Re: N off season advice

#11

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 02:17:09 +1100, "Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote:

Chad said:

Quote:

And an extra one, and I'm sure it's been suggested in the past, but wouldn't
mandating a high diff ratio for Dega be a better way to contain top end
speed than the plate anyway?

John said:

Quote:

As long as the speed which the cars can go thru the turns is greater
than the speed the power of the engines can produce you're going to
have everyone running in a pack at the same speed.

Chad, I've often wondered about that, too, but John pointed out that
limiting top end via gearing rather than by limiting horsepower would
result in the exact same problem. That never occurred to me before.
Thanks, John.

So the only answer for Talledega, then, would be to change the track
to put a handling/cornering requirement in. Say by knocking down the
banking. And for Daytona? Run the road course.

I doubt that the powers-that-be would seriously considering modifying
the banking, and the idea of a Daytona road race flies in the face of
tradition, so I guess we're stuck with these abortions.

Personally, I don't think a 195 mph procession followed by a huge
chain collision is either racing or entertainment. I hate it when one
car crashes, much less 15 or 20 all at once.

It wouldn't break my heart to see them shut Talledega down completely.
Someone is going to get killed if they don't. (Someone almost was on
Sunday.)

Thanks, guys.

#12

"Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:4af04971 (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org:

Quote:

I've seen quite a few people suggesting the new 1/64th smaller
restrictor plate bunched up the pack even more. Do you think that's
true? (I guess not?)

LOL. You guess right. The smaller plate cut ~ 5mph off the speeds
of the cars, but that's about all it did.

At Daytona you might see it have more effect; there handling does
have an effect, and slowing the cars down will benefit the ones
which do not handle so well, making it easier for them to stay in
the pack with the good-handling cars.

Quote:

Another question for anyone. Why do they need to restrict the engines
all the way down to 440hp when the trucks run the track with 650hp?

Because the trucks have a lot more drag. You could add drag to a
Cup car, and let them use 650hp engines (which is basically what the
Nationwide series does with the "taxi cab sign" on the roof). The
current thinking, tho, is that it's better to have a clean looking
car and a less powerful engine.

Quote:

Taking 400hp out of the Cup engine to drop 15-20mph off the top end
speed sounds like more than I would have ever guessed would be needed.
That's near 50% of the total HP needed to get the last 10% of top
speed out of the car.

That's a little mistaken there. Going in a straight line with 900hp,
a Cup car could likely reach 240. They don't do that at places like
Fontana because the track doesn't go in a straight line, and they
have to slow down for the corners. But the upshot is that, with a
plate motor, they loose ~ 500hp and ~ 50 mph from the potential top
speed. Since the power required goes up proportional to the square
of the speed, that's about the right ratio.

Quote:

And an extra one, and I'm sure it's been suggested in the past, but
wouldn't mandating a high diff ratio for Dega be a better way to
contain top end speed than the plate anyway?

That would work. Whether it would be "better" is argueable, and
the likely answer is no, it wouldn't make any difference. The
problem here is not how to contain top end speed, there are a
dozen different ways to do that, the problem is that with the top
end speed contained all the cars run at the exact same speed in
a big pack, with no-one able to pass, and a huge wreck the result
of any small error in judgement by a driver. The solution has to
be finding some way that the cars _don't_ all run the same speed.

John

#13

John McCoy wrote:

Quote:

"Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:4af04971 (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org:

I've seen quite a few people suggesting the new 1/64th smaller
restrictor plate bunched up the pack even more. Do you think that's
true? (I guess not?)

LOL. You guess right. The smaller plate cut ~ 5mph off the speeds
of the cars, but that's about all it did.

At Daytona you might see it have more effect; there handling does
have an effect, and slowing the cars down will benefit the ones
which do not handle so well, making it easier for them to stay in
the pack with the good-handling cars.

Another question for anyone. Why do they need to restrict the engines
all the way down to 440hp when the trucks run the track with 650hp?

Because the trucks have a lot more drag. You could add drag to a
Cup car, and let them use 650hp engines (which is basically what the
Nationwide series does with the "taxi cab sign" on the roof). The
current thinking, tho, is that it's better to have a clean looking
car and a less powerful engine.

Taking 400hp out of the Cup engine to drop 15-20mph off the top end
speed sounds like more than I would have ever guessed would be
needed. That's near 50% of the total HP needed to get the last 10%
of top speed out of the car.

That's a little mistaken there. Going in a straight line with 900hp,
a Cup car could likely reach 240. They don't do that at places like
Fontana because the track doesn't go in a straight line, and they
have to slow down for the corners. But the upshot is that, with a
plate motor, they loose ~ 500hp and ~ 50 mph from the potential top
speed. Since the power required goes up proportional to the square
of the speed, that's about the right ratio.

55% of HP to get the last 21% of top speed is easier to understand

Quote:

And an extra one, and I'm sure it's been suggested in the past, but
wouldn't mandating a high diff ratio for Dega be a better way to
contain top end speed than the plate anyway?

