Nascar thoughts no bashing

[Derby City Speedway]

After reading Tony's` post on Lorenzen, it got me going on stock racing in general. Although I am not old enough to really know the rules or even remember all the drivers of the what I would call the hey day 60s of stock car racing. But one thing that sticks in my head are the unique cars that were involved from all the major factories, and independents. There were many things that set them apart from each other, whether it was the engine displacement or the body design. But there was always that person (driver) who was the representative if you may for that particular series of racing. He was either a front runner, a builder, or just a mean motor scooter. But this guy could usually instill enough on track knowledge to the race promoters to get things going in a good direction.(This is where I got off track in Tony`s post) Even though most of these sanctioning bodies these days are very safety minded, there are a few things that have really been over the top IMO. Take the body for instance, yes there are differences, but take all those pretty decals off the cars including the nameplate which is a decal too. And you would be hard pressed to tell one from the other in ncar trim. Yes I know aero packages are safe, they keep the cars on the ground bla bla bla. Stock body's from the factory are pretty safe too. But if you go faster than that car is designed for, or than your capable of going and make a hard turn your probably going to crash be injured, and maybe even die. Take that same car, add roll bars, a window net, a helmet, remove sharp edges, add padding, and you will greatly decrease your chances of serious injury and probably death. pretty simple heh?

Now lets put this in a racing situation:
Now you have let say 40 cars and all have drivers capable to drive fast in the car they are seated in. Now these cars are souped up cars with all the factory speed parts available. So you have a car now with basic (for this time) safety equipment, but a bit more power, so Lets add a wider tire, beef up the suspension a bit, and remember they are all going in the same direction too. SHOULD BEA PRETTY GOOD SHOW HUH? I still believe NASCAR could be around for a long time to come. But I also think they have lost the hard core fan of WINSTON days. You know who you are !!


So Here`s my rule book:


My fix
1. bias ply tire
2. no power steering
3. keep the safety aspects they have inside the "stock skin" of factory body
4. let them run any configuration of hi-po parts the name plate factory produces.
5. no restrictions (aero or induction)

If they have to drive by the seat of their pants again, there will be built in restrictions, they will find out real fast what too fast is the first time they go into a corner with real torque pushing them, on hard tires and feeling it through the steering wheel. When they push he gas pedal and the car lunges foreword.
Time to separate the men from the boys again !!

[4424ever]

I like it Mark real stockcars again! but the only thing I would change is NO blowers or turbos just my 2 cents Hey where'd my soapbox go

[Jesla]

[TsgtRet]

:clap: Mark I agree with most everything you said, we just differ on the fine points. I was never a big NASCAR fan back in the Winston (and pre) days (more into F1 and the like) but you could at least indentify with the cars....they were what was on the showroom floor, the guy next door drove one. I agree with safety, I don't agree with engineering the differences out of the cars. Camry, Fusion, Impala, Charger? As you said all look the same to me. Vintage NASCAR had flavor. They need to return to the days when there were differences between the cars and the manufacturer took an active role (Torino Talladega, Charger 500). Look at the Aussie V8 Series; it really matters that one is Ford and the other is GM and there are differences in the 2 (I've heard it said that it's a place where Ford and Holden owners get together for a fight and race breaks out). Yes, I also long to see the old days of NASCAR and things like the original Carrera Pan Americana, now how do we get them to do it?

[Florida_Slotter]

Well since it was started, I might as well my own 2¢ on the subject.

Back in the heydays of NASCAR you could actually go to your local car dealer and purchase a car with supposedly more horsepower then was raced on Sunday. The 421 SD Pontiacs that were raced were limited to a single 4 bbl carburetor. At the Pontiac dealership, the 425 HP "Ponchos" had 4 x 4 bbl carburetors. Same thing for many other brands.

There was a phrase that was popular, "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday". But today you do not have that 'brand identification' that made that happen. I see that NASCAR is making changes for 2013 that will bring some of that back to the different brands.

Now, if we raced "stock" cars today I really don't think a front wheel drive car would truly captivate the typical racing fan. I can just see the V-6 powered Fusion setting the Pole Position at 125 mph for the 2013 Daytona 500 in front of empty stands!

This past year there were some very good races. If you listened to the drivers, they truly enjoyed themselves while at Atlanta and also Louden. The reason? They said they had to 'drive' the cars. They were not hooked up like they are at Talladega and Daytona. You simply do not put the pedal to the metal and hold it there while you work the wind to make laps.

Rather then run restrictor plates, I would much rather see them remove the plates. But put a narrower tire on the car and remove the aero from the front and rear of the car. Keep the safety flaps that keep the cars from becoming aircraft. This would make the drivers actually have to 'drive' the cars. If they head into the turns with narrower tires and don't slow down, they will simply hit the wall or wreck the car. They have a lot of talent and I know they will drive the cars within the limits these changes would provide. If not, I'm sure there are others 'waiting in the wings' that could. You would have to accelerate out of turns, so throttle control would once again be a skill that all drivers much manage.

I'm sure Buddy Baker had to learn this while running those first 200 mph plus laps at Talladega in his Hemi powered Dodge Charger in the late 60's. If he just matted the throttle, I'm sure the car would have started to smoke the tires as he headed down the backstretch.

This year the Indy Car group did similar mods for racing on the oval tracks. I thought it greatly improved that racing and I started to watch that once again. Our technology has replaced the need for driver talent, all that savvy that some teams had to show and have turned auto racing into a cookie cutter type of racing.

