Daytona Superspeedway setup guide

The Daytona Superspeedway is all about top-end speed. The faster your car is at the top-end, the easier it will be for you to make it through the pack and into the pack of top-cars drafting for the lead. Once you are up with those big boys, you have a chance at the victory. Being stuck mid-pack or lower means you are at high risk of being caught up in the inevitable big crash that is synonymous with Daytona stock car racing.

If you need help creating your own baseline setup for Daytona, check out the Setup Developer Tool, which will step you through the process of creating your own baseline setups.

Obviously, priority #1 is top-end speed. Even the most rookie driver knows the obvious secrets of speed; lots of grill tape and minimal spoiler angle. To get past them, you will need to know more about setups than them. I’m not going to waste your time covering what everyone already knows (grill tape, spoiler, and the final gear ratio), so let’s move on to setup secrets to gain another tick or two on the speedometer over your competitors.

First, lower is better. The lower your car is (ride-height) the less aero drag it will have. Obvious, I know, but the secret is in the springs. Can you setup your car to be lower than the next guy? Maybe, but to prevent bottoming out (which causes drag) you may need to stiffen your spring rate, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Although there is an old saying when it comes to springs, “soft is fast”, that doesn’t really apply as speeds increase to the point of the aerodynamics providing more grip then mechanical grip. Try increasing all your springs by the same ratio (add 50% to each for example) and using Virtual Race Car Engineers‘ Lap Wizard tool to re-balance your setup with the minor tweaks to springs and anti-roll bars as advised. Then you can try lowering the chassis even further and those higher spring rate will prevent it from bottoming out. Try it with more spring rate if you can lower the ride height even more, or try it with less spring rate if you are already at the lowest ride height. The goal here is to get the car running the lowest spring rate possible and the lowest ride height possible without bottoming out in the banked turns.

Aero drag is not the only form of drag you have working against you. Mechanical drag is holding the car back as well. Those tires, and the grip they have on the track surface, is preventing you from higher top-speeds. If any of the four tires are out of alignment then they are scrubbing away precious speed. Having as little toe-out on the fronts as possible prevents some of that scrubbing of speed, and the same applies to reducing rear toe-in as much as possible. But since you are in a corner nearly half the total track length, you may want some front toe-out as the left and right side tires are navigating two completely different radius corners. I can’t give you a definitive setting, that is determined by some other factors, but keeping your tow to a minimum is always a good starting point when top speed is a priority.

There is another factor in what causes mechanical drag in your car. Unfortunately, you need this one to go racing; your steering wheel. Every movement you make in the steering is costing you top-speed. You can’t be fighting a car slithering and wandering down a long straight and still expect the best top-speed. It must be stable and run as straight a line as possible with little to no driver input. Increased caster will help the car track straight down those straights. Another benefit to caster is the dynamic camber changes that comes with it. The more you turn the steering wheel, the greater change to the front camber (more positive camber on left, more negative camber on right) which will get you through those corners better. Just as important as the straight line speed, a well handling car through the corners, especially in a draft, will mean you will be just a little bit faster than your competitors, and it will make all the difference on qualifying day and in the final laps of the race. A well handling car allows you to ease off your steering wheel sooner, allowing the car to use the full track width and maximizing your top-speed.

You have two corners to put some focus into; 2 and 3. Turn 2 because it leads onto the longest straight (the front straight is not a straight), and turn 3 because it is the primary passing area.
Exiting turn 2 without the car involuntarily pushing up the track is a must. Using Virtual Race Car Engineers’ Corner Wizard tool, focus on the exit of turn 2. Trackbar and damper changes will get you there, but you will likely have to go back and fix some negative effects these changes will have on your turn 1 and 3 entry. The Corner Wizard will fix those as well. Exiting turn 2 better than anyone else will easily get you some positions, especially if you can keep a lower line. As your competitor pushes up, you can grab the inside line. Then as you approach turn 3 you got him. Speaking of turn 3…

Entering turn 3 is the next key to a good race setup. Again, your car must be able to hold a low line without crawling up the track, even in the best of drafts. Again, using Virtual Race Car Engineer’s (linked below) Corner Wizard tool, tune the front toe-out, dampers, for the entry and cross-weight to ensure you can keep it low at the apex. Combining this to the turn 2 adjustments and you can pass just about anyone at will (unless they too have read this article).

The above advice will certainly make you faster, and maybe even into contention for a race victory. But there is another item that most people ignore that can help you greatly during a race; Gearing! Yes, the vast majority of the race is spent in a single gear so why bother thinking about the others? Well, let’s hope everyone else feels that same way, but you are going to tune your setup better, right?

Will there be pit stops? First gear is what gets your car moving from a dead stop. The faster you are away from your pit stall and back up to pit speed limit, the faster your overall pit stop time (in, work, and out). The higher the ratio of your first gear, the quicker you will get moving again. This is especially important during caution periods when everyone goes into the pits. If you can beat someone else to the pit exit line by even a thousandth of a second, the position is yours and locked in until the restart. That thousandth of a second just gained you a full car’s length on everyone on track. That’s huge and you simply can not ignore it. OK, you got that position. Feels good right? Now you got to think about the restart. First gear is likely going to be way off for the restart, but second gear is there for you to optimize. Spend time in practice to acquaint yourself with the restart speed. Set your 2nd gear so your car is ready to offer maximum horsepower at the restart, and for a few seconds after that green flag. You want that gear the engine’s rpm is high enough to launch you forward when you mash it, but have some room before changing to third gear. Third gear needs to compliment 2nd, with more time spent in the optimal power-band of your motor. This will power you all the way through the first few corners and the back straight. Hopefully the guy ahead of you did not spend the time optimizing his gears, and you will slip right past him before turn 3.My last piece of advice is simply to practice. Not just practice holding your foot to the floor, but practice driving your car into the pits under green flag pit stop conditions. Knowing where that brake point is and how far you can push the brakes before the rear wants to come around. Know it like it is a matter of life or death. This can easily make the difference between running at the back of a line of cars or leading that line.