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Published Monday, June 14, 2010 | 4:30 p.m.
Updated Monday, June 14, 2010 | 4:34 p.m.
Drivers love clean air.
I don’t.
I think it makes races less competitive.
If a driver can get his car to the front of the field where clean air creates downforce and gives the car grip, then he is a happy camper. If he’s stuck in traffic and he’s surrounded by turbulent air that’s churned up by the cars in front of him, then he’s not getting the same amount of grip he would get if he were running in the front.
So clean air is good for the drivers. But is it good for the racing?
There was a period during the Michigan race where Denny Hamlin had a 10- second lead over the second-place car. Kurt Busch also had a sizable lead during the laps he led. As we have seen at the cookie-cutter tracks where aerodynamics play a large roll, a car that gets to the front can take advantage of the clean air to gain a large lead. So large, in fact, that the leader often seems to be in a different zip code.
Final laps at Michigan
Hamlin obviously had the best car in the field on Sunday, but I wonder if the race would have been a little more competitive if these cars didn’t get so much additional downforce by running in the clean air? It’s unfortunate when, in the final laps of the race, the TV network focuses more on the good racing in the mid-pack traffic instead of the action at the front of the field.
So what’s the solution? Square off the front of the cars? I’m not knowledgeable enough to answer that question, but it seems logical to suggest that with all of the technological know-how in this sport that there must be a way to decrease some of the huge advantage that unmolested air gives to the nose of a Cup car.
You're joking, right?
It's a really easy fix, just require that the bodies be the same as the production models they are supposedly based on. Now you would have teams having to make trade-offs between body styles, power plants, and handling characteristics. You know, they would have to race again, just like when King Richard was on the track.
It's not the cookie-cutter tracks it's the cookie-cutter cars. When the differences between the cars are immeasurable, then the small stuff (including "clean air") becomes a larger factor.
Goodyear could help by making tires that wear out steadily through a run, then tire management and strategy, along with driver skill, would be a bigger factor again. Lately, it seems that track position often trumps 'four feel-goods' when it comes to pit strategy.
I think it's a combination of the cookie-cutter track configurations and the cookie-cutter car profiles. But if NASCAR were to return to production body styles, any attempt at creating parity would go out the window. Imagine if one particular production body gave some teams a huge aerodynamic advantage. Those teams would dominate the racing at every track where aerodynamics play a key role. Returning to production bodies could create races, like we used to see years ago, where a car has a lead of several laps instead of several seconds.
I agree with you Mike, that might well happen. Which in turn would drive the manufacturers to change body styles, suspensions and/or power plants if they want to keep the teams and customers. What car could win at NASCAR used to be a large factor in a buyer's decision.
With those cookie-cutter (have you seen the huge templates they measure each car with!?) car profiles, NASCAR races are in danger of turning into F1 snooze-fests...where a drivers only hope of advancing is during pit stops.
Na$car already tried to make the sport more lethal... that's why they brought in Toyota.
nascar=zzzzzzzzzzzzzz'x, best sleep i get all week
speaking of driving, I recently relocated to Vegas making the trip cross country from the east coast and noticed the gas prices in all the states coming here were about the same around $2.55. Until I made it to Nevada where it jumps 25 cents more. Why is this? And why is there not a bigger outcry about it?
Nascar and Golf are about as much a sport as synchronized swimming is, yawn.