As stated, just my opinion on the subject.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

I agree with Mark, and I'll go so far as to say that if they followed his formula, I would come back to NASCAR. Taledega had 30,000 folks this year, in the 300,000 capacity facility. Maybe they will listen to Mark and win some of us back, huh?

Meanwhile, I had to laugh at the title here... What's NASCAR without some bashing and bangin' and rubbin'? LOL.

[ddyke]

200 cube Pushrod V6 with little restriction otherwise

[pzooc]

[olskoolslotz]

...

[Cjent]

I can see a lot of good points here. And I do watch occasionally.
That being said, that is why I like GT racing. The Blancpain Endurance Series, as well as the Grand Am, ALMS and other series that includes GTE and GT3 are series you can identify with the cars. That is what makes racing fun, the ability to equate what you see on the track with the neighborhood garages.
I do think 2013 will be better for NASCAR with the new bodies aimed at ease of identification. Let's wait, and give them a chance.

[VenturaAlfa]

Well, I've read all the comments here and I have to respectfully disagree.

I've been around Nascar and racing in general in one form or another since I was 6 months old. I've won national titles in karting and SCCA road racing and I've driven Tony Stewart's car in testing at Las Vegas, California Speedway and Infineon. I've driven my own SCCA car at those same tracks.

Nobody drives a car expecting to die. If you can make it safer you should. In the old days drivers died at an alarming, unnecessary rate. The changes proposed on here would bring that back to Nascar. A driver will drive a car as fast as it will go no matter what the consequences. Just think of all those drivers flying out of open wheel cars back in the day when there were no belts and no roll bars.

Putting great drivers in equivalent cars and letting them duke it out is what racing should be in my opinion. That's not necessarily the most exciting I admit. I think back to the IROC race of champions. They were boring to me due to the lack of diversity but they certainly helped prove who the great drivers were. For years karting has been about equalizing the karts and letting the best drivers win. What do you get from that? Pack racing like Talladega and drivers taking each other out in bunches. I still remember being taken out by Robby Gordon at a KT100 national money race in Laughlin, NV when he couldn't get around me. That wreck took out 14 of 28 karts because we were all so close together. Another wreck on the restart took out all but 8 karts who contended for the win. That happens a lot when you have equivalent cars and its just the way it goes.

Yeah, the cars all look the same, so what? To my eye so do indy cars and formula one cars. I would love to drive a formula one car but to watch an F1 race bores me to tears. I watched the Australian supercar series last night on TV, again, all the cars looked pretty much the same to my untrained eye. I turned the channel after 15 minutes. So, making the cars all different would not do much. Particularly when you think how much the street cars that would race in Nascar already look alike. A ford taurus versus a monte carlo versus a dodge charger versus a toyota camry. Not a lot of difference in the street version

The manufacturers no longer build a car that matches up well across the board and just like slot car racing where it is difficult to equalize cars, it is even more so in real life. Trans Am tried that years ago in case most of you forget and we watched a 4 wheel drive turbocharged Audi run away with every race it finished. In Can Am we watched Mark Donahue terrorize the other drivers in a monster Porsche.

Personally, I don't want to go back to watching fireball roberts fly over a guard rail or richard petty tumbling down a straightaway more times than I can count. That is not what racing should be about but that is what taking away down force and changing to many of the rules would result in.

I know drivers are going to die, I know football players are going to suffer dementia at the end of their career. But, If it can be prevented then I, for one, am in favor of it.

I will say I would love to see more short track racing and some dirt racing thrown, in as well as 1 or 2 more road races. I can still remember being at Saugus Speedway and seeing the cars start with the nose of the pole sitter almost up against the bumper of the tail end car. Great racing to see in person but probably boring to a tv audience that would have to watch the leader pushing back markers out of the way almost from the start. The other problem with dirt or short tracks is pit stops. There just isn't enough room to make them so you either have to drastically reduce the fields or limit the races so that there are no pit stops.

At any rate, what we think on here will not change the way nascar does things. They are still the most popular brand of auto racing and I don't see anything coming along that will displace that any time soon. All forms of auto racing have suffered attendance losses in the last few years. Personally, I don't think that is a bad thing. They had all grown at an amazing rate and a little reduction to make things more affordable for fans is not a bad thing.

I will admit that of all forms of racing I most Trans Am the most. Stu Hayner, Dino Crescentini, Tommy Kendall, Paul Gentilozzi, Mark Donahue, Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones were all great to watch as a kid and young adult growing up.

For all the complaining on here about Nascar how many of you go out of your way to go and watch an SCCA race? That is where exactly what you are talking about takes place. Go watch a super prod or A prod race and watch a Mustang take on a Camaro take on a Z06 corvette take on a Porsche, take on a Mazda RX7. The last national I raced in had less than 500 spectators most of whom were friends of the drivers or crew. You can walk into the pits and talk to the drivers and you can see cars that look like stock racing. (That is why Nascar will never go back to stock cars, the crowds don't care and don't show up).

Ventura Alfa

[dolgenman]

[Xr4ti]

I've been a fan of NASCAR since Glen "Fireball" Roberts. I don't see anything wrong with it. 2013 will be even better than 2012 for some people who prefer the stock car look. It's primarily racing on ovals which is great for the fans because we can see the whole track. The cars are extremely close in lap times and with 43 Cup cars on the grid, there's always plenty of good racing action. I have fun picking finishes in a fantasy league and being in a chat room for all the CWTS, Nationwide and Cup races. I enjoy listening to NASCAR radio on Sirius channel 90 and just especially like being among fans. It's fun.

[Florida_Slotter]

[Jesla]