If it ain't broke, fix it anyway: NASCAR 2017 Thread

Why I love 'em (and not for the wrecks) ...

"... in bull-fighting they speak of the terrain of the bull and the terrain of the bull-fighter. As long as a bull-fighter stays in his own terrain he is comparatively safe. Each time he enters into the terrain of the bull he is in great danger. Belmonte, in his best days, worked always in the terrain of the bull. This way he gave the sensation of coming tragedy."

Watching those drivers do what they do, at 200 mph and with a foot to maneuver ... man, it just does something to me.

 

I remember watching a history of NASCAR on TV and I am afraid I forget the driver, but when Talladega was opened for first tests way back when this hero went up to Bill France and said, "Bill, I owe everything in my life to you and NASCAR. I can't tell you how grateful I am. But I don't owe you my life."
Then he punched France in the mouth.

 

I've often said that you don't really win at Talladega. You just happen to lead the last lap.
It's one of the reasons I can't say Danica will never win a race. I could easily see her avoiding the big wrecks at Talladega, winding up in the top 5 in the last couple of laps, and then somehow leading that last lap for just long enough to win.

 

It never failed at a restrictor-plate race. The desk would get antsy about the halfway point and start demanding a budget. Our predictable response: "One of us will get the winner, the other will get whomever who winds up in the big wreck. And we won't know either one until they throw the checkered."

 

If I recall correctly there was a boycott by the top drivers that first year because of problems with the tire (not enough grip for the speeds they were running).

 

The first big-time NASCAR event I ever covered was the '87 spring race when Bobbie Allison went up into that fence. I saw the safety crews hustle past the wrecked cars (I still have the Winston binoculars they gave to the press that day) and into the stands and thought, oh shit ... I'm a mediocre sports writer and now I've got to cover a full-fledged disaster. I was relieved in more ways than one that nobody was seriously hurt.

 

That's why a journeyman named Richard Brickhouse won the first race there.

Richard Petty and several other top drivers had just created the Professional Drivers Association, a quasi-union that Big Bill France was determined to break. The tires were delaminating at speed, so Petty and the other top teams wanted nothing to do with the place. So Bill kicked them off the property, banned them from NASCAR (which lasted until the next race) and ran the race anyway, with a lineup cobbled together of some independents and guys who ran the ARCA race the day before. No way was he going to refund any money for a canceled race.

The PDA caved immediately, and NASCAR's never come close to another driver's union -- although there's a lot more driver/team input into the sport now than there used to be.

 

I was always by myself when I'd cover a Talladega or Daytona ... back then they'd bring the winner into the press box, but getting anything else was impossible. So when my sidebars and notes packages had quotes that read like they'd been fetched by teams' PR people ... yeah, there was a reason for that.

 

And the twin superspeedway to Daytona was supposed to be built near Hillsborough, N.C., but the town refused to allow racing on Sundays. So France put it on an old WWII military training airport site east of Birmingham instead.

 

Yep. Back when I covered it the runway in the infield was still active (it's RV camping now). Lots of Cessna 172s easing in there during a race.

 

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's actually some skill and strategy required to win at Daytona. The cars get spread out a lot more. It's a different style of racing than usual, but if you're 20th with 10 laps left it's going to be hard to move through the pack and win. You can start the race in the back and win, but you'd better be near the front when crunch time hits.
A good driver can go from 20th to first in 10 laps at Talladega without much trouble, at any point in the race.

 

Cars typically have to be at least handling a little to go to the front at Daytona, particularly in the summer when the heat strips the track of all its grip. Talladega is pretty much WFO for four hours. Plate racing is dumb, but I suppose it gives hope to the David Ragan, Derrike Copes and Trevor Baynes of the world.

Minor car/physics question -- wouldn't just cutting engine size bring down speeds on superspeedways? I figure it must be more complicated than that or someone would have figured that out, you know, 20 years ago.