NASCAR puts in new shock rule

Mike Harris

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2000 | 9:23 a.m.

Moments after Joe Nemechek won the Winston 500 pole at Talladega Superspeedway, he walked into the media center looking a little shaken up.

"Man, I feel like I've been inside a cement mixer," Nemechek said after a qualifying run of 198.331 mph last October. "That setup really rattles your cage."

NASCAR is now trying to smooth out the ride - and slow the cars - by eliminating the custom-made shocks at Talladega and Daytona International Speedway, the two biggest and fastest tracks.

Beginning with qualifying for the season-opening Daytona 500, the sanctioning body will hand out shocks to the teams, as well as require a specific spring rate. The same shocks and springs will also be used for the races at the two tracks.

Nemechek was "rattled" by the shock absorbers and springs used in the last few seasons for qualifying at the tracks.

Those shocks were designed to let the rear end of the 3,400-pound stock cars drop down at speed, hugging the pavement and in some cases bottoming out with a bang and a flash of sparks.

By lowering the rear ends, the spoiler also had less resistance from the air, reducing drag. That made the cars faster, but bouncy and uncomfortable.

The new rule should help change that. NASCAR implemented one last year in the Busch Series and was satisfied.

"It was really a cost-saving measure," NASCAR spokesman Tim Sullivan said.

"By us issuing standard-issue shock absorbers to the teams at random we can ensure the team owners don't have to go out and build a specialized chassis," Sullivan said. "It sat right down on the bottom of the shocks and was real rigid all the way around."

Now, the rear end will ride higher, catching more air.

Jeff Gordon, who defends his Daytona 500 championship Feb. 20, says the shock change is going to make the ride easier on the driver. He expects tighter competition in qualifying but says the workload also will increase.

"It makes the teams work extremely hard, even harder than they already do, trying to get more horsepower out of the cars, trying to find ways for the aerodynamics to be just right," the three-time Winston Cup champion said.

John Andretti prefers the shock change to reducing the size of the carburetor restrictor plates, which NASCAR has been using for more than a decade to limit speeds at Daytona and Talladega.

"It's got a lot of good things to it, but you take away some of the creativity from the team," Andretti said. "It puts a lot of pressure - like there wasn't enough - on the motor guys because a good motor can make up a little bit of the difference."

Rusty Wallace also has mixed emotions about the change.

"We were getting beat to death out there with those other shocks and springs," he said. "But I don't know how this is going to play out."

After testing at Daytona, Ken Schrader said his car was driving better and riding smoother.

"I read where Dale Earnhardt Jr. said it's like a restrictor plate for the chassis, which it is," said Schrader, a three-time Daytona 500 polesitter.