Carl is a privateer owner/driver of a small NASCAR team.

He works part time as a spotter for another team, whenever he isn't racing.

He gets an invite into the All Star race last week, so he accepts and goes for it.

His engine, which he bought, is old. It has been raced a number of times (not sure how many) and has started cronic overheating.

He takes the financial risk and replaces it, sending the old one to NASCAR tech. They find the old engine is - get this - .001 over bored. 1 thousandth of an inch.

His crew chief gets fined $200k. Both team and driver are hit with 200 pt penalties. And a 12 race suspension.

There is no denying that the engine was too large. But .001 works out to chump change in cubic inches and performance, but the $200k fine and suspension means he can't work as a spotter, so his day job has been taken from him.

I find that NASCAR is smoking crack on this one. .001 is a math error. It's nominal bore wear on a used up engine.

It's equivelant to a $1000 speeding fine for 1 MPH over the limit.

Absolutely obsurd.

Thoughts?

Agreed. The politics of Nascar have prevented me from enjoying the sport.

I don't follow nascar but I agree that's ridiculous.

Matthew

I imagine they have the rules for a reason, but that seems absolutely ridiculous.

Oh, yea, the rules are fine. The engine has a size limit. That's fine, but the penalty? That's just nuts.

why did he send it to tech? it was used up correct,did he have to? if he didn`t it would be like telling a cop you were 1mile over the limit.that is if he even knew,nascar is getting as bad as the politicians

I think it is required... it had something to do in relationship to when the motor was swapped.

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Yea, he had to (rules) when he swapped.

Nascar's being run by idiots, the COT is the perfect example, safety improvements aside.

Burton Smith just slammed Nascar and the COT bigtime and he owns half(whatever) of the tracks.

I seldom watch but I crew on the vintage ones.
Nascar of today just plain sucks.

They should just cancel nascar and show reruns from 25 years ago.

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Well said.

Well apparently Nascar is sitting with the owners and drivers this week to discuss what Nascar can do better. Many owners and drivers are unhappy with what Nascar has been doing. DW said this kind of meeting has not happened in a long long time.
Let's hope something good comes from this.

Jim

I agree.

NASCAR has taken creativity out of the mix and turned it into a punishable offence. That needs to be stopped.

F1 should have the same meeting...

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IRL too, stop the cookiecutter B.S.

cookie cutters are what make money. And I hate it.

Then again, F1 has spent the last 30 years trying to be unique... and now they are trying to get rid of it. Back in the 70s, F1 was dominated with the Cosworth-Ford V8. Every small team without an engine connection used it... Lotus... Terrell... you name it... short of Renualt and Ferrari, that is. Then came the turbo era, and the Cosworth fell out of favour (yea, 450hp was lame compared to 1.5 ltr V6s with
1500 hp!), and factory built engines became the norm.

If F1 wants to fix it, they need to allow customer chassis and engine/trans packages. There is a benefit to the bespoke nature of the business, but to expand the sport, they need to offer both avenues. And the customer cars, which don't receive all the updates and such, should be allowed a small weight break.
IRL? Don't even get me started on that crappy series. The cars stink, the engines sound like they have indigestion. Ick. They should adopt the old CART chassis and engine package. If nothing else, CART had that part right.

NASCAR... the COT is a good idea, from a safety perspective. But the lack of chassis adjustments has left them going slow via ill handling (re: dangerious?) cars! How stupid... If I was in charge of NASCAR tech, this is what I would do:

1. Ditch the carb... go with EFI. Air restrictors work just fine. Just ask the Corvette GT1 team...

2. Why the hard on for 358ci? Why not go with a 327ci engine? Less cubes = less power with = lower speeds. Wouldn't a smaller engine be more in tune with modern sensabilities? And why 358 in the first place? The only logic I can come up with is that no one offered such a size as a marketing tool... meaning, Chevy 350, Ford 351, Dodge 360, AMC 343... none were 358s. Sooo... go with a 330. Or a 322. I don't care... just be smaller.

3. Upgrade from those crappy 15" tires. It's time for modern rubber under those pigs. You can keep the same width, but it's time for 17" rims.

