The Crying Never Stops, and Shows People Won’t Learn
The title certainly is accurate – Crying Time Will Start With Daytona Test.1
But it’s actually a bit premature, for the crying has never really ended.
The 2003 Chevrolet has had "several good test sessions. The A+ rating in
the test notes already set the tone for politics at Daytona." So what can
we expect come the two Daytona tests? Ford, which won some crucial aero
concessions as a result of the tests, will try it again. Dodge may try something
as well, despite getting a new nosepiece.2
I’m not sure how much Pontiac may sandbag.
So while the published speeds will naturally be read and digested by
race-starved fans and analysts, their meaning will be more debatable – after all
a year hasn’t gone by where at least two teams with dismal records suddenly
posted big numbers on the Daytona test board.
But what ought to be clear is that NASCAR’s new body location rule – 60
inches from the centerline of the rear end extending to the forward tip of the
roofline – will not put any period to body politicking, nor will it particularly
equalize the makes, though that it supposedly makes getting the rear spoiler out
of the air harder, with 32 templates (up from 30) and 18 of them considered
common now in use, may wind up increasing the strength of the draft – provided,
of course, the cars don’t pay the porposing penalty that was the killer drawback
of 2000’s spec shock rules, still a possibility given that teams cannot move the
body forward for front down force.
So the politicking will continue as it always has. And the crying will begin
anew.
It begins already with laments about how the fans may not put up with any
more "’follow the leader’ races….where the thrill of the day is watching
the blocking technique. You have to block now because cars don’t have decent
throttle response."
The perennial lie of restrictor plate racing is twofold – that the cars lack
decent throttle response, and drivers are forced to block. The simple fact is
they DON’T have to block. There is no need for it. Blocking is not racing; the
reason the Autumn 500 at Talladega went caution free is because drivers DIDN’T
block; there was no need for it, and they could pass up and down the pack quite
well.
Throttle response is the red herring of the debate, because it ignores the
real reason for lack of passing – the inconsistency of the draft. These cars can
have all the throttle response in the world and it won’t do a bit of good
without a draft to work with, which is why there is so little passing away from
the restrictor plate tracks. Remember how the Craftsman Trucks have lost a great
deal of throttle response since the first Daytona 250, back in 2000; between
smaller carburetors (Jack Sprague was especially upset with reversion to smaller
carbs) and removal of ram-air hoses the 2002 Truck 250 saw the racers with
substantially less throttle response than before, and it didn’t make a bit of
difference – the draft kicked in and allowed passing.
The old roof spoiler package solved it all, but barring return of the 2000-1
package, if the cars don’t pay a porposing penalty then keeping the rear spoiler
in the air will help the draft and thus allow the cars to pass more easily; it
may also help that teams may bring restrictor plate cars that are more in line
with Atlanta cars, with more down force and potentially greater drag – something
they’ve already hinted at doing.
There have of course been a number of proposals to remove ten rows of
seating, building higher fencing, and letting the speeds exceed 200, with clichés
about how IRL cars run 220. Such always ignores how in CART and IRL 220 MPH
speeds overwhelmed higher seating and fencing and killed several spectators via
flying debris that would not have cleared fencing at speeds below 190, and how
IRL cars have far more down force than Winston Cup cars, making them far more
secure to the racetrack – never mind how Greg Moore and Scott Brayton among
others would have lived if the speed of their championship cars was below 190 at
Fontana or Indianapolis.
So if NASCAR really wants to spend its money wisely, it should go back to
adding raw aero-drag and otherwise "holding these cars back…."
because that is where real safety and real improvement in competition are found.
The crying will start at Daytona, and will accelerate should NASCAR go
through with reducing down force, an idea that John Darby reportedly has stated
will get going early in 2003. Darby has said "Goodyear has agreed to
produce softer tires if NASCAR can reduce down force, which Darby said the
sanctioning body intends to do."3
Darby also said "It’s going to take some time, and it’s hard to pinpoint
how long that will be."
The selling point to such an exercise is that reducing down force and
softening tires would "make the cars less dependent on aerodynamics and
might make for more competitive racing by reducing the aero push and increasing
passing." But any look back at history shows this isn’t the case. It is yet
another case of refusing to learn from real world history.
Twice in the 1990s NASCAR reduced down force on the cars, and the result each
time was that the cars were less, not more, raceable. NASCAR tested with reduced
down force in 2002 at Daytona and Charlotte, and both times the aero push was
made worse. And no one has even considered the increase in aero looseness that
results from reduced down force.
Softer tires aren’t quite so appealing when you consider that the sport ran
them with the 5&5 rule, and that it means vastly increased tire bills and
requires that drivers manage their tires rather than push the car to get the
lead; tire management is not racing.
And why is it that seemingly everyone chooses to ignore the epidemic of
air-off-the-spoiler crashes that was a hallmark of low down force? Do we really
want cars that will spin out by themselves more than they do with all the down force
they presently have? The steady increase in down force has all but eliminated
air-off-the-spoiler crashing, and this can only be good for the sport.
The counterclaim that teams can use mechanical grip to get back grip lost by
reduced down force ignores how important down force was even fifteen-plus years
ago – heck, it was important almost from the very beginning of the sport;
spoilers came into being because racecars could not maintain stability without
them; they steadily increased in size (notably in 1978 and 1981) because
racecars were not stable.
The simple reality is that grip can’t be achieved WITHOUT down force; nowhere
in NASCAR history can one find a single example of a car that was safer or more
competitive with increased mechanical grip than with higher down force.
And as usual, the whole controversy ignores the real reason the aero push is
such a problem – the lack of the draft. Dirty air is doing the opposite of what
it is supposed to do; make it do what it is supposed to do and you’ll solve the
whole aero push problem.
And of course they’re STILL crying over how grueling the schedule is.4
Thirty-six races a year is supposedly "beyond ridiculous." Done to
expand the sport, the expanded schedule is claimed by Rusty Wallace to have been
"the wrong way to grow the sport. It turned into major burnout for
everyone. It turned into higher salaries because now we have specialists that we
have to hire for the road team, backup team, and a shop team."
But are Rusty, Lee Spencer (columns like this show her to be the least
insightful writer on the NASCAR beat, despite some genuine insight offered in
other columns), or anyone else ignorant enough to think that the exact same
circumstances would not be present if the schedule had stayed at 31 races? Major
burnout for everyone? Since when did that become NASCAR’s responsibility?
It is yet another example of teams spending money and blaming it on something
other than their own spendaholism. The cost of racing continues to rise, but the
length of the schedule is not relevant to rising costs. Technology and general
owner spendaholism are to blame. Certainly NASCAR needs to step in and restrict
where teams spend money, but teams also need to be man enough to admit that they
(particularly the handful of money guy billionaires – and you know who you are –
who have done the most to price the sport out of control) are to blame for their
own budget problems.
The schedule is a red herring, and it is long past time we stop blaming the
length of the schedule for racing problems.
Memo to Joe Foster and others – it is not Daletona, it is DAYtona. Earnhardt
won just three races at Daytona – fewer than Glenn Roberts, Cale Yarborough,
Bill Elliott, Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, or David Pearson. By the logic of
"Daletona," a better name is Foytona (A.J. won three times at
Daytona), or Allisontona, or Pettytona, or Pearsontona.
People who use the term Daletona are genuinely disturbing.