SPEEDZZTER DEBATES A NASCAR FAN (WHO STYLES LIKE e.e. cummings)

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Mention NASCAR’s malaise, its move away from actual “stock car” racing to a “common everything” spec racer series, and NASCAR’s glacial pace of technological change in comparison to OEM production cars, and you’ll often trigger a spirited debate.

The following are excerpts from just such a debate over at www.bangshift.com.

Speedzzter.blogspot (September 23, 2009): [Joined in progress]

If they went back to racing ACTUAL PRODUCTION-BASED STOCK CARS under a reasonable rule package, it wouldn't cost $40,000,000 a year to field a team.

NASCAR could learn plenty from V8 Supercar racing down under.

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SpiderGearsMan (September 23, 2009):

yeah road racing is really packin them in here , the last grand american race on tv loooked like it was in an abandoned parking lot
aussie racing ? yeah , the run the LS motor down there , but road racing is not major league in the USA
dirt tracks get bigger crowds , which sprint cup should be doing

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Speedzzter.blogspot (September 23, 2009):

The sort of things that NASCAR could learn from V8 Supercar racing are:

1. Production-based sedans can still put on a good, close show. And the fans can relate better to race cars that are based on what they can buy.

2. Multiple races on a weekend (think short track-style heat races) are more exciting than a bunch of boring practice (Why does Speed TV waste air time on it?), single car qualfying (Yawn. Same question) and a long, overblown "A Main" event.

3. Forcing the OEMs to stay in the homologated "production" box is the best way to control costs and tighten up competition.

4. A variety of tracks (not more cookie-cutters) is good. Very good.

5. There's no valid technical reason why the driver's door cannot open now. (It's not 1950 anymore. Better latches, cages, and safety seats can portect the drivers well enough without all the "traditional" "Dukes of Hazard" theatrics)

There are lots of reasons why the "gate" for road racing isn't what it should be. (And I wasn't suggesting that NASCAR should become a road course series) On the other hand, anyone who has been to a NASCAR road race or to a well-established tradition such as Sebring can testify that Americans will watch road course events under the right circumstances.

Attendance at Grand-Am events is hardly indicative because they have a terrible TV package, minimal tradition, poor promotion, confusing class structures (the Koni Challenge cars never run in prime time) and few, if any stars known outside of the discrete and insular world of Grand-Am followers.

One should note that NASCAR Cup attendance wasn't all that great until it became a TV phenomenon in the 1980s. They used to only have about 25,000 seats at places like Bristol and Martinsville. And places like Texas World Speedway near Houston couldn't hardly give away tickets.

Dirt doesn't work on TV very well (too "dirty," ugly pictures), but NASCAR was better back when they had a few dirt shows to spice up the schedule (Before Winston brought in the "modern era" and killed the mid-week shows)

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SpiderGearsMan (September 25, 2009):

nascar should return to inline valve engines, too
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Speedzzter.blogspot (September 29, 2009):

Why not just return to flatheads and 1938-40 Ford coupe bodies? That's what they ran when NASCAR first started.

A better plan than staying stuck in 1975 would be to race what's actually for sale to the general public (with proper safety upgrades that is)
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SpiderGearsMan (October 30, 2009):

you forget olds and chryslerhemis were the cars to beat in the first years of grand nationals flatheads are farm implement motors that were obsolete in the post war era
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Speedzzter.blogspot (September 29, 2009):

Yeah, that would explain why the flathead 6-equipped Hudson Hornet won half of the NASCAR Manufacturer's championships before 1955.

http://www.legendsofnascar.com/Hudson.htm;

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/motorsports/4303620.html?page=9


BTW, the architect of Hudson's success in NASCAR was one VINCE PIGGINS. http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2005/07/01/hmn_feature8.html

Bangshifters know Piggins later went on to run Chevrolet's clandestine motorsports operations (in violation of the AMA Ban and the 1963 GM Board's insistence upon abiding by it. Much of the reason that GM had so much success after factory support for NASCAR and drag racing dried up in the 1970s was the "heavy duty" parts operation that Piggins, Zora Arkus-Duntov and their co-conspirators had already put into place to circumvent the corporate "no racing" edict.)

