I got a big kick out of a special Daytona section in USA Today, today:
Big top-of-the-fold article featuring Tony and how he has "earned
respect" for being vocal. Right. Part of the article:
"...restrictor-plate races,...usually...result[s] in cars being bunched
together...drivers resort to bump drafting, which can make steering and
handling difficult. [Wait for the good part] Stewart has never
embraced that form of racing."

Stop me, stop me, I'm laughing so hard I'm falling off my chair!

N.

I've been a contrarian voice on this newsgroup for years about something, I
guess it's time to say it again and get flamed and called a dufus.

I think there are lots more factors than the restrictor plates involved in
the field being bunched up.

One factor being that unlike most of NASCAR's history, there isn't a bad car
in the field now, there isn't a team in the garage that's probably operating
under an eight-figure budget for the year. It's not like the old days when
there were five or six good cars, and 35 pieces of junk held together with
kite twine and spit with people racing so hand-to-mouth that they are
siphoning gasoline from the race car (which is free) so they afford to drive
back and forth to the motel (don't laugh, I've seen that happen with my own
eyes).

Another factor being the fact that every driver out there is beholden to a
team owner and a sponsor and is expected to produce on the track and be in
contention for the win every time he pulls out onto the track. It's not like
the old days when there were five or six drivers with any chance in this or
any known solar system of winning, and 35 drivers who "knew their place,"
had no expectation of winning and just stayed out of the way and just
chugged around and wound up where they wound up. Thirty years ago, the
fifth-place finisher in the Daytona 500 was five laps behind the winner. The
10th-place finisher was 10 laps down. Unlike today where you end up with 15
or 20 cars on the lead lap at the end of freaking short track races.

People say "jack around with the spoilers and make it to where drivers have
to lift in the corners, and then the cream will rise to the top." OK ...
who's going to lift and get his a** fired and replaced by somebody from
Busch or the Truck Series who's got bigger coglioni and won't lift? These
people are not being paid enormous sums of money to lift, they're being paid
and the expectation is there that they go for it every, single, solitary
lap.If they aren't willing to do that, teams will find someone who is.

Where the restrictor plates have an effect is that people don't have the
throttle response to get out of trouble. Which can contribute to "the big
one" at places like Daytona and Talladega. Although as I've also noted
before, "the big ones" have happened at that track even with no plates. The
worst "big one" ever was at Talladega in 1973, in a race where the cars were
without plates.

IMHO, given the fact that there is no differential as far as quality and
financial backing in the equipment today ... the fact that every driver in
the field is going for it on every lap of every race, and there are no
struggling independent field-fillers who "know their place" anymore ... the
fact that everybody out there has (a.) big coglioni (check your Italian
dictionary) and (b.) the spectre of being fired if they don't display said
coglioni ... and the aerodynamic quirks inherent in Daytona and Talladega, I
see no way regardless of what NASCAR comes up with that there will ever be
an effective way of breaking up the packs to everyone's satisfaction, save
one course of action that NASCAR of course won't do since Daytona and
Talladega are the France family's show palaces ... chop down the banking.

There's a reason people don't build 2 1/2 or 2 2/3 mile tracks with 30+
degree bankings anymore.


"Nancy1" <nancy-dooley (AT) uiowa (DOT) edu> wrote

"Gregory Bailey" <nowhereman (AT) nowhereland (DOT) net> wrote

Greg, WTF is wrong with you? That has to be the most logical and
sensible thing spewed here in a long time. Shame on you, you know
better ;-)

"Gregory Bailey" <nowhereman (AT) nowhereland (DOT) net> wrote


<Snip a bunch of stuff I completely agree with...>

This is where we disagree Greg. If they have to lift, everybody will have
to lift. The guy that tries to flat foot it around the track will be the
guy that brings out the next caution. I do believe that if you put driver
skill back into the equation the cream will indeed rise. Of course it would
help even more if we could get away from this parity crap and let the
innovative teams be innovative.

I just can't bring myself to support lowering the high banks. I really
believe if you take parity out of the equation you'll again see greater and
lesser teams. NASCAR has legislated the lesser teams to a more equal
footing with the greater teams and has created an artificial equality.

Well, they never really did build a lot of them. Thankfully. They are
certainly not my favorite type of racing, but as just two among so many
other tracks and track types, they hold a special interest.

--

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

"Mike Marlow" <mmarlowREMOVE (AT) alltel (DOT) net> wrote

The sad fact is that parity seems to be the goal in all professional sports.
One of these years you're going to have 10 8-8 teams in the NFL playoffs.

OK, let me come at it this way ... and I'm not defending the parity, just
making an observation ... if they didn't have the parity, would you have the
widespread big money sponsoring cars? As I said, I doubt there is a team in
the garage area ... except maybe Shelmerdine ... who is not operating on at
least an eight-figure budget. When somebody is sinking that much money into
something, they want a return on that investment; i.e., results, hopefully
victorious results. If there's no chance they're going to get that return on
investment, are they going to pack up and go do something else? That would
be a return to the days of greater and lesser teams, but would it really be
healthy to do it that way? And aside from the NASCAR rules designed to
ensure parity, isn't another factor there that anybody can buy speed off the
shelf today if he's got enough money? At least equipment wise, I don't think
there are greater or lesser teams anymore, although I think you're always
going to have differentials in (a.) driver talent and (b.) team talent and
ingenuity as far as what they do with that equipment. If I could find a
sugar daddy or two or three or four willing to put up the cash, I could buy
a top-notch Nextel Cup car and engine with the potential to win a race if I
had the right people maintaining it.

