The 2024 running motorsports thread

But enough about his ability to drink beer.

(Man, I made one throwaway joke in Power Rankings one week about him having a refrigerator in his car with a six-pack for long green, white, checkered delays and got 1,000 emails about the dangers of drinking and driving.)

 

I’ve made this point before but Friday it came to life. The first time I realized this was Talladega week was driving across I-20 Friday morning to Atlanta. And there was no traffic delay. None. Nothing whatsoever. That would have been unthinkable a generation ago, even that early in the race weekend.

Came back by shortly before midnight and it actually was pretty cool to see the campers and motor homes filling in with the soft glow of the track lights illuminating them. I’ve never been around to see that before. Even then, it didn’t really look all that crowded. Not sparse, but if you wanted to set up camp away from everybody it would have been easy to do so. That’s different than the stories I heard 20-30 years ago.

 

About 20-30 years ago, Friday traffic on I-20 at the EastaDegaOthers exits would’ve made you scream, building to a roar over the next two days. This year I had no idea the race was last weekend until I saw a FB post Thursday or Friday from a friend.

 

Alex Bowman qualified for the Round of 8 in the playoffs.
Oh, wait, no he didn't.

https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2...fter-roval-race-alex-bowman-will-not-advance/

 

We have a good friend who has lived in Lincoln, off the main raceway exit, for several years. She's never really seen race weekend traffic in it's full insanity. Lucky woman.

 

Who was 9th? Logano was just on the outside late in the race, but I can’t remember.

 

Logano moved up to eighth.

 

I don't understand cars and setups and such, so I'm curious.

How do you shave 17 pounds from a roughly 2300-pound (or whatever) car and get it through pre-race inspection without a flag? Don't they weigh before the races? If not, was Bowman's car randomly selected post-race or are the T10 (or playoff) cars all checked now?

Cheatin's cheatin' and rubbin's racing, but if you're going to shave 17 pounds thinking it'll help you advance, and you know or at least think that you might be checked post-race, are you that stupid? Or do you just take the chance and hope you don't get checked?

 

Speaking of cheatin' and rubbin'racin' fun, all of that IndyCar "push to pass" scandal from this year disappeared quickly, no?

Nothing to see here, move along.

 

Don't have the full skinny but from my understanding under the current rules, the cars have to roll through tech before being allowed on the track and impounded after qualifying. They need to weigh 3,200 pounds without driver and fuel, or 3,400 with driver and fuel. (I think the COT weighed 3,600.)

NASCAR let the No. 48 crew fill it up with gas and top off the fluids and it still came up at least 17 pounds underweight. It's possible that the lead weight they use in the rollcage to lower the center of gravity got knocked loose and fell out but that's still a huge discrepancy. I really don't know how you can miss weight by that much.

And don't know if the Chase cars all had to go through post-race because of the current format. I haven't been to the track since 2012, so the winner and some random cars used to get pulled for post-race and everybody else drove right to the haulers.

 

Who is gonna make a fuss when the cheating team is also owned by the series' owner?