The AAA Texas 500 is the last of 10 races held on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks this season.
Photo by Sarah Crabill/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway)
Homestead-Miami Speedway is also a 1.5-miler, but its unique shape often keeps it from getting lumped in with the other, so-called “cookie-cutter” courses. For purposes of handicapping, we normally look at Texas Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, and Kentucky Speedway as the doglegged or double-doglegged 1.5 milers/. We occasionally toss in the two-mile Michigan International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway for good measure.
Yes, yeah, yeah… Every track is unique, but that is a concern only for the drivers. These 1.5-milers are similar enough in terms of what they require from teams that the same cast of characters tends to dominate the front of the pack.
No one has swept the top 10 on this course type in 2016, but there are still some standouts. Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch have top-fives in more than half the first nine races, while a few others have top-10s in all but two events. These drivers are Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, and Kurt Busch. Martin Truex Jr. has perfect record of top-15s on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks—as does the elder Busch brother.
On this track type, it pays dividends to top load with talent. Lightly-funded teams do not have the resources for hours of wind tunnel testing or complicated simulations. They have good, but not always the best, engineers and a little loss here and there combine for a big deficit.
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