Some People Don’t Ever Learn
How is it that people who should know better never seem to learn?
First off, the uninspiring soap opera that is Texas Motor Speedway’s pimping
for a second Winston Cup date has apparantly touched Martinsville Speedway, according
to NOL’s
piece on the subject.
During the Texas race week several unnamed sources quoted Texas officials as
trashing Martinsville as a racetrack. This led to Clay Campbell’s terse rebuttal
noting the track’s role in NASCAR’s gestation, its growth and improvements over
the years, and also the plague of problems Texas has had from its beginning.
It seems Texas and SMI never learn. And the sheer arrogance of their attitude
has shown a way of becoming worse rather than better. Martinsville has two
Winston Cup dates because it earned them decades ago. While there has been some
needless trash talk from Martinsville at times over the years – Clay Earles
claimed in 1976, "we have as many strokers among promoters as we have
drivers – and more. This is the thing that has stalemated racing"; this was
and is unfair, though certainly some promoters do less than they could and
should – the track has nonetheless earned its long standing reputation as
"the littlest superspeedway" thanks to its excellent physical
attractions and its liberal purses – Clay Campbell might wish to point out that
the most popular short track in Winston Cup, SMI’s Bristol, pays less than New
Hampshire and other tracks.
That Martinsville has two dates because it has earned them applies to all the
tracks that presently have two dates. This is why the schedule simply cannot cut
any dates from any tracks. Ultimately Texas’ raving fit won’t be salved until it
gets a second date – so schedule a second Texas 500/300 weekend in
November-December atop the dates already established on the tour.
Also never learning are these drivers and crew chiefs whining to shave down force
off the cars. Jeff
Burton claims that NASCAR will make some changes: "I think next year
we’ll be running different rules…they’ll take some down force away from
us." He admits having nothing in the way of solid information to that
effect "other than I do know that everybody thinks we make too much down force."
Greg Zipadelli agrees, saying, "You come to the track with one or two of
each make, run your baseline, then start cutting spoiler off and raising the air dam,
until they can’t drive it, and your speeds come down."
This is the 5 & 5 rule all over again, and apparently Zippy has forgotten
about 1998, because when teams ran the 5 & 5 rule then they found this – of
basically everything they thought would result from the 5 & 5 rule, the
opposite or close to it occurred. Speeds stayed the same or increased; the aero
push got worse instead of better; the drivers were more trapped by the
unraceability of the cars instead of getting more control.
And yet the rumors persist, with Goodyear
officials themselves "pushing NASCAR for the changes, to lessen the
incredible load on the tires." Supposedly this time Goodyear engineers are
"in the mix, working to find softer tires that would work under the new
rules." Yet it seems the tires Goodyear ran in 1998 were substantially
softer than today, and of course the unraceability of those tires led to the
too-brief 1999 switch to higher stagger.
Ryan Pemberton then adds this in Speedway Scene’s Texas 500/Thompson
Icebreaker issue – "After we hit the wall we’ll fix the car up to where
it’ll go run around the track about two seconds slower than what everyone else
is running. The question is, if we can do that after an accident why can’t we do
it on purpose without hitting the wall? We can do it – smaller spoilers, better
tires. We’ve got to lose all this down force we’ve got now – but do it on
purpose, in a well thought-out way."
Pemberton leaves out that when cars hit the wall and get fixed up, they have
a massive increase in drag as a result, even when a new nosepiece is slapped on;
it isn’t massaged and raked as the original pieces were. It is this drag that
slows the car.
And it is raw drag that is the real aerodynamic answer. Drag slows speeds,
and equals down force that is not affected negatively by changes in air density
– this is why the cars of the 1970s and early ’80s were so much better in dirty
air; they had so much more drag that dirty air made them run faster and didn’t
rob them of down force. Instead of going back to the 5&5 rule, go back to
the roof spoiler and add spoilers to the doors; this creates raw drag that will
solve the dirty air problems, help slow the speeds, allows cars to pass far more
easily, and because it is raw drag it cannot be engineered or raked out of the
cars.
Also not learning is the parallel debate about common templates, with
surrender apparently being offered by the manufacturers toward the concept.
Chevrolet and Pontiac supposedly will aero-match their W-bodies to the Taurus,
joining the Dodge Intrepid in that area.
But did anyone else notice the rather serious down force discrepancy between
the aero-matched Dodge and Ford in the Atlanta wind-tunnel test? How are the
same body creating different down forces? If teams think aero-matching will
solve the politicking, they’re more deluded than I thought.
Go away, Kevin Harvick.
Apparently NASCAR will make him do just that for a race after Earnhardting
Coy Gibbs at Martinsville’s Truck 250. Harvick wins the Atlanta 500 in 2001 and
suddenly he morphs into the worst unmentionable body part in the garage – must
be that Goodwrench sponsorship; it has a way of doing that to its drivers.
Here’s a guy who never learned throughout his big league NASCAR tenure and still
hasn’t learned. At Daytona it would have been okay to get ticked off – after all
he and half the field got Irvaned by Wonderwuss; at Martinsville – for the
second straight race weekend there – he shows again he’s more than Bobby
Hamilton’s derogatory comment last October.
Actually there is one thing he did learn – how to be an accomplished liar
after his radio vow to get Coy Gibbs was pointed out to him.
Whatever trash those SMI honchos said about Martinsville Speedway ought to be
used on Kevin Harvick.