Post-Talladega – Bring Back The Draft
They came, they raced, they crashed, and they whined. And when it was over
Mikey Waltrip played the patsy yet again.
After Mikey gave the 2001 Firecracker to Junior, Robin Miller angered some
NASCAR fans by pointing out that Mikey was supposed to pass Junior and win the
race, not push him to the win. But does anyone seriously think Mikey really
tried to get Junior at the stripe at Talladega?
Thus has the mentality of F1 infected NASCAR – instead of trying to win the
race, Mikey acted as Junior’s blocker all race long. He was Junior’s fall guy in
the 2001 Firecracker and he was Junior’s fall guy in the Grand National 300 at
Daytona. At least when Junior won Talladega last October he didn’t have a
teammate to block for him – he had to do it all himself.
And the contrast between October 2001 and April 2002 is all the more evidence
of why NASCAR should have pushed those drivers who stormed the red truck last
October out and fined them for unbecoming conduct. Drivers demanded reversion to
an aero-clean package; what resulted shows why the roof spoiler package needs to
be brought back. With the roof spoiler there was so much draft the drivers could
pass at will and could give up track position and re-pass for it without
excessive difficulty. In aero-clean configuration the cars draft inconsistently
and when the draft doesn’t kick in passing is too difficult as a result.
There is talk of running short-track bodies at Talladega and also of the
coming bigger greenhouse – few remember that when tested last year the bigger
greenhouse car ran faster than the roof spoiler car, because the greenhouse
remains a round object over which air passes more effectively than with the roof
spoiler. The round nature of the greenhouse is of course the same with the
overall bodies, and is why down force and loss of it in dirty air is such an
issue everywhere, and not, contrary to the rhetoric behind advocacy of shaving down force
from the cars, that the cars have too much down force.
As for short track bodies, teams will do to them what they will do to the
bigger greenhouse – rake out whatever drag is imposed. The Atlanta wind tunnel
test showed what should have already been obvious – how teams raked drag and down force
around to increase speeds and improve handling; there is zero reason to believe
that a bigger greenhouse or high-down force body will improve anything at
Talladega.
Thus it comes down to the roof spoiler package. This is raw aero-drag, the
kind that no amount of raking and engineering can overcome. With the roof
spoiler the draft kicked in regardless of anything – and made nonsense of the
"Daytona and Talladega are two different racetracks" argument. With
the draft made so strong, passing was no longer a problem.
The lack of passing at Daytona and Talladega – and everywhere else – this
year ought to make NASCAR bring back the roof spoiler, because it works where
nothing else does.
Over and over people say, "The big one is inevitable at Daytona and
Talladega." It is not.
The rules don’t cause these crashes – the drivers do. Mike Wallace tried to
pinch Tony Stewart, and succeeded – far too well. In the Grand National race
Shane Hmiel punted Scott Riggs into Johnny Sauter – whose flight was the
50-somethingth (I lost count) since roof flaps were mandated in 1994; is it fair
yet to say the roof flaps are a failure?
At the Daytona 500 Jeff Gordon punted Kevin Harvick. Last October Bobby
Labonte threw out his brains, threw Bobby Hamilton to the first turn wall, and
wound up getting thrown on his roof. At the 2001 Daytona 500 Robby Gordon hooked
Ward Burton and Tony Stewart. And on it goes.
Of the many "big ones" over the years, few were caused by anything
other than one driver who didn’t give a damn punting or hooking another car. The
rules didn’t force Jeff Gordon to punt Kevin Harvick, nor did they force Bobby
Labonte to swerve Hamilton to the wall.
Labonte’s idiocy last October shows the argument that drivers are forced to
block for what it is – self-deceiving garbage. The IRL’s no-blocking rule works
and NASCAR needs to take such a rule into serious consideration – it doesn’t
affect passing or holding onto a spot at all; it simply makes drivers leave
enough room for a competitor to race.
If not a no-blocking rule, then NASCAR should yank left-side mirrors out of
the cars and restrict spotters to track condition information only – no more
"clear high" "car up high" rhetoric. The spotters should not
be driving these cars as they presently do – Tony Stewart seems to be one of the
few to point this out – and the drivers have enough sense, or ought to, to know
when they’ve cleared a car. Darrell Waltrip’s argument that drivers’ peripheral
vision is too restricted to not need spotters doesn’t particularly wash, though
there is some legitimacy to it.
As for the two major crashes at Talladega, the term "frightening"
has lost most of its punch through overuse in such situations. Johnny Sauter’s
ride was the wildest this year and Elliott Sadler took a hard shot in the inside
wall, but neither "big one" compares in genuine brutality to Casey
Atwood’s crash at Rockingham or Tony Stewart’s hits at Darlington; even
Stewart’s near-hit at Bristol was far more frightening than anything at Daytona
or Talladega.
This is the silver lining to these "big ones" – the cars being too
close together to hit with truly brutal impact. Separating the cars means far
harder hits, and is why the argument for separating the cars for safety doesn’t
wash – there isn’t a real safety cushion with greater spacing.
NASCAR also needs to dump the yellow-line rule.
There is no legitimate reason for the rule that cost Kenny Wallace 16 spots
on the last lap and cost Tony Stewart a victory bid last July. The yellow-line
rule was imposed only because NASCAR tried to appease the drivers – there was no
other reason for it. There is no safety rationale behind the yellow-line rule –
passing below the yellow line is going into legitimate passing territory.
Now all of this naturally takes a back seat to the condition of team owner
Jack Roush.
Flying a small plane as part of his 60th birthday celebration, Roush apparently
clipped a wire (this is the only information I could find) and flipped into a
lake. A former Marine jumped into the lake three times and finally succeeded in
rescuing Roush and reviving him.
As of this writing Roush’s condition has gone from critical to serious, an
encouraging sign that he’s coming out of the worst of it – it would seem the
very worst has now passed – and should eventually recover nicely.
Speaking of comebacks, remember the 1999 Daytona 300? Andy Santarre spun off
Two and clobbered Mikey Waltrip. Santarre was injured enough to miss six months
of the ’99 season, but came back and won a Grand National race at Pikes Peak
that year. But he was forced by circumstances back to GN North, and at Lee USA
Speedway he bagged his 11th GN North win, edging Mike Olsen and Mike Johnson.
Dale Shaw and Stafford Pro Stock grad Matt Kobyluck rounded out the top five.