I would mount giant rare earth magnets behind the bumper covers, either permanently mounted or held in place on an eccentric roller so that the driver could keep each magnate tight against the bumper cover or rotate it away and break the magnetism to either the car in front or the car behind. If they want a pack train, they might as well take all of the gaps out.
Well....
1. Eliminate the "playoff" or "chase" format for determining the season champion. The old method worked well but NASCAR panicked in 2003 when Matt Kenneth put the title away long before the end of the year.
2. Do away with the "lucky dog" or "free pass " for the first car one lap down when a caution is called. Fall a lap down, earn it back.
3. Overtime. Do away with it ASAP. A race scheduled for 200 laps runs 200 laps. Caution comes out with few laps left and the event can't be cleaned up in 200 laps? That's just the way it is.
4. Fire whoever currently handles public relations. Give me an hour or so and I could come up with someone that could do a better job of it.
5. The cars are awful. Their replacements should be as such:
A. Tube frame construction, front engine, rear drive, manual transmission, production based engine, solid rear axle.
B. Models used match the wheel base of production cars on which they are based.
C. Models used match templates that exactly match the production cars represented.
D. All cars will mount a 2 inch spoiler at the rear most point of the decklid measuring 60 inches in length, the center point of the spoiler matching the center point of the racecar.
6. Truck series: If kept it needs a revamp. Suggest short tracks and no sharing weekends with Cup, Busch, or Indycar.
7. Xfinity: I don't know really. Perhaps a production based series?
I'll admit there are details to work out but this I think would be a good start.
j_tso said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:It is always about the personalities. Always has been, always will be. It's not really about the racing.
Spot on. Drive to Survive did that to F1 and grew the fan base big time, especially in the US.
This still baffles me. The current F1 drivers are duller than dishwater. Hats off to the editors of that series.
I suppose you could make the case that the team principals are more interesting, but that's mostly in-fighting between then. Well, that and Steiner saying "we look like a bunch of wankers."
NorseDave said:This still baffles me. The current F1 drivers are duller than dishwater. Hats off to the editors of that series.
I suppose you could make the case that the team principals are more interesting, but that's mostly in-fighting between then. Well, that and Steiner saying "we look like a bunch of wankers."
It's like a ton of other things in our culture: "It's not American, thus, it is better!!!" Counterpoint to that: Haas is everyone's DTS sweetheart.
Here is what NASCAR as a body needs to do (IMO):
All series: End stage breaks. Try the below changes before we ditch the playoff format completely. Overtime rules are iffy...I could go either way on them. Road/street courses are on the schedule for Cup/Xfinity, but no more than 1/4 of the schedule.
Cup: Current cars are fine. Go to V6T Hybrid systems, maybe stock blocks. At the very least, get something that has some DNA from a road going model. I would almost say that they need some sort of fuel limiting factor to limit speed/power, but I'm not sure I want to go that far yet. Pull some aero off and give them sticky tires that wear out. No dirt.
Xfinity: Compact/mid-size car segment models. Take some weight out of the cars and use I4T, again, stock blocks or production based. Focus on smaller tracks, but you can keep some of the marque big track events (Daytona 200).
Trucks: Not too much to change here, actually. They need to be at smaller tracks, but no road courses but dirt is available.
Now here's the kicker to get more interest at the local level (which will help everyone): Your local short track can host the Clash or the All-Star race! Small tracks around the country can register to host those non-points events. Those that meet all the requirements (capacity, size, surface quality, etc.) have a leg up, but NASCAR could throw some money at some facilities to help them get to the level they need to host the big show. The amount that NASCAR throws at for the Coliseum to get it ready could be used to build up the local series and foster some good will.
Yeah that looks a bit bent
Every other race switch between counter-clockwise to clockwise.
More road courses.
More tire options
Go back to modifying actual vehicles instead of these spec racer everyone's equal stuff.
johndej said:Yeah that looks a bit bent
This will be inspected pretty seriously at the NASCAR tech center. The door bars moving did reduce the impact energy transmitted to the rest of the car, but the safety implications of the door bars separating from the rest of the center section is very dangerous. If that same impact had been drivers side, they would have had a much more gruesome scene to clean up.
These center sections of the chassis look very strong, and are mass produced by a third party. The teams do not have any say in the quality control side of the chassis fabrication anymore. It has become an assembly line product.
In reply to stafford1500 :
NASCAR style door bars are meant to take broadside hits like from hitting a wall, not point impacts like that apparently had. A curved bar taking a point/line impact hit will be able to bend inwards until it peels away from what it is attached to.
When/where did that happen? I am curious to know more.
Pete,
Talladega over the weekend. Granted, the intended impact is more distributed, but the real event was another car nosing into the side of the car.
I suspect the cage designed with more absorption and crumple sections on the right side vs. the left.
In reply to jmabarone :
Not so much. The door bars, a-post, b-post, halo, and rocker structure are the same on each side. There is some different diagonal bracing, but does not occur in the area of the failure pictured. There is foam between the door bars and the outer skin, as well as a composite plate on the door bars. Again, same left and right sides.
I spend my working hours on/in/around these cars.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:It is always about the personalities. Always has been, always will be. It's not really about the racing.
Zing. Nail on the head. This.
When I was 8-16 years old, I never missed a NASCAR race that was available to watch on TV. Did I know anything about the cars? No. But I knew the personalities and that's what drew me in as a kid.
Today most of the NASCAR drivers have the personality of white bread or a door knob. Or at least that's how their PR departments let them be seen.
Would letting teams build their own cars again help? Yes. Would 900HP, smaller tires, less aero, and less spec help? Yes. Would re-constituting efforts to focus on the niche demographic from it's core regions help? Yes. What is ultimately going to draw in more viewers? Personalities. Whether they are slightly off color, incendiary, or wholesome, you've got to give people something to latch on to other than run-of-the mill stale flavored bread.
PR departments taking their reigns off the drivers would be an easy start, then go from there.
Or a Netflix docuseries.
stafford1500 said:In reply to jmabarone :
Not so much. The door bars, a-post, b-post, halo, and rocker structure are the same on each side. There is some different diagonal bracing, but does not occur in the area of the failure pictured. There is foam between the door bars and the outer skin, as well as a composite plate on the door bars. Again, same left and right sides.
I spend my working hours on/in/around these cars.
Do they not basically plate the whole DS door bar area? Not to question your experience, I just recall that being a thing that they started pushing in late models in the early 2010s, assumed it as a trickle down from Nascar. Some decent renderings of the center section structure here. Not sure how accurate they are, could be old versions or just proposed versions.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/nascar-s-scariest-crash-of-the-year-what-went-wrong-with-kyle-larson-s-door-bar-failure/ar-AA1ahwIl?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=41eb0f3cfe454f7f90a79f66786f5762&ei=22
No more chase for the cup points reset (subsidy). Season long points race.
Skinny tires, say 225 wide instead of restrictor plates. Biggest balls to make it around the corner wins.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to stafford1500 :
NASCAR style door bars are meant to take broadside hits like from hitting a wall, not point impacts like that apparently had. A curved bar taking a point/line impact hit will be able to bend inwards until it peels away from what it is attached to.
When/where did that happen? I am curious to know more.
Talladega Crash Go to 4:30 mark for the in car hit and then same in car but looking at the driver. One hell of an impact.
They can keep the stages, just eliminate the mandatory cautions. Agreed races are a bit long, but imsa seems to do "well" with Daytona and Sebring. Maybe make it more like supercars with a split race format. Can still run in one day.
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