Lately, it seems I have been hearing alot about how important track
has become. Was there ever a time when it wasn't important? What it
makes it more important now? I am guessing it has to do with the COT,
but I don't understand the premise. Sean

Sean wrote:
The more even the cars are and harder it is to pass the more important track
position becomes. So you could blame the COT for doing that.

--
Chad

In article <4ae8022f (AT) news (DOT) x-privat.org>, "Chad" <cbstun (AT) safemail (DOT) com> wrote:

It's been important for a long time.
When the cars/competition started getting
REALLY close, passing became a lot more difficult,
so it only falls into place that passing in the pits
was easier than on the track.
It's not new to the COT at all.
Plus, many of the tracks just are/were not condusive to multi groove
racing, so being in front, and more importanty, staying
in front, became importatnt.

Sean <BOSSFAN12 (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote in news:0d7dd342-c0f5-40be-931f-
5b306c64c165 (AT) v25g2000yqk (DOT) googlegroups.com:

Back before the advent of the aero car, it was a lot less
significant than it is now. So, from the dawn of NASCAR up
until say the early 90's.

Aerodynamics. Back in days of yore, if you had a faster car
you could catch up to and pass a guy ahead of you. Not always,
because it might be that your needed the same groove on the
track as the guy ahead, but most of the time a faster car would
find a way around a guy in front.

Now, with aero, when the faster car catches the slower car, most
of the time he looses some or all of the aero downforce on the
front of the car. And then he's not the faster car any longer,
and he can't pass. You see it all the time on the 1.5 mile
tracks, where a guy will run up behind someone from a long ways
back in 3 or 4 laps, then get stuck 2 car lengths back. So then
he's stuck waiting for the guy ahead to get hung up in traffic,
or a caution to happen, or something else which takes away the
aero advantage the leading car has.

No, it's not the fault of the CoT, altho NASCAR failed to make
any improvements when they designed the CoT (and in that regard
the CoT is a failure, because it was something they specifically
intended to solve).

John

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


No matter how hard they try, the engineers @ N$ cannot change the laws of
physics..