Video: NASCAR Cup Car vs. Mercedes-AMG GT3 on the Daytona Road Course

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VxSDjkxqpvM

NASCAR just announced a four-race weekend at Daytona International Speedway this August. The biggest takeaway? Three of the races will use Daytona's full road course.

What will those races look like? Thanks to iRacing, we can get a rough idea as we ran a NASCAR Cup Car against a Mercedes-AMG GT3. Presented by CRC Industries.

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VW fox GRM project car versus Nascar next please.

Good video JG.

If the NASCARs could run traction control and ABS like the GT3 cars, then I wonder how much faster they would be. No doubt there it would take a lot of skill to hustle a NASCAR around there, but the drivers should be up to the task.

Should be fun to watch them race there. They need headlights that aren't stickers, windshield wipers and then let 'em run in the Rolex.

Cool comparo vid.

I admit that I haven't dug too deeply on this, but have rain rules been announced? 

David S. Wallens said:

I admit that I haven't dug too deeply on this, but have rain rules been announced? 

I thought rain + oval = automatic canceling? 

In reply to z31maniac :

Or does this count as a road course race? Let me ask someone who will know. BRB.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I "think" it does.

I guess one point is, J.G. showed how difficult it is to power down in the dry. In the wet, maybe the inability to keep the rear at the back, means they would be slow enough on the banking to make it "safe-ish?"

I think I read that they were prepared to use rain tires on the Charlotte roval for the race they do there now, so I'd assume this would be the same. Although the banking at Daytona is still its own special beast when it comes to rain and rain tires, as I think the 24 hour race has demonstrated at times. I recall them having some trouble keeping the tires wet enough to keep from wearing out, in some cases, because the banking is so steep that it's a lot less wet than the rest of the track.

Also, this is just a personal observation, but I've always suspected that the NASCAR road-racing traction is a little better in real life. iRacing's tire model doesn't really "do" different tire compounds per track, just an average of the typical stuff that Goodyear brings to the track every week. Which would be oval tires.

It just seems way harder to put the power down than it should be, even considering how much power they have. They seem to accelerate off the corners pretty good at Sonoma, whereas in the sim I can barely go full-throttle at any point in the lap. But then again, they're way better drivers than me.

That looks like a lot of fun. I love the amazing gains with the WHOAPOWER! and also the amazing losses with the WHOABRAKES. I'd love to see split times during those events.

Well in real life actually a trans am car is faster then both at Daytona the trans am daytona track record is only a tick slower then the Daytona gtlm record.

MotorsportsGordon said:

Well in real life actually a trans am car is faster then both at Daytona the trans am daytona track record is only a tick slower then the Daytona gtlm record.

Yeah I was a little surprised that the Cup cars are faster than GT1 at Sonoma. 

I have some official answers regarding NASCAR brakes at Daytona. Now to write it up. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Awesome! Look forward to it.

z31maniac said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Awesome! Look forward to it.

Thanks. Look for it on our site this Monday. 

JG Pasterjak said:

MotorsportsGordon said:

Well in real life actually a trans am car is faster then both at Daytona the trans am daytona track record is only a tick slower then the Daytona gtlm record.

Yeah I was a little surprised that the Cup cars are faster than GT1 at Sonoma. 

Are we sure we are comparing laptimes from the same track config? Until recently NASCAR didn't run the long course. 

T.J. said:

JG Pasterjak said:

MotorsportsGordon said:

Well in real life actually a trans am car is faster then both at Daytona the trans am daytona track record is only a tick slower then the Daytona gtlm record.

Yeah I was a little surprised that the Cup cars are faster than GT1 at Sonoma. 

Are we sure we are comparing laptimes from the same track config? Until recently NASCAR didn't run the long course. 

The nascar record of 1 minute 15 range is on the shorter 1.9 mile layout. Trans am uses the long 2.5 mile course. Allan mcnish has that track record in a Audi R8 with 1 minute 20 range. This year was to be the first time nascar used the long track since the late 90s. Ta class cars are using Caburetored nascar engines and are much lighter so a cup car won't be faster.

Not quite. They actually ran the long course last year for a special anniversary or some such reason. The pole time was 1:34.784, which is ever so slightly faster than the pole time set by the GT-1 cars in the 2018 SCCA runoffs held at Sonoma (1:34.961) and 4 seconds faster than the Trans-Am West qualifying speeds from last year. (Trans-Am West is a small bunch of cars with arguably less caliber of competitiveness.)

I would argue that the NASCAR drivers are probably slightly higher caliber than even the best SCCA amateurs, and the NASCAR teams certainly have a higher budget and more resources. If Trans-Am had the factory involvement levels of NASCAR, or even the amount it had in the 90s, I imagine those cars would be developed to be at least a couple of seconds faster than modern NASCAR cars.

Citations:

https://www.racing-reference.info/getqualify/2019-16/W (NASCAR qualifying, long course, 2019)

https://www.scca.com/articles/2010567-2018-runoffs-tire-rack-pole-award-winners (SCCA pole winners, 2018 runoffs)

http://gotransam.cdn.racersites.com/assets/2019%20Sonoma%20%20TA%20SGT%20GT%20Qualifying%20Provisional%20Results.pdf (Trans-Am West qualifying, 2019, only 3 top-class cars in the field)

Brake questions answered. 

Big race is this weekend. Interested to see how that chicane will play out, too. 

Three series run before the the Cup cars do, so there MAY be some sort of rubbering in of the track. OR there could be a lot of kitty litter form the cleanups...

Either way, hot infield with big power is going to be just as interesting as the braking zones.