie Johnson.

“I loved it,” Junior said on TV. “The fans probably thought it was a boring race, but we were sliding around, driving the hell out of them cars. I had a blast.

“I had some good races with the 2 (Keselowski), with the 18 (Kyle Busch) and a bunch of guys. Man, it was so much fun. I post pictures online all the time, old pictures of the ’80s and ’90s, and people go ‘that’s when racing was great.’ Well, that’s what they saw today.”

Maybe some observers thought it was a boring race, because Johnson won by more than 4 inches, and nobody went flipping down the grass in the tri-oval. But the majority of fans didn’t see it that way.

Jeff Gluck, who covers auto racing for USA Today, put up a poll on his Twitter account after the Atlanta race, asking fans what they thought. After 1,600 responses, it was running 75-25, with 75 percent saying it was a good race.

The presidential candidates would dump their super PACs for a 75 percent approval rating.

Kyle Busch, the reigning series champion of Las Vegas, thought it was a good race, even if he came in third. Busch started 39th. Maybe the cars were harder to drive, but Busch proved you still could pass, if you knew how to drive.

“It was fun,” he said. “I was just talking to Junior about how much fun we had there about the two-thirds mark of the race where it was him, myself and Brad, and we were just dicing all around, back and forth all over the place.

“All in all, it’s hard to drive. But it’s what all of us drivers have asked for. The center of the corner speeds definitely fall off, get a lot slower as the run goes.”

The 1.5-mile cookie cutter at Atlanta is more abrasive on tires than the one at LVMS, and when Johnson and a few others were here for tire testing in January, Jimmie said the corner speeds weren’t falling off that much.

The weather was brisk that day, and that might have contributed to the quick lap times and cornering speeds, but it’s also expected to be brisk Sunday.

“We expect more passing and more of what you saw at Atlanta — the ability for drivers to come up through the field, and not just have your position solidified on how fast you can pit the car,” said Steve O’Donnell, a NASCAR vice president in charge of racing development.

“We look at past races, margin of victory, how many passes for the lead were there under green flag conditions, and we’re able to measure passing throughout the field. And obviously the fans play a big part of that, and the reaction they have postrace,” O’Donnell said about how the Kobalt 400 ultimately will be judged.

I also would check on Brad Keselowski’s sideburns. If they’re longer than the front straightaway and kind of pointed at the end, it’s probably going to be fun to watch.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.