THE BASH NASCAR THREAD

Kreb wrote:

dean1484 wrote: I was hoping this thread would go a couple of posts and die but it did as I suspected and made us here at GRM look bad. It may be a minority as some have stated but there dislike for and in affect shunning of the oval track people I find disgusting.

It's pretty lame that you set the bait, and now are admonishing people for taking it. I'm not a NASCAR basher - quite the contrary, but this thread doesn't make you look very good either.

Disagree. I think it was a good experiment of a sort. Most of the time when I read a NASCAR comment on the board, it tends toward the derogative. Kind of like we all make fun of donk, but I loved the article that JG wrote a while back, wherein he noted, hey, we're all car guys with a passion for our particular "brand". And that's cool.

Years ago, there was a landscape vendor in Cali who raced sprint cars, which I thought was really cool. He asked what kind of racing I liked, and I said "road racing". "That tends to be a snobby upper crusty sort, more interested in how cool their new tech is as opposed to the actual racing."

Common amongst the genres, I suppose. Maybe commonly misunderstood, too.

JG had it right, I think.

Some NASCAR supporters here are equating NASCAR with ovals. I don't. I love going to my local round track to spectate. You can see everything. I've been to several F1 races, and Moto GP, and tons of sports car races. Yes, I saw Mario Andretti in his Lotus pass Lauda's Ferrari for the lead in the Lotus 78 in the '77 USGP. There wasn't much else to see. I went to the last two F1 races at Watkins Glenn, and saw nothing of note on the track. I had fun anyway.

I don't like NASCAR on TV. I don't want to hear Boogity. Rutlidge Wood was awful for color. I don't know if he is still there, and I'm not going to try to find out. The Gopher cam, or whatever it is is terrible. It has been decades since I paid attention, and I haven't liked the commentators since Ned Jarrett. I've got a cabin in Central Maine, and there are a couple ovals nearby. One is dirt, and one is paved. I love going to those. I watched CART cars in Fontana lapping at close to 240 mph in practice. I find myself at Portland International from time to time watching vintage races. Except for at the Festival Turns, there isn't much action to see.

There is also too much NASCAR, and the TV races last too long. I can't spend 3 hours a Sunday on it for most of the year. I don't care about it enough, and there are other things to do. It cuts into the time I have for caring about Kardashians. Consistent good finishes should count for more than they do in scoring. Gimmies for popular drivers and teams that can't qualify are a crummy deal.

I wouldn't mind seeing a bunch of NASCAR cars angry in person, preferably on a road course even though there would be more visible action at an oval.

Relevance in motorsports? What's the relevance in Formula Vee, Formula 440, or Formula Ford? Spec Miata? Spec RX7? LeMons? Sports racing? To street cars, especially new street cars, almost NONE of it (grassroots motorsports in general) has relevance.

We love crap can racing here that has no relevance to anything, but then need to have relevance to street cars in NASCAR? Are you guys hypocritical idiots, or what? It's fine to have opinions. It's just not a valuable goal to be closed minded and hypocritical "motorsports fans."

I took a break from here due to the negativity and closed minded hypocrisy, only to come back and find it right at the top of the board.

Why don't we all hate this bunch of brightly colored but identical Skittles slowly circling racetracks all over the country?

It has no relevance to new street cars and no real innovation that transfers over due to the rules, and is more about the drivers than the cars...

Well I feel strongly that opinions are over-rated!

But seriously, why do we give a flying poopburger what other people like as long as it doesn't hurt what we are into? Jealousy may play into it, as your average amateur road-racing event rarely brings significant numbers of fans, whereas across the country people file into roundy-round tracks to watch racing that is generally much closer than the serpentine stuff that gets our juices flowing.

Ultimately the more people that are into motorsports, the better. It gives us a bigger lobby, it brings sponsorship money in, and it encourages manufacturers to make more than Prius' and luxo-barges.

edit- Also, it pushes safety gear forward. see: HANS

Fueled by Caffeine wrote:

David S. Wallens wrote: I'm going to second the above comment: I don't understand the hate. And this thread makes our community look rather close-minded.

Agree. I used to look down my nose at Nascar and local dirt tracks, but at this stage in my life I'd race anything; even lawn mowers.

The reality I think you all are dancing around is the fact that motorsports in general are simply not all that interesting to watch on TV.

I like motorsports, but I really don't find watching them on TV that intriguing, frankly it tends to be pretty boring, not much going on most of the time. Why does NASCAR take the hit? Because it DOMINATES motorsports coverage on TV.

I think if they had cars that where FAR more difficult to drive that you can SEE what they are doing (e.g. RUF Yellowbirds, or 60 era F1 cars without wings, exposed suspensions, on low grip tires).

Trackmouse wrote:

Fueled by Caffeine wrote:

David S. Wallens wrote: I'm going to second the above comment: I don't understand the hate. And this thread makes our community look rather close-minded.

Agree. I used to look down my nose at Nascar and local dirt tracks, but at this stage in my life I'd race anything; even lawn mowers.

