Everything To Know About INDYCAR’s Nashville Race, World Cup Impact

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In this town of music, a start time is sometimes only a bit of a suggestion. The concerts will start when the band and venue are ready. On time? Maybe. Or if the warm-up band went long, 15-30 minutes later. They start when they start. The INDYCAR race Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway — a 1.33-mile concrete oval about 30-40 minutes away from downtown — will be a little bit the same way. But at least for good reason (at least we think so). The INDYCAR race will start about 25 minutes after the World Cup game ends. Lightning delay in New York? Doesn’t matter. Extra time? Doesn’t matter. Penalty kicks? Doesn’t matter. About 20 minutes after the World Cup championship game (Argentina vs. Spain is set to begin at 3 p.m. ET on FOX), FOX will go from World Cup to Nashville, and 25 INDYCAR drivers will start their engines. Let’s go racing. It creates a unique dynamic for a race that has been increased this year from 300 miles (225 laps) to 399 miles (300 laps). “I just flow, man,” said Pato O’Ward — who was dominating the race last year before a tire blew — when he talked to me and other reporters Friday. “Whenever it is.” Here’s what you need to know about how the fluid start time could impact drivers. So what time will the race start? Have you not been reading? Lol … the green flag, if the World Cup goes 90 minutes, is set for 5:40 p.m. ET (that’s 4:40 p.m. CT in Nashville), with it likely around 6:20 p.m. if there is extra time (overtime) and likely around 6:40 p.m. if penalty kicks follow. Teams will be given a 20-minute notice of when the green flag will begin so they can do their final race preparations and for drivers to be able to get into the cars. So will it race into the night? Sundown is right around 8 p.m. local time, so if the race starts at 5:40 p.m., it would likely end sometime at dusk. Doing full laps under the lights is unlikely. Will the track change? Well, yes and no. Concrete surfaces don’t change as drastically as asphalt surfaces when the temperatures change. But still there will be a change. “The track will change more if there is rain in the middle of it, a massive cool-down in temperature,” O’Ward told me. “But if it is just a little bit of delay because we are starting a little later than expected but it hasn’t rained and temperatures are pretty similar, I don’t think it will change much.” The good thing is that INDYCAR drivers have high-line practice, where they must go in the upper groove to grind some rubber into the track at 6 p.m. on Saturday followed by their final practice at 7 p.m. Those practices on Saturday should give them a good idea of how the track will change. Or is it more about the cars? Marcus Armstrong said he hopes the World Cup doesn’t go into overtime. “You’d be amazed by how much these cars change with a spot of different ambient temps,” Armstrong said during a virtual news conference earlier this week. “We’ll see what we find. … I think it’s going to be very hot. So hopefully it’s just stable and doesn’t have too much of an impact.” So will there be many last-minute adjustments depending on the start time? Armstrong doesn’t think so. “We’re not going to try and be too tricky with it because that’s when things start to go wrong,” Armstrong said. “We’ll just nail the basics and do those right. Do drivers care? A little bit. They can compare this to something they are used to handling. “I guess it’s just like a rain delay is over, you’re just waiting for when the World Cup is over,” Team Andretti driver Will Power told me and other reporters. As Power thought about it, there was one thing he wondered about. “The only thing would be what time do you eat,” Power said. “I usually eat a couple of hours before. … Nothing is striking me that it is going to be difficult.” What if it rains in Nashville? Shhhhh. Please don’t talk that way. If it rains in Nashville (or if there is lightning in the area), the race will be delayed until the track is dry. FOX Weather predicts temperatures approaching 90 degrees and a 55 percent chance of rain for Sunday. What World Cup teams are drivers rooting for? Well, we know one driver who is rooting for a specific team and that’s Alex Palou. He is the only Spaniard to have won the Indianapolis 500 and also the only Spaniard to win an INDYCAR title. But we think most will just be rooting for the Spain-Argentina game to end in regulation. It would keep things as normal as possible. Palou wasn’t sure if he would generate more fans of Spain watching the INDYCAR race to see how he does. “Just having the exposure is going to be huge,” Palou told me Monday. Anything else to know about the race? A few things: — Josef Newgarden is the defending winner of Nashville. He has won the last three races on the smaller ovals of Nashville, Phoenix and World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway). — Teams will be required to use at least two sets of the soft red tires during the race and at least one set of the hard tires. — With the race being 399 laps, that means possibly five or more pit stops.