Actually the flathead was technically obsolete as soon as the world had seen Peugeot's DOHC during the 1913 racing season. Jules Goux won the Indianapolis 500 in 1913 with a 4-valve Peugeot. Every four-valve powerplant from that day forward, including such legends as the 1967 Ford-Cosworth DFV and the venerable Offenhauser, owes much of their basic concept to a 1913 Peugeot!

But flatheads were cheap, easy to build, and made adequate power for ordinary driving.

Henry Ford's breakthrough of a cheap monoblock flathead V8 wasn't that much technological. (Even arch competitor Chevrolet had overhead valves) It was a breakthrough in price because it made V8s available to the masses.

Nor was Chevrolet's "Motoramic" 1955 V8 much of a technological breakthrough. It was merely a cheap-to-build, elegantly-simple application of mostly decades-old ideas.

The amazing thing was that the "Motoramic" '55 Chevrolet only won a handful of NASCAR events that year. Oldsmobile won the Manufacturers Championship while Chrysler had the most series wins (27). But from the overhyped advertising of the day, Chevy made it sound like they were dominating, blowing its occassional wins all out of proportion.

Chevrolet never won a championship until 1958 (after GM had conned everyone into the infamous 1957 A.M.A. racing ban on factory sponsored motorsports -- a ban that GM cheated on like Bill Clinton at a college sorority house. (BTW, Ford won the 1956 and 1957 Manufacturers Championship. Ford also won seven straight Championships in the 1960s (1963-1969).

Sadly because Ford killed virtually all factory support of motorsports and "Muscle Parts" programs in November 1970, Chevrolet caught up and passed Ford in the number of championships in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ford's stupid decision to pull out of racing meant that it would not win another NASCAR Manufacturers Championship until 1992. Ford was basically splitting Manufacturers Championships with GM in the late '90s and early 2000s, but NASCAR's legalization of the "cheater" SB2 and RO7 engines tipped the scales too far in GM's direction.)

My point was that picking out some era of history and tying racing to it probably says more about the nostalgia and manufacturer loyalties of the proponent than the inherent technological efficacy of that era.

If we're turning back the calendar to "fix" racing from the scourge of "technology," then the flathead has just as much or more of claim than does OHV engines.

It's real simple, folks:

Production car with a factory VIN + driver's safety pod + cage + bolt-ons (factory spindles and wheels just won't take pounding of the high banks) = Real Stock Car = Fan interest = relevant to "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" = fixes NASCAR.

Any questions?

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SpiderGearsMan:

they haven't been that way since 1965
why the problem now , buckaroo ?
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Speedzzter.blogspot:

And that was bad.

It was some of what started us down this slippery slope that's crashed into the hideous "COT" heap. But at least the Holman-Moody "3/4 chassis" Fairlanes looked like something you could buy at your local Ford store. Too bad they were "reskinned" every year and/or ended up getting beat to death on some forgotten dirt track.

The COT looks like something that ought to be sitting out back with a recycling symbol on the side.

NASCAR, and to a lesser extent NHRA, have been horrible for automotive development in America.

Examples: Supercharger and fuel injection ban (don't even think about a turbo), 7 liter displacement limit of the 1960s, rules against multiple values and overhead cams, rules against more than five speeds, IRS ban & the antique "truck arm" suspension. All of these things have hurt technology "trickle down" and market pressure for advancing the state-of-the-art in production cars.
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SpiderGearsMan:

we as gearheads worship 1969 tech

does efi - irs -bigger tires make the racing better ? hell no
too much aero tech and downforce have ruined the racing
your favorite barge - the mustang - eschews weak ass IRS in favor of a live axle
we love live axles - we love . . . holley double pumpers
every short track car runs ft v8 - 4 speed - rwd
hell , a lot of oval track cars run quick change rears featuring 1938 ford gears and wide 5 hubs on the 37 ford bolt pattern
tradition is huge in this sport
the people attached to it
like ron sperry designs the chev heads
that the double pumper was designed by ralph johnson in smokey's shop
that the super t 10 came in my new trans am
that ed cole and harry barr designed the sbc
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Speedzzter.blogspot:
Spidey, I'll agree with you that IRS is of limited value for sedan racing as long as the track is smooth. I can see no value for IRS in drag racing. Thus, Mustang's beam axle give it an advantage over Camaro for street/strip duty.

But circle track racing has ossified and mostly lost its relevance to the streets because the rule packages limit technical advancement.