One more thing on parity. I cited the 1976 Daytona 500 results, Pearson
winning in the big wreck with R. Petty. Second and third place, a lap down.
Fourth place, two laps down. Fifth place, three laps down. Sixth place, four
laps down. Seventh and eighth place, seven laps down. Ninth place, nine laps
down. Tenth place, 10 laps down. Cut to last year's Daytona 500, there were
23 cars on the lead lap. Cut to last year ... 23 cars on the lead lap at the
finish, and that's running three extra laps in the race. The results of 30
years ago were kind of extreme as far as a spread between the field, I'll
grant you. But looking at it from NASCAR's standpoint ... and again, I'm
playing devil's advocate ... even if you had a top-10 spread only a fourth
of that degree, would they have trouble selling it with people as
conditioned to the way things are as they are now?

Some people call them cookie cutter tracks, but IMHO there's a reason people
ARE building 1.5- or 2-mile medium banked tracks, IMHO those are the optimum
conditions for Nextel Cup racing.

"Gregory Bailey" <nowhereman (AT) nowhereland (DOT) org> wrote

There needs to be a mile track built that is as wide as the front
stretch at Pocono, all the way around, with variable banking
about 15-20 degrees.

"Gregory Bailey" <nowhereman (AT) nowhereland (DOT) org> wrote


< Snip more of the stuff that Greg and I don't disagree on...>

What you get to with the above and what I snipped Greg is the inescabable
truth and I don't like it (damn-it!) because I want to bitch a bit. Things
didn't have to evolve to this point. To a large degree things today, from
parity to bump drafting rules are more of a result of NASCAR's manipulation
than anything else. But... it is what it is. Lesser teams - sure they'd be
there but the definition of what "lesser" meant would be different than what
it was 20 years ago. Creativity? Sure, there is room for more of it. To
that extent, I like what I see in Chad Knaus. I don't argue in support of
breaking rules really, as much as I argue in support of a little bit of
sneaky and allowing the room for the ingenuity of these guys. The more
creative and innovate guys will rise to the top - or flop from time to time.
That's something I can get myself around. Today it's easy for NASCAR to
make statements about being creative within the rules and staying within the
rules, but the reality is that every time a team does get creative, the
rules change to disallow that. The shock deal was a good example. Legal
shocks, clever idea on Knaus' part - made illegal the next week. That's the
point where I just hate seeing all of the homoginization of the sport.

Though I absolutely love the short tracks like Bristol and Dover and
Richmond, and, and, and... I do agree that the overall best size is between
1 and 1.5 miles, all factors considered. I've backed off on my use of the
term cookie cutter because most of them really are not cookie cutter tracks.
Each really does have it's own unique character - though I may not
particularly care for that character. I hate the gas mileage tracks for
example. I love the road courses, but I wouldn't want any more in the
circuit. I want to see two grooves so that we can see passing throughout
the race. I'm sick of passing in the pits. I believe they could tweak some
of the less interesting 1.5 milers and make them into a more interesting
track.

--

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

"Mike Marlow" <mmarlowREMOVE (AT) alltel (DOT) net> wrote

NASCAR's done that with the rule book for the 58 years it's been in
existence. Remember Big Bill trying to ban the hemi, and then ca-ca'ing a
brick when Ford tried to bring in a double overhead cam engine (although
IMHO he was actually right on that one)?

I have no problem with Knaus or anyone else pushing the envelope. I love
mechanical ingenuity. There are no Smokey Yunicks out there anymore. I got
to interview Andy Granatelli one time, and that was a hoot because not only
was he a hilarious guy to talk with ... needed his mouth washed out with
soap, though, or maybe STP ... people probably remember him just as a fat
guy who hawked STP, but he and his brothers were among the finest racing and
performance automotive innovators and developers ever to walk this planet
and it was a thrill to talk with him about the Novi and Turbocar from Indy
and the stuff he ran at the Bonneville salt flat in addition to his
involvement in NASCAR.

Knaus just needs to learn not to get caught, because he's gotten caught way
more than any one indiidual I can remember. But did you see the blurb on
Jayski that the tale currently in the garage is that somebody dropped a dime
on him ... more specifically, somebody else in the Chevy camp.


I'm REALLY dating myself, but one of my all-time favorite tracks, for stocks
and Indy cars, was Trenton, N.J., which was a 1.5-mile track that was banked
10 degrees in one and two and 15 degrees in three or four, that was shaped
like a kidney. Literally. There was this little dogleg in the backstretch
that made the track absolutely look like a human kidney when diagrammed, and
they had some really interesting racing there.

"Gregory Bailey" <nowhereman (AT) nowhereland (DOT) org> wrote


Yeah - and I guess I'm not surprised.



--

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