Well, here we are. The NFL season is over, the Arena League season has begun,
\nthe 24 Hours Of Daytona has been run, and that all means one thing – SPEEDWEEKS.
\nSome random thoughts as we countdown to Daytona:<\/p>\n
The surest sign that a race cannot justify itself comes when its format is
\nconstantly changed. The Winston is infamous for format changes, but the Daytona
\nShootout is rapidly matching Charlotte’s exercise in absurd opulence with the
\nlatest format change – the first 20 laps are run a la the old Busch Clash, then
\nthere is a ten-minute yellow a la The Winston, then the final 50 laps are run
\nwith a green-flag finish required.<\/p>\n
Obviously with the 13-gallon fuel cell mileage would not be that hot an issue
\nunder the previous two seasons’ 70-lap format, but with the final 50 laps run
\nunder green mileage will be a issue, and pit stops will become necessary.<\/p>\n
Unlike The Winston, the Daytona shootout has never really required pit stops
\nto put on an exciting race – if anything, pit stops have tended to hurt the show
\nin the Shootout, most notably when Mark Martin rammed one of his crewmen in
\n2000.<\/p>\n
It also speaks to a larger competitive issue – teams will likely change four
\ntires on the yellow, and the sport has got to get away from four-tire changes,
\nbecause such stops drive up tire bills. This is what makes the proposed change
\nback to softer tires wrong – tire bills inevitably drop when tires don’t have to
\nbe changed; running a 500-mile race on just twelve tires instead of the 20 that
\nare common is always less expensive.<\/p>\n
The Shootout will be the first test, albeit a incomplete one, of NASCAR’s new
\naero-matching and also of its weight-balance rule requiring the front end of the
\ncar to weight exactly 1,700 pounds and the back to weight 1,700 pounds; this
\nrule was put in because teams constantly shifted weight to the rear so the
\nspoiler was kept out of the air; one hope of the rule may be that, with the
\nspoiler higher in the air, the draft will kick in better, while the exactitude
\nof front-to-back weight transfer may help counter the inevitable porposing of
\nthe nose with the spoiler in the air.<\/p>\n
The 125s will also test this new rule, but the real test will be in the 500,
\nand the questions even after the preliminaries will hang in the air – will the
\ncars balance out in the draft? Will we see a repeat of last October’s Autumn 500
\nwhere mileage swatted out of contention about three-fourths of the field? How
\nwill passing be affected? What little footage has been shown from drafting
\npractice suggested it may be somewhat easier, but only the 500 will really tell
\nus where the cars stand with these new rules.<\/p>\n
One thing we can be sure of – aero-matching will not reduce rules lobbying.
\nOne or more makes will suffer from aero-matching and demand changes. Right now
\nFord is grumbling that it has lost some 200 pounds of down force from
\naero-matching. Of course it has also lost a number of teams the last few years,
\nand is down to the Roush phalanx, Yates Racing, and the Wood Brothers as a
\nrealistic shot at the title.<\/p>\n
The worst rule in NASCAR remains the rule restricting the number of tests a
\nteam can have. NASCAR is now considering restricting testing at non-Winston Cup
\ntracks because of the upsurge in non-Cup track testing.<\/p>\n
NASCAR has to admit that the rule doesn’t work and should not be there. Teams
\nneed unlimited opportunity to test; this is what will kill the multi-car giant
\nbecause it eliminates the need to share information – it is this need that
\nbrought about the multi-car giant to start with.<\/p>\n
One surprise was the defection of Kyle Busch to Hendrick Motorsports; slated
\nto run in the Truck series this season, Kyle Busch quit and went to Hendrick,
\nwhere he is slated to run a mixture of ARCA and Superspeedway Sportsman (aka
\nBusch series) events.<\/p>\n
One wonders how Roush will take this, considering his long-time enmity toward
\nHendrick Motorsports.<\/p>\n
The 24 Hours of Daytona was the usual grind, introducing a new lead class of
\nroad racing prototype-style racecars amid the GTS classes. There were several
\nrather nasty wrecks, including one rollover and a nasty head-butt shot on a
\nrestart. Several NASCAR drivers participated; Kyle Petty’s Orbit #43 team did
\nthe best among the NASCAR contingent, finishing sixth despite spinning on
\nSunday.<\/p>\n
The 24 Hours of Daytona has been a casualty of the absurd costs of this class
\nof racing; the car count was down and the event’s top class has changed several
\ntimes in the past decade; even the sanctioning body for the event has changed
\nseveral times the last ten years (you do remember IMSA, don’t you?).<\/p>\n
This is why NASCAR needs to do a better job reigning in where teams spend
\ntheir money.<\/p>\n
Carbon monoxide poisoning has become an issue again with Rick Mast’s
\nretirement. One overlooked comment was by Jimmy Spencer, who noted that he wears
\nan open face helmet in part because it lets in more air.<\/p>\n
Getting fresh air into the car is necessary; one way is to stick side window
\nair-intake hoses for the cockpit straight out like side mirrors – this has the
\ndouble benefit of increasing drag, which the cars need. Drivers also should
\nconsider going back to open face helmets; the safety argument for full-face
\nhelmets was less than convincing in any event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, here we are. The NFL season is over, the Arena League season has begun, the 24 Hours Of Daytona has been run, and that all means one thing – SPEEDWEEKS. Some random thoughts as we countdown to Daytona: The surest sign that a race cannot justify itself comes when its format is constantly changed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}