NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports to pursue 2023 Le Mans entry

frenchyd said:

tuna55 said:

95 Customs said:

In reply to tuna55 :

old school Mulsanne straight at 350 mph makes up for a lot of crappy turns  

 

We're way off topic now, but someone should slap purple crack to the corners of one and do it (open track) just to see. It would be really entertaining. Imagine the lap traces on data acquisition on a 3500 hp Pro Mod versus a spec Miata.

Well considering they rebuild the engine every quarter of a mile. , I'm not sure they could do that on the side of the track.   5 seconds to go 1/4 of a mile, coast another 1/4 of a mile, then 2 hours to rebuild the engine.  

You're thinking top fuel, the pro mod guys can go quite a while on the same engine.

mageep said:

In reply to jb229 :

can we all at least agree that we draw the line at NHRA?

Hell no! Put a front tire and a gas tank in a Pro Stock and let's see what that baby can do!!

In reply to stuart in mn :

ACO was part of the press conference.

tuna55 said:

95 Customs said:

In reply to tuna55 :

old school Mulsanne straight at 350 mph makes up for a lot of crappy turns  

 

We're way off topic now, but someone should slap purple crack to the corners of one and do it (open track) just to see. It would be really entertaining. Imagine the lap traces on data acquisition on a 3500 hp Pro Mod versus a spec Miata.

Quick in the corners vs fast on the straights?

Part of me is like "This is a great opportunity to dispel some stereotypes."

The other part of me is like "I hope it's a full-send 'Merica, berkeley yeah effort sponsored by Jack Daniels and Smith & Wesson."

My first thought was "How does this fit into Garage 56? Maybe if they make it a hybrid."

I was right. ACO wants it to be hybrid and somehow be similar in pace to GTE Am (which it might do, if the hybrid system is powerful enough, I suppose)

https://www.motorsport.com/lemans/news/le-mans-nascar-next-gen-hybrid/9083689/

https://www.24h-lemans.com/en/news/1976-when-the-24-hours-of-le-mans-and-nascar-crossed-paths-16520

adam525i said:

Um, NASCAR's don't have headlights or taillights so I don't think this is a good idea, they should think this through more /s

Neither did all those tube frame imsa got and trans am cars in the 80s and 90s but they found various different ways to take care of that.

Will said:

Part of me is like "This is a great opportunity to dispel some stereotypes."

The other part of me is like "I hope it's a full-send 'Merica, berkeley yeah effort sponsored by Jack Daniels and Smith & Wesson."

I need to work on getting a passport and a mullet for next year 

Javelin said:

mageep said:

In reply to jb229 :

can we all at least agree that we draw the line at NHRA?

Hell no! Put a front tire and a gas tank in a Pro Stock and let's see what that baby can do!!

Gary beck did an exhibition lap at mosport in his top fuel car

http://www.competitionplus.com/featured-stories/18723-gary-beck-q-a-seattle-racing-icon-shares-his-memories

GB:   When we were sponsored by Export A, the Canadian cigarette company -- that was 1974-75 -- we did a lot of promotions across Canada. One was at Mosport, outside of Toronto, when NASCAR was there. We did an exhibition lap. The dragster is so fast and the groove is so good. Every time you'd stand on the throttle, it would hike the front end up. You'd go and you'd slow it down . . . turn and go, turn and go. I made a lap all the way around Mosport, which is a [2.459-mile] track.

They timed me, but I didn't know they were timing me. And I stopped in front of the grandstands and waved to the people, made another run down the back straightaway, I pulled the parachutes about three-quarters of the way around and dragged them around to put on a show. My time was only a few tenths off what the NASCAR [cars] were running that day. But the dragster's so fast. If I had any idea it was that close, I would have run a time faster than NASCAR. I didn't realize it was going to be that close. So that was fun.

 

In reply to MotorsportsGordon :

Holy crap that's cool

When I first saw this thread, I though it was Daytona, which would have been really cool even then- since TA cars used to rock there, too.  Then I read it again... wow.  Very cool.  For sure will keep an eye on the race.

In reply to MotorsportsGordon :

I am amazed that the engine didn't fry. Didn't they have no radiators even in the 60s, just a water fill neck on each head?

