Anyone else miss the old days?
izabarber
very knowledgeable and fair about your views and opinions on the
nascar venue as a whole. And from what I can gather some of you have
been around since the glory days of the 60's. As such remember when
"stock cars" were stock cars. Albeit with a little cheating here and
there. Alot of which sooner or later ended up coming out of Detroit on
the cars we drove every day. I believe if the management behind
nascar really wants to do something for the fans of the sport, They
need to go back to the roots. Maybe have a few races a year where 500
miles are driven straight through. But the remainder of the races are
driven in 100 lap segments. And have a race at the end between 10 or
20 of the top finishers from the first 4 races. I believe we would see
a lot more finishes like the one at Bristol last week. And a little
less of the sleepers we are exposed to most weeks. Just a thought or
two to ponder. I am interested to hear what the rest of you have to
say.
John McCoy
1f16aa...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
> After "lurking" the posts for a few months. A lot of you folks are
> very knowledgeable and fair about your views and opinions on the
> nascar venue as a whole.
Thank you. You are a scholar and a gentleman :-)
> And from what I can gather some of you have
> been around since the glory days of the 60's. As such remember when
> "stock cars" were stock cars. Albeit with a little cheating here and
> there.
Creative engineering is a better word. FWIW, Smokey Yunick's
autobiography is a good read on that - Smokey is adamant that he
never cheated (unless to copy something everyone else was doing),
and he gives many examples of doing things which were not
forbidden by the rules, altho one might say they were counter
to the spirit or intent of the rules.
> I believe if the management behind
> nascar really wants to do something for the fans of the sport, They
> need to go back to the roots.
In general I'd agree with that. Go back to a stock body outline,
or close to it - getting rid of aero downforce would solve the
aero push problem right off the bat (as well as Goodyear's tire
problem). Allow the teams to innovate and improve their cars,
so the smartest team, not the wealthiest, can win. Allow the
manufacturers to introduce new bodywork maybe twice a year, after
it's released to public sale.
> Maybe have a few races a year where 500
> miles are driven straight through. But the remainder of the races are
> driven in 100 lap segments. And have a race at the end between 10 or
> 20 of the top finishers from the first 4 races.
I don't agree with that. Cup division races have always included
an element of stamina, both for the driver and the equipment.
It's part of what seperates Cup from things like Late Model racing.
I'd rather see the drivers tested by having to maintain their
concentration for 500 miles; and the engines, etc, tested by
having to run race pace for the same distance.
John
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<03ae91c1-f787-48e0...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>:
>After "lurking" the posts for a few months. A lot of you folks are
>very knowledgeable and fair about your views and opinions on the
>nascar venue as a whole. And from what I can gather some of you have
>been around since the glory days of the 60's. As such remember when
>"stock cars" were stock cars.
Roll cages changed the handling of the cars in the 1950s:
In the early 1950s roll cages also made more of a widespread appearance. Tim
Flock won the 1952 Modified-Sportsman race in Daytona Beach, but was
disqualified due to his roll cage being made of wood. Although some novel uses
of bed frames and other iron devices were created for roll bars, their use
stiffened the chassis and improved the cars' performance.
http://www.nascar.com/news/features/stock.car.evolution.2/index.html
"Shock development, which today is acknowledged as critical to race car
performance, also experienced more emphasis in the early 1960s. The popular "Air
Lift" shocks were being phased out and Monroe and Gabriel became heavily
involved in shock development for racing applications.
"Tire development also continued. Firestone was the dominant tire company, but
Goodyear was involved to a limited degree. Increasing speeds made these
developments important.
"Another significant advance during this period occurred as roll cage structures
began to become a more integral part of the car and as such, were used to
stiffen the chassis and improve a car's handling as well as serving as vital
protection.
"A variety of triangulated bars, from front to back, across the mid-section of
the car and also in the doors were as much to stiffen and strengthen the cars as
they were to serve as protection. There was a tremendous amount of flex inherent
in the "x-frame" cars used in the 1958-60 period. Smokey Yunick was one of the
first car builders to use the roll cage as an integral part of the car's
chassis."
http://www.nascar.com/news/features/stock.car.evolution.3/index.html
They started getting away from stock with purpose-built framework
in 1964:
1964 NASCAR Holman Moody develops the box steel chassis for
NASCAR racing that became the standard for all cars.
http://www.holmanmoody.com/history.html
John McCoy wrote in this newsgroup:
"Up until 1965 the body and chassis were required to match.
Following that year, NASCAR allowed mounting the body on a
different chassis. Following that, of course, came progressively
greater modifications, since one didn't have to have a "stock"
chassis any longer.
"1965 was a very good year for Ford, and a lot of the 1966
cars used '65 Ford Galaxie chassis. There are _still_
vestiges of the 1965 Ford in today's chassis designs."
So it's been a long time since the cars were truly "stock."
I don't mind the development of Formula NASCAR.
I don't think going back to the "good old days" (buy
a car in a showroom, drive it to the track, tape up
the lights, race, drive it home) would be as entertaining
as what we have now.
> ... I believe if the management behind
>nascar really wants to do something for the fans of the sport, They
>need to go back to the roots.
There are plenty of local tracks that have street stock
racing every week, all summer long.
Running races with production cars that top out around
100 mph or so (the four-dour, FWD family sedans) might
be cute to try once a year, but I don't think it's going
to attract much sponsorship--not even from the auto
companies.
NASCAR is an entertainment industry. If you don't like
the show they put on, you have lots of other choices for
your entertainment dollars. ;o)
Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.