I failed to mention what I consider the quote of the week. Kyle Busch reportedly commented to his crew about his pleasure at seeing all the Junior fans sitting down after he lost the lead. I wouldn’t have thought a driver would notice the crowd but obviously Rowdy has that ability while running 180 plus MPH. One of my respondents pointed out the Kyle Petty has a pony tail versus what I’ve been calling a pig tail. To all the adorable young ladies sporting those cute pig tails, my apologies.
Meanwhile, back to the topic at hand. The race. For those of you who remember when they downsized the CUP cars the majority of the teams complained they were junk and they couldn’t drive them. Well guess what. They worked on them, tweaked them and did things like adding power steering to make them drive better and, sure enough, they got them driving better. Rather than repeat what I observed as a fan let DW, as a driver who was there, splain it to ya.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/7999426. One thing DW didn’t mention was something impossible to do today. If a team didn’t like the way their Chevy was handling they’d go buy a Pontiac, Buick or Oldsmobile. Chrysler teams would choose between a Plymouth and a Dodge. Ford teams decided between a Ford and Mercury. The only choice today is to change manufacturers instead of name plates and that, more than anything, has taken a lot of the fun out of our style of racing.
I’ve only seen one or two writers nail the real problem with today’s racing. SPEED. There is no sane reason to be running 200MPH at 1 ½ mile tracks. The one term in today’s racing that really aggravates my spleen is AERO. This was one of two primary reasons for the new car. We had the teams building twisted sister bodies to make the cars turn and run through the corners. These are supposed to be stock cars, not F1 or Indy cars. They ain’t supposed to corner at 180MPH my friends. You want to see some good racing return to Texas then slow them down to 150MPH and watch what happens. So long as these cars churn out 900 HP you are going to see more bad races than good ones. It’s all a matter of physics with the cars and less about team chemistry.
There are numerous ways, beside restrictor plates, to slow the cars down and let the drivers drive instead of steer as they have become accustomed to. Look at the cars they drove back in the eighties. They were higher off the ground and didn’t have the side skirts or a splitter. Even their valances were high enough to allow air under the car. This made them slow down in the corners and allowed the brave hearts to drive in a little deeper to make a pass. What the suits at NA$CAR fail to realize that their good intentions have resulted in unintended consequences. As the McDowell wreck has shown, along with the hard crash by Jeff Gordon, they have accomplished the great goal of implementing driver safety. What they failed to do is ensure the desired stock car quality of racing by implementing the characteristics of real street cars that were made raceable. I’m all for their strong body template requirements to eliminate aero tweaks. What they didn’t do is raise them up off the ground. There is absolutely no reason I should ever see sparks fly out from under a supposed stock car because frame, suspension parts or oil pans are dragging on the track. The current design puts a too limited box for suspension parts manipulation to make the cars perform better. Having said that, the biggest problem still goes back to the engines and the too high speeds. Is there a cheap solution to the new cars problems? That’s up to NA$CAR, the owners and the dreaded team engineers. All I can say is they need to solve this quickly or the fans and sponsors will be like rats deserting a sinking ship.
HAAS CNC has released ole Germy and replaced him with my man, Johnny Sauter. Changes (shakeups) are being made at Petty Enterprises, Chip Gannasi and Bill Davis Racing. Both Yates cars are still unsponsored. The Wood’s Brothers are struggling mightily and Morgan-McClure is missing in action. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Allowing owners to have four teams will end up with startup teams and independents, the lifeblood of the sport, being totally eliminated. Unless Robby Gordon suddenly goes on a hot streak we’ll never see the likes of an Alan Kulwichi winning a championship. NA$CAR’s nationalization of a once regional sport has had its benefits but I fear the consequences are coming back to bite us in the butt.
While the Texas races didn’t thrill me I am well
aware that circumstances will continue to prevail
where one team has their act together while the
rest of the filed struggles. This isn’t a new thing
in the storied history of stock car racing. The
fact that the majorities of the cars are still
running at races and is an attribute of the
devoted engineering that has gone into the
making of engine reliability. The new car is tough
and returns to the track after hits that would have
put the older cars on the hauler. Many advances
have been made except in the area we go to the
track or turn on the TV to watch. Competition.
The new car has failed to produce the promised
better racing and needs work. NA$CAR says
there are no immediate plans for any changes and it could be that giving the teams time to adjust to it is the better approach. If we make it to halfway in the season without any signs of better racing then it’s time to go back to the drawing board and hope the needed changes don’t entail pouring tons of money into the cars. We’ve already priced too many good teams out of the sport and let’s hope there is a solution that doesn’t bankrupt even more.
The foregoing is my opinion based on my observations. My regular readers will note I’ve repeated myself on some issues. I can’t help reiterating what I consider valid points because, as I see it, we are running into dangerous territory. You have the right to disagree with my opinions but never to become disagreeable.
May you bask in the glory of God’s blessings and your good fortune to have been born in the land of the free. God bless you and yours. Please take care to look after those precious little ones. Never forget 911 and the 3,000 innocents we lost that terrible day.
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