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.