Did I Miss A Thread On The Next Gen NASCAR Car?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Gen_(NASCAR)

Independent suspension.

Rear-mounted sequential transaxle.

365-section tires on aluminum center-lock wheels.

Coilover springs/dampers (I'd almost forgotten that the current cars still use something that I assume is basically a rules holdover from a G-body or a C10 pickup or something...)

Same old pushrod V8 for now, but I'm not complaining.

Spec vendor-supplied chassis.

I'm not exactly in the market, and they're not even *current* cars yet, but I just got a whole lot more interested in future retired NASCAR cars... I mean, they were already a lot of bang for the buck, but now they sound a lot like a slightly-heavy GT3 car (?) (3300 lbs). If they depreciate as they have done... Holy carp.

This also gives me some hope for the overall direction of the series.

Been all around the racing sires on the internet for a few years now.  I think I first heard of it way pre COVID on the weekly Lets Talk NASCAR radio show that is run out of Milwaukee on Sunday mornings.  Intro was delayed a year because of the bug.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

For a converted street car=cool. 
For ASSCAR=bleh. Huge pass.

Not grassy enough for my roots. 

Cough..V8 Supercar...Cough.  Look at the specs. 

My concern is that more aero downforce will hurt the racing. Even the bigger brakes can do that. One of the reasons I like watching NASCAR on road courses is that the tires and brakes are so comically undersized for the weight and power of the cars, so they have to be carefully managed.

In reply to bmw88rider :

You say that like it's a bad thing...

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

Since everybody is starting with an absolutely clean sheet, it's probable that a new team might rise with a totally different driver.   At a minimum there will be a lot of bumping and rubbing as they feel their way.  
   What I like most is maybe those obsolete pushrod engines might be replaced.  Maybe a turbo 4 or 6?   

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Not one bit. I'm about as big of a V8 supercar fan as there is!! But the love of the series comes from road course racing and not ovals. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

Since everybody is starting with an absolutely clean sheet, it's probable that a new team might rise with a totally different driver.   At a minimum there will be a lot of bumping and rubbing as they feel their way.  
   What I like most is maybe those obsolete pushrod engines might be replaced.  Maybe a turbo 4 or 6?   

They have made some big changes over the past 20 years or so, starting with the COT. This new chassis is the biggest change yet. But getting rid of the pushrod V8s feels like a bridge too far. Is it even NASCAR without them? The one enduring memory I have of the only NASCAR cup race I've been to is what it sounded like when the green flag dropped and all 43 of those cars went WOT for the first time. It was almost a religious experience.

But, at the same time, we all know that big NA V8s are an endangered species. Hell, ICEs in general are. So, sooner or later, something will change.

Sounds like it's turning into a closer thing to a real race car. I don't know if that's good or not, because I'm not sure what benefits the new tech will bring. They already can run nose to tail and it sounds like the current cars have some weak points that need to be managed. Making the brakes stronger means less heat management? Going from five lug nuts to a center lock means a little bit less time in the pits and less chance of a screwup, but with this applied equally across the board all it does is make the penalty for a stop a bit less.

Those pushrod V8s are some seriously developed engines, I have no problem with them. Although it would be fun to see them open up the rulebook a bit and let someone run a Ecoboost or something. Ford can race a turbo V6 at Le Mans, let them run one at Talledega!

I do find it amusing that both the Camaro and Mustang can be related to the cars you can buy if you squint...but the Camry? They're not even pretending.

The parity across teams with the new car is going to be interesting. The entire car is spec'ed out and parts can not be produced by the teams, only the NASCAR approved suppliers. The current total for all the parts to build a car is north of $150k. There are some parts that are not bought,  but leased (gearbox, uprights, etc) and those have to be serviced by the supplier, not the teams.

NASCAR has tried for years to level the aero on the cars, with marginal success. The new car will lock that down even more, with tighter tolerances and panels manufactured by third parties.

The intent is to get the teams to use the mechanical grip adjustments to do all the fine tuning, not tweaking aero bits. The extra tire/brake will be a new area for development as the tires will still be supplied by GoodYear and they may do tires that have significant grip falloff, so management could be the solution. That usually means everyone rides around after an initial push for positions.

There are going to be more road course races. There is talk of hybridization/electrification in the future, but not soon. These cars are just head lights and air jacks away from being GTD/GTLM cars.

