How Many Cars are Saved by Eliminating Practice at Superspeedways?

NASCAR elected not to hold practice at superspeedways to try to decrease the number of backup cars and repairs required, which would cut costs for owners. Now that we’ve had a few years of this format, I wondered how many cars this policy has saved.

Assumptions

For the purposes of this post, I’m defining superspeedways as Talladega and Daytona. Because of the timing of Atlanta’s conversion to a superspeedway, I have no data for which Atlanta was a superspeedway AND had practice. That prevents us from comparing before and after.

I’m also leaving out the Daytona 500 because that presents an entirely different problem. While NASCAR no longer has eight practices for the Daytona 500 (as in 2015 and 2016), there are still a few practices for the season’s inaugural race. Complicating matters is that there are also the Duel races that set all starting positions except for the front row. The Duels usually destroy more cars than practice does.

That leaves us with a dataset that includes one summer/fall Daytona race and two Talladega races each year. I consider races between 2005 and 2024 because that is the range over which I currently have detailed enough data. NASCAR ran 60 eligible superspeedway races over that 20-year time span.

I count the number of practices actually held rather than the number scheduled. I count a practice as one, even if shortened due to weather or other circumstances.

Practices at Superspeedways: 2005-2024

Let’s count how many practices were held over those 60 races between 2005 and 2024:

• 15 (25.0%) races (all between 2020 and 2024) had no practices.
• 9 (15.0%) races had one practice.
• 35 (58.3%) races had two practices
• 1 (1.7%) race — the 2005 fall Talladega race — had three practices.

How Many Backup Cars?

The most accessible statistic for answering this question is the number of cars starting at the rear of the field because they had to use a backup car. I also do not include changes of engines, transmissions, brakes, etc. unless necessitated by an accident or driver error during practice. Nor do I count adjustments, drivers missing intros, or any other reasons cars are sent to the back of the field.

With that out of the way, let’s break down how many backup cars were needed because practice was held at superspeedways.

• Fifteen of the 60 races had no practice, and thus no backup cars.
• No backup cars were needed in any of the nine races with just one practice.
• When we move to the most common case of two practices:
  • No backups were needed in 31 out of 35 cases, or 88.6%.
  • One backup was needed in the summer Daytona race in 2019.
  • Two backups were needed in the summer 2009 Daytona race.
  • Three backups were needed in the summer Daytona race in 2010.
  • Four backups were needed in the 2018 spring race at Talladega. That’s the race where Jaime McMurray rolled seven times during practice after hitting Ryan Newman. Ty Dillon and Daniel Suárez were collateral damage and also ended up in backup cars.
• The single race with three practices didn’t require any backup cars.

The Data

Backup Cars vs Practices: 2005 – 2024

		Backup Cars Needed
		0	1	2	3	4
Practices	0	15	0	0	0	0
	1	9	0	0	0	0
	2	31	1	1	1	1
	3	1	0	0	0	0

In this dataset, only 10 backup cars were needed over 45 races with a total of 82 practices. The most backup cars needed in a single race was four.

To really bring that home: The drivers ran a total of 61,176 laps run over 82 practices and still only had 10 accidents requiring backup cars. Only 10 out of 3,520 cars had to be replaced.

Remember that in the mid-2000s, it was common to have 47 drivers competing for 43 spots. There were a lot more cars on track at any time back then.

What About Non-Superspeedways?

That’s the situation for superspeedways, but let’s run the same analysis on the 30 non-superspeedway tracks for the 2024 season. Of those 30 races:

• 28 races each had one practice session.
• Two races had two practice sessions each.

I count Michigan as having a practice, even though rain shortened it.

Of the 30 non-superspeedway races:

• 22 of the races that had just one practice required no backup cars
• Neither of the two races that had two practice sessions required any driver to go to a backup car.

That’s a total of 24 races (26 practice sessions) without accidents requiring any backup cars.

Each of the remaining six races had one practice. Of those:

• Five races each required one backup car.
  • Both Las Vegas races:
    • Ryan Preece’s No. 41 spun in practice in the spring race.
    • Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 crashed in practice for the fall race.
  • At Texas, Kyle Busch spun in practice.
  • Kaz Grala made hard contact with the inside Dover wall during practice.
  • At the Coca-Cola 600 practice, Chris Buescher crashed and had to bring out a backup.
• One race sent two drivers to backup cars – that was the inaugural Cup race at Iowa.

That’s a total of six backup cars across 30 races and 32 practice sessions. But the other thing to note is that there were no multi-car incidents. Even the Iowa practice accidents were due to separate tire issues.

Should Practice at Superspeedways Return?

My main argument for practice is that I want every team to competing at top strength. With limited (or no) practice, teams rely on simulations and prior experience. When a team arrives at a track with the wrong set-up, they are screwed without chances for them to a) find out their set up is off and b) fix it.

There is nothing more disheartening than watching your favorite driver struggle for an entire race with a sub-optimal car. Heavy reliance on simulations puts a lot of power in manufacturers’ hands rather than teams or drivers.

The second argument for practice is that the increasing numbers of people playing NASCAR fantasy games benefit from practice information.

The numbers of cars wrecked badly enough during superspeedway practice to require a backup is relatively small. Excluding the Daytona 500, 88.6% of superspeedway races from 2005-2024 that had two practices did NOT require any drivers to go to backups.

It is more likely for drivers to have to go to backup cars because of practice incidents at superspeedways than at non-superspeedways. Superspeedways also offer greater potential for multi-car accidents.

One caveat, however: all data for backups after practice at superspeedways is pre-2020 races. The 2025 season brings new drivers and, as many have noted, a decrease in the amount of respect accorded while racing.

Wouldn’t any driver be cowed into better behavior simply by not wanting to be blamed for wrecking a bunch of cars during a superspeedway practice?

If NASCAR really wants to save teams money, they might consider that the Duels and the seemingly inevitable end-of-race crashes at superspeedways cause much more damage than practice does.