How Joey Logano felt about the repaved track at Iowa Speedway
Logano raced to a sixth-place finish and discussed what Iowa Speedway should do next after the Cup Series debut here.
NEWTON — Rarely does the track steal the show when the NASCAR Cup Series comes to town.
But since NASCAR, which owns the track, partially repaved all four corners of the 7/8 mile Iowa Speedway in May 2024, drivers, fans and commentators in both NTT IndyCar Series and NASCAR Cup Series say one thing more than any other: “Repave.”
The pavement work divided drivers and critics who contend it made racing worse at what became one of the best tracks in the country for both IndyCar and NASCAR.
Now, as the NASCAR Cup Series visits Iowa Speedway for the second time, drivers once again wonder how the new pavement will impact the racing, after 14 months of letting it bake in Iowa’s summer heat and freeze in Iowa’s arctic winter.
“It’s character,” said Brad Keselowski, a driver and part-owner for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, as he walked the track around 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 2. Keselowski has won three Xfinity Series races in NASCAR’s top development series here, including the first one in 2009.
How has the Iowa Speedway’s repavement changed racing?
As Keselowski walked around the track he scuffed his tennis shoe on different parts of the pavement, noticing how his shoe made a high pitch sound on a tar patch on top of the new pavement between turns one and two, it squeaked at a lower pitch when he scuffed his shoe on the new pavement and it made a thud when he scuffed his shoe on the old pavement.
Think of a snowstorm. The old asphalt is like untreated ice, where drivers slip and slide. It’s technically challenging to drive, but entertaining. Think of the new asphalt as plowed concrete. It’s easy to drive on, but mundane.
In 2024, repaved sections looked as black as coal and felt as sticky as taffy. In the 14 months since the Cup Series last raced here, repaved sections changed to the color of burnt charcoal. The difference in grip now is subtle. Repaved sections feel like fine sandpaper. Original sections of concrete feel like coarse sandpaper.
Some repaved sections still look nearly new. While others have already been patched with new sections of tar. Others are almost as white as snow.
“Patches on top of patches,” Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Dillon told Keselowski as they studdied a patch on a repaved section in turn one.
When running the high line off the front stretch into turn one, a driver wants to put their right tires tight at the junction of a seam, Keselowski said. But hitting the seams could make the cars “snap around on you,” Xfinity Series driver Brandon Jones said Friday, Aug. 1, on the Motor Racing Network.
“It was a slick, disciplined race track before the repave last year, but last year the speed was up,” Jones said on the broadcast.
The partial repave corrected a notorious bump above the infield tunnel between turns one and two, but the track still has bumps. Keselowski joked he almost got his foot stuck in a crack on the backstretch. Between all the new pavement, old pavement, cracks and patches, drivers have to navigate about a dozen different textures on the track.
“I like it being different,” said Legacy Motor Club driver John Hunter Nemechek. “It gives it character.”
This spring, Joe Gibbs Racing Driver Chase Briscoe, who sits No. 8 in the Cup Series standings, said Iowa was his “favorite” track. But he bemoaned the pavement in April, June and July, saying he missed “Old Iowa,” before the repairs. The work covered about two-and-a-half lanes, but left at least a lane near the top of the wall untouched and undrivable, according to many NASCAR and IndyCar drivers.
“I wish they never would have done it,” Briscoe said. “I don’t understand the reasoning between leaving two lanes with nothing, but maybe one day they will repave the final two lanes of the racetrack.”
Iowa Speedway President Eric Peterson said in April that without the work, potholes could have formed, like has happened in previous races at Daytona International Raceway and Martinsville Speedway.
“We did it from purely a safety perspective because there would have been pieces (of the track) flying all over the place if we hadn’t done that,” Peterson said at the time.
NASCAR has not released its 2026 schedule yet, but it seems likely that Iowa Speedway will be on it, according to NASCAR officials. As repaved sections in the corners age to drivers’ liking, it poses a conundrum for the track because original sections are still aging.
One seam near the wall between turns one and two is several inches deep and plugged with tar. A driver would never try to drive that high, but it would be uncomfortable to drive over in a regular car, let alone a racecar. Nemechek won a 2017 NASCAR Truck Series race here by riding the top lane near the wall on a restart.
“Places that you can move around and adjust your car handling, and the driver can make a big difference are the places that I like,” Nemechek said.
Should more of the Iowa Speedway track be repaved?
If the series is going to race here for years to come, repaving the original concrete sections is likely, Briscoe said.
“I think if we’re going to be here for years to come, then I think you have to do the place justice and at least pave it from where it is now to the fence, Briscoe said. “You can leave the straightaways like they are. I think that’s totally fine. But the corners need to be all the way to the wall.”
Nemechek said the track should be left like it is.
“Let it keep aging, whatever we can do to speed up that process,” Nemechek said.
Last year, Briscoe’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell said the full track should be repaved and then would be good in about “15 years.” On Saturday, Bell stood by those comments and said the full track should be repaved to allow more lanes for racing.
“It’s just disappointing, it’s disappointing that they didn’t they didn’t repave it, because last year it raced way better than I think any of us expected it to in the two grooves that they repaved,” Bell said. “So I think now if we could’ve had a year on a full repave, I think we would be racing all over the place, and see a lot of three-four wide racing.”
Philip Joens covers retail, real estate and motorsports for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184 or [email protected].
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