Pre-Glen Miscellanea
Some miscellanea before Watkins Glen:
Dredged from the Department of Disproved Ideas – the larger greenhouse test
at Charlotte was an unqualified failure. When a larger greenhouse car was tested
at Kansas, the car ran well by itself, but "Now, we have three cars and we
get on the track and we are actually worse than we thought we were. Our push is
actually worse now than the current aero push….Plus, the cars were
unstable," said Jimmy Spencer.1
Gary Nelson said he won’t give up on the project – "We want to find
solutions"2
– and Spencer wonders if the hard tire might be a contributing factor. It likely
is, but no more than it has been before, and given that the aero push was all
but impossible to overcome with the soft tires run in 2000, softening the tires
is unlikely to accomplish anything – also remember that the 5&5 rule of 1998
ran with soft tires, and the aero push then was all but impossible.
Of course the sport saw that this larger greenhouse project had serious
problems when it was first tested at Talladega in 2001, and the test car ran
faster with the larger greenhouse than the same car with the roof spoiler – due
to both taking air off the rear spoiler and to a fundamental lack of increase in
drag.
Nelson says he won’t give up here, but if testing of the larger greenhouse
continues, one can see where it will inevitably go. To make the cars stable in
traffic, you inevitably need to add down force – to overcome sucking air off the
rear spoiler, you increase the size of the rear spoiler; you thus get a
porposing effect on the nose, so you have to lower the air dam and/or lengthen
the kick out. Now you see where you’re defeating the whole purpose of the
project, which is to cut down force.
So chalk it up to another bad idea, a twin of the long-discredited 5&5
rule. And given this record of bad ideas being tried out and failing long before
being wisely abandoned – the 1998 running of 5&5 was the SECOND such
running; the first was October-November 1993 – one can’t hold any real hope that
the proposed changes for Talladega in October will accomplish anything
worthwhile – which may be why NASCAR may (hopefully) have second thoughts about
shaving downforce and drag for the plate track cars – because you sure as heck
need down force to race in dirty air at those places.
Speaking of down force, Chevrolet and Pontiac get an air dam break at
Michigan, presumably due to testing and on-track results showing a competitive
deficiency. One may gripe about such constant rule changes, but let’s be honest
– it isn’t good enough that one or two makes of cars are romping without much resistance
from the other brands. I think even Ford fans (in my travels it always seems
they are the most passionate of the marque fans) would tacitly acknowledge that
they’d rather beat the GM and Dodge guys in a good fight rather than a rout.
The big driver story this week was the announcement that CART veteran
Christian Fittipaldi has signed with Petty Enterprises, first of a mixed Grand
National-ARCA-Winston Cup period before joining Winston Cup fulltime in 2004.
The move is another blow to the increasingly-fragile-looking CART series, but
it also is a risk for both Fittipaldi and the Petty team. Fittipaldi’s racing
experience has consisted primarily of rear-engine racecars – his record does not
show any serious experience on his part with front-engine racecars other than
his recent forays in Grand National with George diBedart’s #30. This lack of
front-engine experience can only steepen his learning curve, and makes
comparisons with previous open wheel vets like Tony Stewart, John Andretti, and
Ryan Newman misleading, as all three had extensive front-engine experience
before jumping to NASCAR.
The team also needs sponsorship, for both Christian and for Kyle’s #45,
though an announcement on that front may come by October.
The Watkins Glen Grand Prix entry list shows six road racing veterans – Shane
Lewis in the Finch Ford, P.J. Jones in A.J.’s #14, Tom Hubert in the Davis #23,
Scott Pruett in the Ganassi #41 with Spencer in the pending-for-2003 #42, Justin
Bell in a Jon Perroton Ford, and – hokey smokes, to coin a Bill Conrad phrase –
Boris "You Can Call Me Badenov" Said in the second Jasper Ford – hoo
boy! they’re probably saying.
Not entered this year is Ron Fellows, whose NEMCO #87 couldn’t get a sponsor
for the race. That can only hurt, for Fellows has always been competitive at the
Glen and has wins in Grand National and Trucks there for good measure.
Ricky Rudd and Jerry Nadeau will likely be the initial focal point, as Nadeau
has a score to settle and the Petty team wants a win before the end of the
season – when Nadeau may leave for another offer – and has a great shot for
Jerry here. Rudd won the last road course race this season, at Sears Point, and
wants another to prove the first wasn’t just a fluke fall-in-the-lap affair.
Jeff Gordon blew up at Sears Point and is the Glen’s defending champ, while
Steve Park won in 2000 and is off by far his best run since his comeback
started, last week at Indy. Tony Stewart, promising to attend anger management
classes, won at Sears Point and has some history at The Glen as well. Kurt Busch
was stout at the Point and wants to rebound from making as ass of himself (pun)
at Indy.
While road racing is not my cup of tea, it is interesting, especially for the
NASCAR guys.
One of the sport’s owner-drivers may be evolving away – Bob Brooks of Hooters
may purchase into Brett Bodine’s team, a move that would take a lot of heat off
Brett in ownership. Such a move could also help with promotion of the Hooters
Pro Cup short track series, a fun racing series that can benefit from a
promotional tie-in with Winston Cup.