BTW, I love sprint cars and watch several sprint car shows live every year at my local track.

But, it makes no sense to me that a kid who loves dirt can't go pull a EFI V8 out of a salvage, rebuild it, and run in the Bomber or Factory Stock class. It makes no sense that only two-valve pushrod engines are "stock legal" when Detroit has built millions of OHC engines during the past twenty years.

As for keeping costs low with "1969 tech" -- it doesn't. Most competitors running a carb'd SBC have spent thouands on aftermarket parts. Every "wide-five" you see at the speedway is an aftermarket reproduction. Most all of those four-speeds still running are pro-built racing transmissions from Tex or Jerico or someone else.

And I place most of the blame on the leadership of NASCAR. A leadership which over the decades lost their grip on what made "stock car" racing attractive to the general public. The local tracks follow NASCAR's lead. And NASCAR's focus on purpose-built, non-production "common" spec everything has lead us into a black hole.

MULALLY: THERE’S AN ELECTRO-FORD IN YOUR FUTURE

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“In 10 years, 12 years, you are going to see a major portion of our portfolio move to electric vehicles," Alan Mulally said at the recent Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbara, California.

How should we react to that prediction?

Some PowerStroke® diesel owners who have thrown down $250.00 at their local Ford store for a pair of Motorcraft® batteries every four or five years are probably not tingling with excitement over Alan Mulally’s pandering to the greeniacs and global warming true believers and the prospect of future battery replacements costing ten times as much.

Perhaps some fans of Ford’s storied V8, Mustang, and “Total Performance” heritage may be wondering if the next Thunderbolt or Lightning will be some government-specification FWD electric golf cart instead of legendary pavement-ripping muscle.

A few futurists are imagining spaceship-like Electro-Matic Fords dominating the nearly-silent drag racing at the “Plasma Boy Nationals” in 2025.

And some probably wonder how they’re ever going to afford another new vehicle when government regulations have added $5,000.00 to $15,000.00 to the cost to pay for all of this electrification.

What is the reality?

Are Willie Wiredhand (tm) and Reddy Kilowatt (tm) really the go-to guys for the Ford Motor Company? Or is Mulally just shoveling another load of politically-correct, all-organic biomass?

1. Mulally’s comments demonstrate the obvious – that to meet the draconian Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards now on the books and expected from the mean green OBAMAites (regardless of whether California gets its CAA waiver from the E.P.A.), some electrification is inevitable.

2. Mulally’s prognostications mirror the hopes and dreams of the real boss: William Clay Ford, Jr. Bill Ford has always been “dual minded” with respect to Ford’s products. On the one hand, he apparently appreciates “throaty” Mustangs and profit-making trucks and SUVs. On the other, he apparently pines for adulation by the Sierra Clubbers and luddites who believe that we’re burning “the Planet” to a crisp with the “evil” internal combustion engine and personal automotive liberty. Thus, Mulally is Bill’s “boy” and he’s got to advance the Ford family line when appropriate.

3. Mulally’s opinions reflect an engineer’s sensibilities. For a vast majority of automotive uses, partial or full electrification would be efficient. Regenerative braking, start-stop shut-downs, and electric traction motor-assisted acceleration are elegant and intriguing engineering problems. The space-aged prospect of hydrogen fuel cells is enough to keep a creative engineer awake at nights.

4. Other than the expense, extra weight, complexity, and potential safety hazards, partial electrification of performance cars isn’t such a bad thing. It would allow them to survive in a hostile regulatory world.

A proper turbocharged V8 with a full-spread of torque-broadening technologies would be further enhanced by a torquey electric “booster” motor. Such a V8 could do most of the things a wimpy Prius could, and even run on four cylinders at steady-state cruise, but deliver enough off-boost fuel economy to placate the reasonable regulators and pragmatic greens (the hard core performance haters will never be satisfied as long as anyone is still having fun with “hot” cars).

Many of the parasitic systems on performance cars are begging to be electrified, which would permit more power-to-the-wheels. If and when Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) make a splash in Formula One racing, many technophiles and Walter Mittys will want similar systems for their sports cars and club racers -- just like they wanted turbos in the 1980s.

5. Electrification could save a thin remnant of traditional performance. If more pedestrian uses of light vehicles can be electrified, then their contributions to the CAFE average is increased. This could offset the production of a few more serious high-performance cars.