Don Vesco raced a lawn mower. That makes it cool

I try to follow my mothers advice "if you don't have anything good to say, keep it to yourself". I find as I get older my tastes change, what fascinated when I was 20 doesn't now that I'm in my 50's.

aircooled wrote: The reality I think you all are dancing around is the fact that motorsports in general are simply not all that interesting to watch on TV.

Pretty much this, but I'll watch bad racing before I'll watch whatever is on the other 192 channels.

Heck, I watched over an hour of those numbskull 'street outlaws' last night. I'm not proud of that fact, but it is true.

I even DVR the Ultimate Street Car Nonsense - ZOMG!!! Autocross on TV!!!

Talk about pushing the entertainment envelope.

The one thing I hate the most out of Nascar? Damn phantom yellows! We've just run 485 laps under green, but with 15 laps to go there's a hot dog wrapper in turn 4, so throw the yellow flag. I have noticed they don't seem to be so frequent these days.

Chris_V wrote: Relevance in motorsports? What's the relevance in Formula Vee, Formula 440, or Formula Ford? Spec Miata? Spec RX7? LeMons? Sports racing? To street cars, especially new street cars, almost NONE of it (grassroots motorsports in general) has relevance. We love crap can racing here that has no relevance to anything, but then need to have relevance to street cars in NASCAR? Are you guys hypocritical idiots, or what? It's fine to have opinions. It's just not a valuable goal to be closed minded and hypocritical "motorsports fans." I took a break from here due to the negativity and closed minded hypocrisy, only to come back and find it right at the top of the board. Why don't we all hate this bunch of brightly colored but identical Skittles slowly circling racetracks all over the country? It has no relevance to new street cars and no real innovation that transfers over due to the rules, and is more about the drivers than the cars...

I don't think anyone here is asking for every racing series on the planet to have tech trickle down to modern street cars. But I also don't think we're being unreasonable when we think that the highest levels of motorsports, with massive manufacturer backing from OEMs, would be much more interesting if they at least have some crossover with current or future street cars.

Furthermore, all of the series you listed have zero following in the public. The people that participate have a great time, but nobody outside of the series is interested in them, and a large part of that, is the lack of applicable tech that can trickle down. That's not the fault of the series at all, but that's the way it is. If a series is worth billions of dollars, and has tons of OEM sponsorship and involvement, is it too much to expect the races to be a little more than just a tv show?

Chris_V wrote: Relevance in motorsports? What's the relevance in Formula Vee, Formula 440, or Formula Ford? Spec Miata? Spec RX7? LeMons? Sports racing? To street cars, especially new street cars, almost NONE of it (grassroots motorsports in general) has relevance. We love crap can racing here that has no relevance to anything, but then need to have relevance to street cars in NASCAR? Are you guys hypocritical idiots, or what? It's fine to have opinions. It's just not a valuable goal to be closed minded and hypocritical "motorsports fans." I took a break from here due to the negativity and closed minded hypocrisy, only to come back and find it right at the top of the board. Why don't we all hate this bunch of brightly colored but identical Skittles slowly circling racetracks all over the country? It has no relevance to new street cars and no real innovation that transfers over due to the rules, and is more about the drivers than the cars...

The problem with this argument is that nobody watches those races. They are ALSO irrelevant.

However, just because you named a bunch of points that are also irrelevant, it does not make the first point somehow relevant.

Can somebody point out where NASCAR was bashed?

I love full moons.

We all need to take our man pms pills. (Aka- whiskey) and settle down. Let's face it. NASCAR is still racing. And we love racing.

The beef that I have with NASCAR is it is far, far, removed from “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday”. It used to be an “everyman sport” that raced cars you could actually drive a production version of yourself. Now these cars have nothing to do with a production car. They are a spec built tube chassis billboard. I dislike it for that reason. I think it’s reasonable to say that you can like racing and the driver skill, or you can like cars. NASCAR has done a great job of marketing the feuds between the drivers and the promotional aspect of the sponsors, but it’s taken away all the attention from the cars themselves. It isn’t about Chevy battling it out with Ford, it’s about Tony Stuart cussing out someone in the pits and selling hats, t-shirts, and jackets with sponsor logos on them.

I’ll be honest and say that I don’t follow any type of racing to a fanatical point where I can tell you the drivers for most teams, the exact class rules and cars running in them, etc. but a large part of that is true because I don’t have opportunity to watch it on TV because almost every other form of motorsport aside from NASCAR is ignored in America from a televising stand point. But I do thoroughly enjoy series like Lemans and WRC much more because on some level there still is a tie in with factory engineering and production based cars duking it out.

Yes there is a lot of R&D and tech involved in NASCAR, but it’s not the same in my book as taking a VW Polo, and turning it into an absolute monster of a rally car. No I couldn’t do that at home without a quarter million dollar budget, but it’s still impressive to see these factory teams create cars like that from the radical advancement of a production car. It still forces the manufacturer to shape their production car design with motorsports competition in mind. Even if the production car and the race car don’t share many actual components. You still want to make that production car with racing in mind when it comes to dimensions, structural ridgitity, aero, etc. Back when you had “homologation specials” in Rally, Trans AM, Drag Racing, and NASCAR these cars were actually closer to being a “real race car” you could buy. Nothing about the current NASCAR has any ties to production cars. They’ve found an efficient way to govern and standardize their cars, but in doing so they have lost their soul.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: I love full moons.

