NASCAR Cup Series

Should NASCAR test the 2017 downforce package one more time?

Published Jul. 13, 2016 10:01 a.m. ET

foxsports

Saturday night's race at Kentucky Speedway marked the second, and anticipated final time for the the lower downforce package that NASCAR had tweaked after the season began.

If you remember, we first ran it in mid-June at Michigan.

Some have asked if NASCAR will, or should run it a third time before looking to implement it full-time in 2017.

I certainly wouldn't be opposed to that.

My only suggestion is that they run it at a different style track. Now by that I mean, Michigan was a 2-mile track, while Kentucky was a newly paved and reconfigured 1.5-mile track.

If it were me and they were going to run it one more time this season, I would suggest at Bristol, which is a short track.

While we still have three short track races left in the season, I don't think running it at Richmond or Martinsville would be fair to the competitors.

There is too much on the line at Richmond with it being the final race of the regular season, while also setting the 16-car Chase field.

Martinsville is in the actual Chase schedule, so I don't think it's fair to experiment with it there either, due to how much is at stake.

Now the other part of me says if this package is not going to be part of the Chase, which I don't believe it should be, then maybe we should just leave it alone.

We only have eight races left until the Chase begins and there is a lot on the line for a lot of drivers.

Truth be told, there is a lot on the line for every driver, even those already locked into the Chase.

Brad Keselowski won the other night at Kentucky, but he was already locked into the Chase before the race started. In the bigger picture for Brad, his victory meant three more bonus points that he will carry into the Chase.

So if NASCAR wanted to run this revised lower downforce package one more time, I think they should do it in the next eight races, but if they want to simply wait until Atlanta in 2017 and roll it out then, I am perfectly fine with that.