Certainly, this will eventually decrease the supplies of traditional junkyard-sourced hot rodding parts (much as the earlier switch to low-performance FWD and multi-valve fours and sixes already has) and will dramatically increase the acquisition costs of a surviving traditional muscle or sports car due to fewer mass production synergies. But the most likely alternative is worse – forcing everyone into soulless Fiat 500-sized microcars (or worse) and greatly limiting supplies of light trucks and sporting machines.

6.For all of the good wishes, hopes, dreams, and imagination of the legion of electric car advocates, electric cars are still a poor second to vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. In the vast heartland, a car with a 100-250 mile range between lengthy recharges is impractical. Huge breakthroughs must be accomplished before electric cars have the range and power density of a traditional gasoline/E-85/Diesel-powered vehicle. AND FULL HYBRIDS AND "TOTAL ELECTRICS" STILL AREN'T PROFITABLE TO BUILD IN MASS QUANTITIES. So Mulally’s comments ought to be taken in light of these practical realities. The internal combustion engine will be available in Ford showrooms in some form for the foreseeable future.

7. Mulally IS telling the appliance motorist greens what they want to hear. In these troubled times, Ford has to acknowledge the mostly erroneous popular narrative that the Detroit 3 alone caused the mess they’re in. And the way out of the mess is to “build cars that people want.”

If you’re a “true believer” in the Greenhouse Gas religion, then the “cars that people want” are really the cars greens think people ought to have, notwithstanding the reluctance of the masses to venerate egg-shaped electric hybrids, Smart® toll-booth cars, and the horrendously expensive and impractical GM EV-1.

The greens and the liberal freedom-hating bureaucrats are terrified of true free-market solutions because they know that a fairly large plurality, if not a majority, are not “true believers” and would snap up old school Detroit vehicles in huge numbers – if they were still built in reasonable numbers and at real market prices (Note that the prices for large vehicles have been artificially increased by the twin engines of regulatory compliance and supply constraints dictated by CAFE regulations. These factors have also artificially reduced the diversity of available models, designs and equipment).

It should also be noted that even a lot of bureaucrats inside of the Detroit 3 are scarred of the free market. If the fleet mix were truly market-based, it could affect profit margins on some of Detroit’s largest and most powerful vehicles. For example, there’s simply no technological reason why adding a couple of cylinders and some beef to the drive-line should cause the customer to pay a $10,000.00+ “penalty” over a mass-market six. And a supercharger or turbo which costs significantly less than $1,000.00 when purchased in bulk shouldn’t command a $5,000.00+ premium on the showroom floor if supplies and demand were not artificially limited. Yet some of these Detroit 3 bureaucrats who favor increased margins on fewer units see CAFE as a magic bullet to artificially decrease demand and increase opportunities for price gouging. Why would you want the hassle and risk to build 1,000 units to make a million in net profit if you could make the same amount of profit on 100 units?

Remember, the Detroit 3's management is packed with deadweight, appliance motorists who will never understand high performance vehicles, and boring bean counters who would be just as happy “costing out” any consumer product as they are working for an automaker. They do not hope to build legendary vehicles or help millions of automobile enthusiasts live their dreams. They build "widgets."

8. Mulally has to play the hand he’s been dealt. Even if he were an optimal combination of Zora Arkus-Duntov, Carroll Shelby, “Maximum” Bob Lutz, Enzo Ferrari, Ferdinand Porsche, Vince Piggens, and John Coletti, Mulally is still stuck with a company bleeding sales, virtually no youth market penetration, dwindling cash reserves, and a Katrina-sized hurricane of emission/fuel economy regulations bearing down upon him. So Mulally’s paean to the magic future virtues of electromagnetism is merely a recognition that the wide-open frontiers that faced Henry Ford, Henry Ford II, and even the hapless Lee Iacocca are not so open at the moment. If he’s to be credible, he’s got to talk a game that consistent with the funless, dower, depressed times in which his potential consumers and shareholders live.

Conclusion: Is there an Electro-Ford in your future?

Probably.

Does it mean the end of Ford’s “Total Performance,” Affordable-V8s-for-the-masses persona?

Hopefully not.

Does it mean the future is going to be a lot more complicated and expensive?

Most certainly.