I don't like Jeff Gordon... but a few years back, they build the ultimate NASCAR chassis... they optimized every dimension within the rule book and built a car that could go up, go down, go anywhere on the track. Ran it at the old Winston Select and the following 600. Won both easily. NASCAR outlawed it. Say what? They didn't want to see all the other teams have to spend research money to catch up. That tells me that NASCAR is more concerned about the show and not the technology.

ALMS/IMSA is about the last great attempt to have variety. No cookie cutter here... just a rule book open for interpretation.

Wow Andy, very, very good post.

I've been to Indy 5 times, thr sound of the CART turbos at speed gives you goose bumps. I can't immagine being there and hearing an IRL car go by. And yea, the CART package was very good, management was screwed up but not as bad as the IRL.

You're absolutely right about ALMS.

I'm not so sure bigger rims will make any difference.

BTW - Carl was screwed.

The COT is an ill handling pig, to get it to turn, it has to go down the straight sideways.

I like the older cars, I crew on these.

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Thanks!!!

I have heard the IRL cars at Long Beach. They sound like sup'd up chainsaws. They are rather raspy, but flat and lifeless. Their sound on TV does capture the blah that is their note, just louder. Nothing like the old turbo CART cars.

The old Banjo Matthews chassis. What a gem.

If I remember my trivia correctly, it's dimensions are based on a 1962 Ford station wagon - ie, main pickup points, width, length. The rear is all Ford 9", the trans are all modified Ford top loaders. The rear suspension is based off the trailing arms used on the early 60 GMC Pickup setup... the front used Imperial ball joints. The front ends were where the brands diverged. Chrysler used their torsion bar front end, at least well into the 1970s. At some point it went away.

Way cool!

The COT sucks.

Yep, a Banjo chassis. Has the plack w/serial# on the dash. Even has Banjo's sig on the radiator with one of those vibrating markers. It's one of Dave Marcis's Olds.
The guy who owns this also has an Alan Kulwikie Hooters Ford.

The 33 is one of Harry Gant's roadcourse cars.

Well Nascar still is the best stock car racing on the planet
warts and all. Can it be improved? Well yes, but can't everything?

Jim

ARCA is much better and any local shorttrack is much better than the BS that Nascar is now.

Tony Stewart was correct even though he got his pee pee wacked for saying it.

Yup. Nascar is boring aside from a few of the tracks, where I watch for the crashes.

We used to head to Mesa Marin, the local short track and watch the nobodys tear each other's fenders off. But they closed it due to encroaching real estate development and rising property values. *Sigh*

I guess there's still Irwindale.

Well then we'll have to agree to disagree. I usually try
to get to one Nascar race per year and dollar for dollar it is the best racing deal compared to Indy or F1 by a landslide. The Indy and F1 drivers are like ghosts that just appear at race time and disappear as soon as the race is done. At least Nascar you can get close to the cars and the drivers. I have Tony Stewart's and Jimmie Johnson's autograph and a few others. Indy and F1 drivers couldn't care a less IMHO.

Jim

I guess I'm a little biased because the closest track to me yields the most boring races year after year and takes 3 hours to get into from the freeway a few blocks away.

I wasn't comparing Nascar to any of the big money series, those are a snore too. Although I don't mind watching the F1 in-car cameras for a little while.

Jim, You're entitled to like what you like.
I haven't been to a Nascar race in a long time. But when I was there the cars and drivers were fenced off from the spectators, yea you could see them thru the fence. At a CART race, you could walk thru the paddock, stand beside the cars,etc.

For me, I could care less about seeing another human (driver)or getting an autograph, or a team tee shirt.

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Yea, but they aren't on long enough and the stupid announcers run thrir mouths the whole time.

It's more fun driving anyway.

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When the pass car has more HP than any car in the field, that tells you something is wrong!

They need to bring STOCK back to Stockcar racing.

The SCCA's been doing it for years, just add safety equipment.

You guys want a fun time AND getting close to the crews and drivers, go to an NHRA race. Always something going on, and watching the crews hustling to rebuild engines between rounds is awesome!

Big money nitro funny cars, Johnny no-name trying to get lucky with a pieced together alcohol dragster, and all sorts of cars down to the door slammer Camaros and Novas.

And anything can happen. Big shots get knocked out in the first round and the underdogs get the crowd going.

NHRA is the only racing on TV that I try not to miss.