With the Busch Clash moving from the oval to the road course, how long should we expect the Busch Clash run time to be?
Historical Busch Clash Run Times
I’ve shown here the times of the race over its history from 1979-2020. That includes the rain-shortened version from last year.
The origin of the Busch Clash was as a sprint. The first eleven races clocked in right around 15 minutes.
As the Busch Clash became more tailored to television, the runtime increased and stages were introduced until the average length of the race started to hover right about 82 minutes. That’s the average over the last five races.
But We’re on the Road Course
We are. We’ll be running 35 laps in stages of 15 and 20 laps. But the event is still tailored for television (especially with fewer fans able to attend in person).
We’ve only got one comparison race. Last year’s Daytona Road course was 65 laps run in three stages, with an average speed of 89.39 mph. That’s significantly lower than a typical Busch Clash average speed, with an average speed around 120 mph. That 120-mph figure is give or take quite a bit because long cautions caused by big crashes can really bring the average down. Last year’s Daytona Road Course race ran 2:37:30.
If we assume the same average speed for the Busch Clash as we had for last year’s Daytona Road Course race, we’re talking a projected Busch Clash run time of right around 84 minutes.
We’ve got one fewer stage break and (hopefully) fewer big multi-car accidents, which should also help the time stay lower than in past years.
That’s assuming, of course, that we don’t have any weather problems.
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