As far as comparing them to the road going cars, the only thing that even approaches a decent comparison is the cartooning of the road cars outer body. True the Camry is not sold as a two-door, V8 powered, rear wheel drive car, but the race car styling does bear some resemblance to the street car. That is about as good as this series is going to get.

I want access to a retired chassis of one of these sleds on a few years. As yiss. 

Also cue the derka derka derr NASCAR/oval hate.

Appleseed said:

I want access to a retired chassis of one of these sleds on a few years. As yiss. 

 

Also cue the derka derka derr NASCAR/oval hate.

I expect there will be a lot of hardware that gets sold at pennies on the dollar. There are not many items that transfer to the new chassis and the quantity of hardware is too much to be completely absorbed by the lower NASCAR series. Think gearboxes, rear axles, suspension parts, etc. There will probably be some good deals on rollers coming up in a few months as the teams start to unload old stuff and stock up on the new stuff.

Keith Tanner said:

Sounds like it's turning into a closer thing to a real race car. I don't know if that's good or not, because I'm not sure what benefits the new tech will bring. They already can run nose to tail and it sounds like the current cars have some weak points that need to be managed. Making the brakes stronger means less heat management? Going from five lug nuts to a center lock means a little bit less time in the pits and less chance of a screwup, but with this applied equally across the board all it does is make the penalty for a stop a bit less.

Those pushrod V8s are some seriously developed engines, I have no problem with them. Although it would be fun to see them open up the rulebook a bit and let someone run a Ecoboost or something. Ford can race a turbo V6 at Le Mans, let them run one at Talledega!

I do find it amusing that both the Camaro and Mustang can be related to the cars you can buy if you squint...but the Camry? They're not even pretending.

Keith the problem with the pushrod engines is 2 fold, 1st how obsolete they are. &2nd they are serious all out race motors with absolutely no stock parts at all in them.  
    Why not use stock engines. Show that they will last at least 500 miles plus practice.
 The power levels they are at with restrictors isn't that much higher than what  you can get off the showroom floor. 

In reply to frenchyd :

People have said that for 40 years. I couldn't agree more. But good luck getting anyone in the France family to listen. 

You want me to get behind your turbo V-6, turbo 4, your diesel? Show me what they can do. Show me 500 miles of abuse. Brag how your engine won the race around the watercooler on Monday. Wouldn't that be something?

The NASCAR V8s are quite possibly the most highly developed race engines on the face of the earth. I don't see that as a problem. So they're restricted down to what the most powerful production engines can do, sure. That's the whole point of the restrictor, to slow the cars down at certain tracks. And I have some thoughts on how obsolete a pushrod V8 is :)

Why not use stock engines? Because it's not an SCCA production car class. It's NASCAR, and that hasn't meant "stock" for decades and decades. That's okay, we don't expect Le Mans cars to drive to the track anymore and WRC cars aren't exactly production either. NASCAR today isn't about pushing technical limits, it's about making a lot of noise and really close racing that's fun to watch.

So I'm just fine with the big roaring V8s. They do what they're meant to do and they do it well. But like so many other classes, it would be fun to see it opened up to something else as well. Turbo six versus pushrod eight? That would give the fans something to cheer for. There have been several comments about V8 Supercars in this thread, if you trace that history back 30 years you get to Skyline vs V8 Commodore vs Cosworth Sierra vs E30 M3 - all in the top 5 at the Bathurst 1000. Now that's a collection of powerplants. But they don't need to be showroom powerplants, they can be hardened race engines because racing is more fun to watch than cars breaking down.

I don't follow this stuff so much. There's Nascar, there's the "trucks", are there any other subclasses? If there's a significant movement for tubocars, can they not create a class for them? Of course they'll have to be sure that they don't go faster than the 8s 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

There are several support series: Trucks and Xfinity cars. Beyond that there are other series that are also similarly supportive: ARCA. And one more twist, The France family also owns the IMSA series...

Lots of variations of race cars, most of the ones listed are V8 powered, but many are inlet restricted. Even the IMSA GT cars have engine and or aero limitations (Balance of Power - BoP).

Years ago there were NASCAR Dash cars that were 4 cylinders, then 6 cylinders. That series got shelved in the ealry 2000's. At one point the Busch (now Xfifnity) series had V6 power.

Keith Tanner said:But they don't need to be showroom powerplants, they can be hardened race engines because racing is more fun to watch than cars breaking down.

Says YOU.    When I look for WRC footage on YouTube, I look for service park videos.