Could probably get away with it for a little while on methanol, but nitromethane?

Still, it makes me giggle that it even happened in the first place.  Now imagine a slingshot doing that!

Also...

The other was at London, on a circle track. We were going to do a fire burnout and go around and do a lap. It was at night. We start the car. We do this fire burnout in front of the grandstands. They turned the lights out in Turn 1! I can't see nothin'! I give it a little throttle so that the header flames come back up so I can see around the corner. I get around Turn 2 and they turn the lights back on. I stand on the throttle and it picks the front end up and wheew -- down [the track] we go!

There's your answer for headlights 

There have been a few demonstration runs with dragsters at Goodwood as well, but they weren't exactly hot laps - they'd do a burn on a straight, then tip toe around a corner, then burn down the next straight.

The 1980s NASCAR isn't today's NASCAR.   I predicted (because I'm like NASCARdamus), that IMSA and NASCAR would end up being more alike than ever before.

The new car with 18" wheels utilizing a center nut and a sequential shift transaxle in the rear combined with more road course races show that NASCAR is moving closer to sports car racing.   I know that's a run-on sentence, but hey, I had a lot to say.

I further assert that somewhere down the line you'll see NASCAR and IMSA share weekends at the same track.  I love NASCAR and appreciate their marketing prowess, and I've often wished IMSA invited a wider audience as I think the competition is amazing.

Perhaps the entire racing community benefits from exposing fans to different forms of motorsports?

In reply to Loweguy5 :

Back then people called the Grand-Am Rolex series the NASCAR of sports car racing. The Daytona Prototypes were like a stock car version of an LMP, and the GT class were tube frame silhouettes except the bodywork had to match the street car.

I hope they do well , 

But 24 hours is a long race , how far will they need to back down the motor so it will last ?

In reply to californiamilleghia :

If they're racing a Camaro I assume they'll probably borrow a lot of the engine from the Corvette Lemans racer.

I hope they put together a nice diverse driver line up and not just good old boys

As much as I like to make fun of Nascar in some ways they a secretly on the cutting edge of everything, without making there fans notice. Olympians doing the pit stops, on social change, marketing ect... Perhaps they can be the savior for marketing all of motorsports.

One point about why this is being allowed is cost.  If the ACO has a class for mostly tube framed cars, that really opens up a lot of fabricators who don't have access to CF tubs.  And it's not as if they are not computerized- remember the Excocet is a CNC cut kit.  

So there's both room for inexpensive fabrication as well as computerized design, analysis, and manufacturing.

Not sure if this will really go anywhere, though- the GT class is doing really well, in terms of companies that participate in a manner to support private teams.  (one huge fault to the Ford GT is that it could never be sold to private teams- the engine had some real unobtanium to make it survive).  And the prototypes were supposed to lean toward the hypercar model....

In reply to bruceman :

It should be their regular cup drivers. There's no point in going through all this and putting outsiders in the car.  

californiamilleghia said:

I hope they do well , 

But 24 hours is a long race , how far will they need to back down the motor so it will last ?

Actually probably not much at all. Perhaps the cam needs to be a bit more gentle. Last I checked, they were still forced to run flat tappet cams, and asking quite a lot of ramp rate from them. If they were inclined to develop good rollers, I suspect they'd actually make more power.

bruceman said:

I hope they put together a nice diverse driver line up and not just good old boys

Why not NASCAR guys? If they put those guys in, and the car ran well (ie: no failures, massive faults), then it'd be a huge promotion for the sport that many think can only drive in counter-clockwise circles. 

Im not a NASCAR fan, but seeing some of them and what they do with road racing cars (Johnson, Gordon, Stewart, Mears etc have all run prototypes, and I think 3/4 of that list have gotten a watch, but maybe Im wrong on that stat), theyve got talents and it'd be cool to show it on the worldstage. 

It'd be cool to put some of the stereotypes to rest. Get a good ole boy from right here in the Triad and send him over to France and see how he can do. 

Id hope they would go all out like the Porsche 919 Evo. Just take the Nascar rule book and throw most of it out the window.