NASCAR insiders react to travel woes, safety concerns surrounding Mexico City weekend

NASCAR in Mexico City is in the books. Daniel Suárez and Shane van Gisbergen were the two winners of a historic weekend for the sport.

But getting there was a challenge for several Cup and Xfinity Series teams. Jeff Gluck of The Athletic said on Sunday’s “The Teardown” podcast that NASCAR arranged a charter service for the entire industry to get from the Charlotte area to Mexico City. One of the planes, which van Gisbergen happened to be on, experienced an issue on takeoff. As a result of the subsequent travel delays, NASCAR had to adjust the weekend practice schedule.

“There were travel woes for some of the teams,” Gluck said. “… Two of the planes had problems. One of the planes was on takeoff and from our understanding, was going approximately 160 mph at the time it had its nose lift off the ground and one of the engines blew. This was the plane Shane van Gisbergen was on, among other people. Very scary situation. Thank goodness the pilot did not try to take off. They slammed on the brakes. Everybody heard a pop on the plane. All those people on that plane then had to find their own way down.

“The schedule ends up getting changed. Xfinity, instead of having their full practice on Friday, had no on-track activity on Friday and their whole thing got moved to Saturday. Cup got moved back to allow people to arrive, such as Shane van Gisbergen, who arrived hours before Cup practice on Saturday. They were scrambling. You saw Haas had a problem with their paperwork and they had to drive to Atlanta to get a flight here. Ryan Ellis had to fly to Miami on a redeye and then fly from Miami to here.

“All this crazy stuff. That’s not ideal. That’s the thing that soured some people’s experience. I didn’t have that experience. I’m speaking about my own. I understand why they get here and they’re like, ‘This stinks, this was a hassle, we shouldn’t have had to do this.’ I get that, and I think that’s something NASCAR can adjust for next year is travel woes.”

NASCAR insider discusses travel issues for teams

It’s unclear if NASCAR will return to Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in 2026. If it happens, teams would prefer to be in control of their own travel, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic said.

“Teams would, almost universally, like to handle their own accommodations,” Bianchi said. “NASCAR kind of took this in house just because they thought it would be easier this way. It’s not easy to fly private jets down here. You’ve got to use a separate airport which is much further out. Logistically, they were trying to consolidate everything and just make it as easy as possible. The teams’ philosophy is, ‘Listen, we do this 38 times a year. We book travel, we know how to do this, let us handle it and then we know what we need to do in terms of accommodations and things like that.’

“So, there are some things that need to be smoothed out on that front, and I think you’re going to see that if NASCAR comes back next year. The hauler drivers, too, there were some things that went on on their journey down here. They had a long road. A lot of the Cup Series teams came from Michigan all the way down here. That is a huge grind, and then they got to turn around and go back to Charlotte and then right up to Pocono.

“There’s a couple things there that can hopefully be made a little more accommodating for them. You look at the schedule and an off week either before or after this race would go a long way to help alleviating that pressure on some of the teams. But when you look at the schedule, I just don’t know how you do that.”

NASCAR insider recaps stay in Mexico City

Then, there was the issue of safety in Mexico’s capital. Gluck described the city as “beautiful” and said he didn’t experience any issues throughout his stay.

“There was sort of this image of, ‘Oh, we’re not gonna be able to go outside our hotels.’ We walked around freely,” Gluck said. “In our area of town, we felt there was no safety issues. I walked around for 90 minutes by myself the first day. Beautiful area. You’re walking down the street and you’re like, ‘OK, here’s this fancy restaurant. Here’s a Ritz-Carlton. Here’s this park with kids and families. Like, ‘OK, this isn’t what it’s being made out to be.’ … I’ve seen on social media not everyone had that experience. I respect that. I’m not discounting anyone else’s, I felt fine. I thought the city was beautiful.”