Regarding the battles at Bathurst (Bat-hurst? Bath-urst?  Automotive bungee jumping) note that the cars you noted were all homologation specials, with theoretical street versions available to the public with deep enough pockets.  They all had some sort of limitation to keep them all in check, which was artificial to be sure, but not as artificial as "Me and Bill and Jim had a meeting and we decided to give Chrysler a smaller restrictor, unless they start losing too much, then we'll take some away for the next race"

Yes, they were homologation specials. It's not a exact analogue of that situation. The point was to illustrate the number of power plant types. I could use LMPh from a few years ago as well. 

BoP at any level makes technical innovation pretty much irrelevant but improves the racing. The latter is far more important to NASCAR. 

Keith Tanner said:

The NASCAR V8s are quite possibly the most highly developed race engines on the face of the earth. I don't see that as a problem. So they're restricted down to what the most powerful production engines can do, sure. That's the whole point of the restrictor, to slow the cars down at certain tracks. And I have some thoughts on how obsolete a pushrod V8 is :)

Why not use stock engines? Because it's not an SCCA production car class. It's NASCAR, and that hasn't meant "stock" for decades and decades. That's okay, we don't expect Le Mans cars to drive to the track anymore and WRC cars aren't exactly production either. NASCAR today isn't about pushing technical limits, it's about making a lot of noise and really close racing that's fun to watch.

So I'm just fine with the big roaring V8s. They do what they're meant to do and they do it well. But like so many other classes, it would be fun to see it opened up to something else as well. Turbo six versus pushrod eight? That would give the fans something to cheer for. There have been several comments about V8 Supercars in this thread, if you trace that history back 30 years you get to Skyline vs V8 Commodore vs Cosworth Sierra vs E30 M3 - all in the top 5 at the Bathurst 1000. Now that's a collection of powerplants. But they don't need to be showroom powerplants, they can be hardened race engines because racing is more fun to watch than cars breaking down.

That defy's the whole concept of stock car racing.   If you wanted speed you went Indy car racing.  Stock car racing was about  your Ford  against my Hudson.  The winner sold more cars.  
     Personalities like Petty and Earnhardt made "non stock" acceptable. Attracted more spectators which interested sponsors.  Money, money, money!   
     Now the "Stock Cars" are exactly like old Indy cars  Custom made special racing plants, tube frames, just the body shape giving a nod to actual cars?   How long before they are carbon fiber with the ground effects of Formula 1?  
     If they were off the showroom stock, would they be so dangerous?  Modern cars have formal crash testing which NASCAR doesn't do.   Wouldn't you like to go to a dealer and buy the same car that won the championship?  
 Maybe a few more sedans would remain in production and a few less SUV's sold?  
   Quality would have real meaning if a car lasted a whole racing season!  
     The average person could if they wanted go buy a car for $30-40,000 and go Stock Car racing.  Who knows maybe even win if they are skilled enough?  

In reply to frenchyd :

A few points to your comments:

It is not stock car racing anymore. It has not been for decades. The manufacturers still see it as an advertising opportunity.

They will be completely composite bodies next year (read the start of the thread and some of my posts). 

Modern street cars do not pass crash tests at 150+mph. NASCAR does in fact do crash testing, just not much publicity and some is done with computer simulation.

No production car would survive a season of racing at this level. Even the production based cars are modified enough to basically double the price.

Watch the NASCAR racing as an exercise in fine tuning. The cars run suprisingly close despite the different thoughts behind preparing the cars and drivers.

If you want stock production car racing, go to the SCCA races and try to ignore the BoP. If you want fast, loud close racing, go to the NASCAR races. 

In reply to stafford1500 :

I agree completely. Even at the grassroots level of your local short track about the only classes that remain as "stock cars" are the Pure Stock/Street Stock, Pony Stock and to some degree Sportsman classes. All the rest have pretty much evolved to purpose built tube frame race cars. All race cars have evolved no matter what the series for the better and have become safer.

It seems every time something about NASCAR is posted here it brings out the haters. The fact is NASCAR has the biggest car fields and most competitive racing of all the professional series. The fields for Indy, Formula One are half of NASCAR plus in those series probably there is less then a half dozen cars that are competitive and have a chance to win. NASCAR is also listening to the fans about the type of things they want to see and experience. Reading some of the comments it's clear some of the posters know little about the series. If you don't like NASCAR it's simple turn the channel.