That would work. Whether it would be "better" is argueable, and
the likely answer is no, it wouldn't make any difference. The
problem here is not how to contain top end speed, there are a
dozen different ways to do that, the problem is that with the top
end speed contained all the cars run at the exact same speed in
a big pack, with no-one able to pass, and a huge wreck the result
of any small error in judgement by a driver. The solution has to
be finding some way that the cars _don't_ all run the same speed.

John

It almost sounds like no restrictions is the only answer to proper racing
there as it is, or another radical change to the body rules.

One reason a diff limit might work a little better than the plate is that it
would give drivers extra acceleration available to take advantage of
mistakes when someone does back off. Granted that doesn't happen a lot in
normal lapping.

--
Chad

#14

Clancy Fowells wrote:

Quote:

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 02:17:09 +1100, "Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote:

Chad said:

And an extra one, and I'm sure it's been suggested in the past, but
wouldn't mandating a high diff ratio for Dega be a better way to
contain top end speed than the plate anyway?

John said:

As long as the speed which the cars can go thru the turns is greater
than the speed the power of the engines can produce you're going to
have everyone running in a pack at the same speed.

Chad, I've often wondered about that, too, but John pointed out that
limiting top end via gearing rather than by limiting horsepower would
result in the exact same problem. That never occurred to me before.
Thanks, John.

So the only answer for Talledega, then, would be to change the track
to put a handling/cornering requirement in. Say by knocking down the
banking. And for Daytona? Run the road course.

I doubt that the powers-that-be would seriously considering modifying
the banking, and the idea of a Daytona road race flies in the face of
tradition, so I guess we're stuck with these abortions.

Personally, I don't think a 195 mph procession followed by a huge
chain collision is either racing or entertainment. I hate it when one
car crashes, much less 15 or 20 all at once.

It wouldn't break my heart to see them shut Talledega down completely.
Someone is going to get killed if they don't. (Someone almost was on
Sunday.)

Thanks, guys.

How about this for an idea. Run Dega as a series of 50 lap knockout races.
Drop to 35 cars after race 1, 30 after race 2, 25 cars after race 3 and have
a final with 20 cars.

Probably doesn't really solve the basic problem but would make it more
exciting than last week and make the final race for top 20 positions a
little less likely to always produce a big one.

--
Chad

#15

"John McCoy" <igopogo (AT) ix (DOT) netcom.com> wrote

Quote:

"Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:4aefeeb0 (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org:

I 'think' one of the problems with the plates is that they are choking
the engines to the point where they accelerate at a crawl near the top
end. (is that lack of torque?)

That's true, but incidental to the problem at hand

Going off on an aside, you can say lack of torque if you want,
or you can say lack of power, it's the same thing. Power is torque
times rpm.

Divided by 5250.

--

-Mike-
mmarlowREMOVE (AT) windstream (DOT) net

#16

"Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:4af0f8d6 (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org:

Quote:

It almost sounds like no restrictions is the only answer to proper
racing there as it is,

Figure out a way to race at Dega without plates, and without being
unreasonably risky to the competitors and fans in the grandstand,
and NASCAR will be forever grateful

Quote:

One reason a diff limit might work a little better than the plate is
that it would give drivers extra acceleration available to take
advantage of mistakes when someone does back off. Granted that doesn't
happen a lot in normal lapping.

It might. That was the hope with increasing drag, that you could
use a more responsive engine and get better racing without going any
faster. It didn't really work, mostly, I think, because if someone
backs out when they're 2 and 3 wide (with a wall on one side and a
penalty line on the other) usually your only choices are to back out
yourself or to hit the guy in front; you don't often have space to
the side.

John

#17

"Mike Marlow" <mmarlowREMOVE (AT) windstream (DOT) net> wrote in news:8c4d4$4af10395
$6215adae$9243 (AT) ALLTEL (DOT) NET:

Quote:

"John McCoy" <igopogo (AT) ix (DOT) netcom.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9CB852D9D18C8pogosupernews (AT) 216 (DOT) 168.3.30...

Going off on an aside, you can say lack of torque if you want,
or you can say lack of power, it's the same thing. Power is torque
times rpm.

Divided by 5250.

Only if you're working with horsepower and foot-pounds. Chad
might be metric, so I used the generic version.

John

#18

On Nov 2, 7:45*pm, SG <spaamtrap... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

I suggest they eliminate the backstretch and connect turn 2 to 3 using
Talladega Blvd, see attached:http://www.indux.com/map/talledaga_tn.gif

NA$CAR on road courses sucks. And CART thought about making a
chicane, like you posit, on the back stretch of Michigan, decided
agaist it. Either a track is a road course, or it's an oval. Can't
be both--leave that to the sports-car guys.

#19

"Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:4af2eff0 (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org:

Quote:

And my brain still knows what 15 stone looks
like

Now there's one to mystify the USAians :-)

I used to be 15 stone (a tad over, actually), but I have gotten
it down to about 13 and a half.

John

#20

John McCoy wrote:

Quote:

"Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:4af2eff0 (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org:

And my brain still knows what 15 stone looks
like

Now there's one to mystify the USAians :-)

I used to be 15 stone (a tad over, actually), but I have gotten
it down to about 13 and a half.

John

I used to be 15 stone too, at about 16yo. I wish I was still closer to it
now. :-)

--
Chad