The 2022 running NASCAR, IMSA & other racing things thread

Bowman Gray looks at the L.A. Coliseum and laughs in its general direction.

 

Last time they had qualifying at Bristol (2019), the pole speed was about 130. Of course Bristol actually has a tiny straight. Qualifying speed at Martinsville is 90-95 IIRC. Apparently this is banked a little more than Martinsville.

 

It's not going to be much over 70 mph, if that. The pole speed for the last Cup race at Bowman-Gray in 1971 was 55.283 mph. The track record at Bowman-Gray is 69.417, set by a Modified.

The new car has wider tires and much better brakes, but you're still left with trying to accelerate/deaccelerate a 3,200-pound brick around a 1/4 mile bullring. As a comparison, Martinsville is more than twice as long (.526) but the fastest Cup qualifying lap there is a tick under 19 seconds.

A better comparison may be San Bernardino's Orange Show Speedway, which is a 10-degree banked quarter-mile. The K&N Pro Series West guys ran there in 2018 and the pole speed was 68.316 mph. Those cars have similar wheelbases but not sure about weight.

Race Results - Racing-Reference

Here's a speed chart (seconds/mph), if the Coliseum measures at exactly 0.25 miles:

16 sec/56.25 mph
15.5/58.065
15/60
14.5/62.069
14/64.286
13.5/66.667
13/69.231

 

So it's basically going to be a slow-speed traffic jam where everyone is trying to run over everyone else to go in a circle.
Sounds very appropriate for L.A.

 

Uhhhhh, to the last part, I can assure you that is a firm NO. If they were giving away tickets in that manner, it would be the Busch Clash Presented by Driftwood.

 

NASCAR: “This time we’re not kidding when we say ‘Don’t even think about messing with the car.’”

Teams will still be penalized under a tiered system, which is now levels L1 to L3 infractions. And the harshest L3 penalties for modifications to the Next Gen car or any parts from the vendors includes not only the loss of playoff points and crew member suspensions, but a post-season ban.​

https://racer.com/2022/01/24/nascar-updates-rulebook-for-next-gen/

 

Just run IROC where drivers get assigned a spec car each week and be done with it.

 

And that's the thing. If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'. I'm curious how long it is before Chad Knaus finds something to mess with.

This is turning into a spec series, and I don't like that.

 

NASCAR lost its way somewhere between downsizing from the full-bodied cars to the common template Twisted Sister cars. As was pointed out, there was an awesome sweet spot sometime in the mid to late 1980s where the cars not only looked good but raced well. Of course, NASCAR couldn't leave well enough alone, especially when they made allowances for Toyota and then the Taurus.

Nobody wants to believe me, but having the front splitter block all airflow to the trailing car has to account for much of the aero push that's made the racing so damn awful the past 20 years. I'm no engineer, but if you put two 1980s cars in a wind tunnel, I'd be willing to bet the center of pressure is much closer to the front of the trailing car than it is now.

And if all the cars are duplicates, how on earth do you think they're going to pass any better? Everybody's got the same horsepower, gears, tires and brakes. It's Formula Ford with better sponsorship.

I'll give them credit for the COT: They haven't killed anybody in 20 years. But that's like giving Goodyear faint praise for bringing a tire to Indianapolis that doesn't shred after 12 laps. NASCAR should be able to do way better.

 

Many of today's drivers would struggle to drive older versions of NASCAR stock cars. They couldn't drive them. They wouldn't know how keep them in one piece for an entire race. They wouldn't understand that they were protective cocoons and that you could actually lose your life trying a stupid move.