That's why I have breakfast overlooking a yoga class.

Kreb wrote:

dean1484 wrote: I was hoping this thread would go a couple of posts and die but it did as I suspected and made us here at GRM look bad. It may be a minority as some have stated but there dislike for and in affect shunning of the oval track people I find disgusting.

It's pretty lame that you set the bait, and now are admonishing people for taking it. I'm not a NASCAR basher - quite the contrary, but this thread doesn't make you look very good either.

Ya I set the trap . When did I ever care if I looked good? I have a face made for Radio.

ncjay wrote: I don't like "The Chase" to the championship, but when I think about almost all of the previous seasons where a driver built up a big points lead and just coasted at the end, this is much better. To be champ, you NEED to win. The champ for the past two years had to win the final race, instead of just finishing 30th or higher. Is it common knowledge that there are more than a few F1 engineers working in the Nascar garage? That says quite a bit to me. The whole reason restrictor plates were invented was because Bobby Allison went in the fence back in the late 80s. This was supposed to keep cars out of the fence, but there's been more cars in the fence these past few years than ever. It's only a matter of time before something seriously bad happens. This is part of the front end of a car at Daytona. If the entire engine went into the stands, that would not be good for anyone. How hard would it be to mandate a cam lift rule or a smaller intake valve size instead of a plate?

Going off topic a bit here but that crash really really scared me. I thought for sure there was going to be a body count after that crash as you could see the debris going into the stands. I have tried to go back and see what happened to the people that were hurt (some seriously I think) and see what there story is. Were they ok? Were they taken care of? Kind of a "where are they now type thing". Anyone know? I assume NASCAR put the complete media black out on it making the story and those involved all but disappear and I can see there reasoning for it.

The roof flaps do a decent job of keeping the car down, but the problem is that the entire car acts like a wing. These things have serious aero, you just don't see it.

We tested at Talladega years ago and ran some laps without the restrictor. The difference in speed was tremendous...30mph or more if I remember correctly. And that was without any tuning for it. I think you could have gotten more if you had tried hard enough. Back in the '80's they ran a story about a Hendricks Montecarlo vs. a Porsche 962, and the Chevy blew the Porsche into the weeds at what, 247mph or so. What could you do with one today totally uncorked?

Without restrictors or some other way to control speed, you would have several issues. The biggest would be that any accident would be worse, and that would include how far a car would go if it got airborne. They weight what, 3 times that of an Indycar? So you engineers, what does that equate to in energy when bad things happen? It has to go somewhere.

Restrictors are used today in other forms of racing too, mainly for competition adjustments, but it still works the same. We had to run them in the twin turbo Supra in the '90's in IMSA. Of all the things you can do, it is probably the easiest and most cost effective. Remember someone has to pay the bill for all these things.

This is almost as entertaining as the engine swap rule discussion on the Chump boards

Kreb wrote:

dean1484 wrote: I was hoping this thread would go a couple of posts and die but it did as I suspected and made us here at GRM look bad. It may be a minority as some have stated but there dislike for and in affect shunning of the oval track people I find disgusting.

It's pretty lame that you set the bait, and now are admonishing people for taking it. I'm not a NASCAR basher - quite the contrary, but this thread doesn't make you look very good either.

This is the point I made about this op but you said it better. He's complaining about people complaining but pretending it's some cerebral exercise.

Trackmouse wrote: We all need to take our man pms pills. (Aka- whiskey) and settle down. Let's face it. NASCAR is still racing. And we love racing.

I love doing racing.

That said I did get to experience spectating at a dirt short track once and it was... quite an experience. Don't knock it until you try it. There really is something to be said for being able to see the whole thing from one point. You get to see the dicin' right there, follow it around, watch the sparks fly from the brakes and hear the engines howl and watch people get bumped off of the banking into the field behind the backstretch and feel the dirt get flung in your face when you try to walk along the fence back to your seat after leaving the stands to go take a leak.

dean1484 wrote: Going off topic a bit here but that crash really really scared me. I thought for sure there was going to be a body count after that crash as you could see the debris going into the stands. I have tried to go back and see what happened to the people that were hurt (some seriously I think) and see what there story is. Were they ok? Were they taken care of? Kind of a "where are they now type thing". Anyone know? I assume NASCAR put the complete media black out on it making the story and those involved all but disappear and I can see there reasoning for it.

BullE36 M3. If you think NASCAR has the ability to silence the media, you are nuts. The guy who was hurt the worst was wearing a Saskatchewan Roughriders jersey, and was back at work in Regina the next week.

racerdave600 wrote: Restrictors are used today in other forms of racing too, mainly for competition adjustments, but it still works the same. We had to run them in the twin turbo Supra in the '90's in IMSA. Of all the things you can do, it is probably the easiest and most cost effective. Remember someone has to pay the bill for all these things.

(the best part: After Toyota's restrictor was inspected and the cheat discovered, many other teams decided to change their restrictor, before FIA had a chance to inspect them too...)