NASCAR (over) Rules...

[Dale W. Verts]

Guess I'm in the mood to complain- I don't even watch NASCAR any more, and this is why. Too many poitics. Sure is a long way from the "Run watcha brung" days.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/post-race-inspection-process-explained-100000411--nascar.html

Dale

Edited June 24, 2014 by Dale W. Verts

[Brett Barrow]

NASCAR has done a post race inspection on the winning car forever. In fact, the winner of the very first NASCAR race was disqualified for failing the post-race inspection.

[oldnslow]

Nascar never has been "run what you brung", maybe you're thinking street drag racing? The new inspection system is just keeping up with the technology that goes into building a competitive car.

Edited June 24, 2014 by oldnslow

[johnbuzzed]

Dynamometer check? You mean, they can't go for as many horses as possible from the engine? Why not just bring back IROC with generic bodies. Let NASCAR bring the cars to the track and the drivers can draw numbers to see which cars they get to drive. I understand the need for tech inspection and teardown and safety inspections, but when you question the horsepower... what's the point of trying to build a better engine? As much as I enjoy watching the races, NASCAR is turning the sport into a non-competitive event. Kind of like today's little league: "Everybody wins! You're all winners! Everybody gets a plaque/trophy/ribbon/award, just for being on the field! No strikes, no balls, no outs, too-many-runs-mercy-rules!" What a crock. What a shame.

[Greg Myers]

It's Liberal America , no child left behind,something for every one , guess who pays?

[Brett Barrow]

Ummm, the engine is simply measured on the dyno. It's not a pass/fail test.

Seriously, NASCAR turning into "liberal america" ?!?!? If there's a more red-state activity on the face of this planet than NASCAR racing, I don't know what it is. Hilarious...

[Harry P.]

Ummm, the engine is simply measured on the dyno. It's not a pass/fail test.

Seriously, NASCAR turning into "liberal america" ?!?!? If there's a more red-state activity on the face of this planet than NASCAR racing, I don't know what it is. Hilarious...

Meth labs?

[Brett Barrow]

Meth labs?

That's a bingo!

[johnbuzzed]

But WHY is it measured for horsepower output? It's a competitive sport. If anything, NASCAR should be encouraging the teams (man, I hate that word in racing) to get as much from the cars as they can. I guess another question is :"Do they perform a dyno check before the race?"

Edited June 24, 2014 by johnbuzzed

[Harry P.]

Ummm, the engine is simply measured on the dyno.

For what reason?

[Harry P.]

I know this topic has been debated to death here, and I'm not a NASCAR fan or expert in any way... but it does seem to me that today's NASCAR is sort of boring. I mean, all the cars are basically identical. Back when "stock cars" were more or less actually stock (for the most part), and real Fords raced against real Chevys and real Dodges, etc., it seemed to be more fun, with "bragging rights" on the line for the manufacturers. And the average car owner/NASCAR fan could cheer on "his" brand over the rivals. IMO a lot (all?) of that inter-brand rivalry has been lost. I guess NASCAR has "evolved," but it's really a very different thing today than it used to be, for better or worse.

[Greg Myers]

[Greg Myers]

Put this on yer dyno.

[Brett Barrow]

You'd have to ask NASCAR for a definite answer. I know they'd like to keep the cars as even as possible and insure that no one make dominates because that's bad for business. They've contemplated going to a HP-restricting tapered spacer that would help make easier passing on the bigger tracks, but they haven't done it (yet). But has of now there's no HP limit.

My view is (and I have to admit that I am not a NASCAR fan, but I grew up around it in a NASCAR town so it's something I've been exposed to all my life) that back in the "real car" days you often had dominating performances where a driver would lap the field, or one make might sweep the top 5 places. But for most folks, unless you were in the stands, your exposure to that was limited to reports in newspapers or magazines. I imagine Ned Jarrett winning the 1965 Southern 500 by 14 laps was far more exiting to read about than to actually watch.

Once NASCAR got on TV they had to put out a different product. The cars moved to the background, and the drivers became the stars. Parity makes for a better TV product. I imagine in NASCAR's dream world every race would in a Ford-Chevy-Toyota photo-finish for the win...

Edited June 24, 2014 by Brett Barrow

[Greg Myers]

and if ya got the cash , http://www.canepacollection.com/detail-1969-dodge-charger-daytona-used-5111490.html some great detail stuff here.

[Harry P.]

Once NASCAR got on TV they had to put out a different product. The cars moved to the background, and the drivers became the stars.

One thing is sure... today's NASCAR is nothing like what it used to be. It's a completely different thing altogether, in just about every way.

[Greg Myers]

I don't agree. "Back then" the drivers were every bit the stars. Thing was, you had two stars, the drivers and the cars.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Greg Myers

[Harry P.]

The whole idea of "parity" is what I don't get. It's almost like they are actually trying too hard to "level the playing field."

It's as if they made a new rule in baseball that everyone had to have a batting average between .250-.270 or else you couldn't play. Or every pitcher had to have an ERA within a certain range or else he couldn't play.

[Brett Barrow]

I don't agree. "Back then" the drivers were every bit the stars. Thing was, you had two stars, the drivers and the cars.

Funny that you chose a picture from the small-block standard wheelbase purpose-built fabricated racecar TV-era. And the car is more than half cropped out... It's a star, alright!

Edited June 24, 2014 by Brett Barrow

[Brett Barrow]

The cars have been standardized far longer than most people think. Really since they went to a standard wheelbase in the early 80's. And they weren't stock frames and suspensions since the 60's when the GM Truck trailing arms and coilspring rear and Ford intermediate front suspensions started becoming the winning combination. NASCAR let everyone use that setup.

[Harry P.]

The cars have been standardized far longer than most people think. Really since they went to a standard wheelbase in the early 80's. And they weren't stock frames and suspensions since the 60's when the GM Truck trailing arms and coilspring rear and Ford intermediate front suspensions started becoming the winning combination. NASCAR let everyone use that setup.

I'm talking about the days when "stock cars" really were more or less "stock cars."

Over the years NASCAR has slowly but surely morphed from different brands of cars actually competing against one another to where all of the cars today are basically identical down to the smallest detail.

[Lunajammer]

Let's not forget the role safety has played. Part of the "parity" is because development of speed was surpassing development of safety and left unchecked it would have become a bigger blood sport than it already was. Nobody liked restrictor plates but something had to be done. Part of today's commercial success of NASCAR is reaching a safety level that made viewing accessible to an audience that was turned off by the risk; women and those concerned about the impression left on kids after deadly wrecks.

[Harry P.]

Let's not forget the role safety has played. Part of the "parity" is because development of speed was surpassing development of safety and left unchecked it would have become a bigger blood sport than it already was. Nobody liked restrictor plates but something had to be done. Part of today's commercial success of NASCAR is reaching a safety level that made viewing accessible to an audience that was turned off by the risk; women and those concerned about the impression left on kids after deadly wrecks.

Maybe a better way would have been to limit HP to a certain level, but how you got that power should be left to the individual teams, without forcing everyone to use basically the same cars.

[Brett Barrow]

I'm talking about the days when "stock cars" really were more or less "stock cars."

Over the years NASCAR has slowly but surely morphed from different brands of cars actually competing against one another to where all of the cars today are basically identical down to the smallest detail.

"Stock cars" stopped being showroom stock cars when they started running truck tires in 1950.

They stopped being stock frames and suspension when Holman Moody built the "half-chassis" 1966 Fairlanes (because NASCAR had refused to allow the 427 SOHC without a weight penalty and Ford boycotted and this was how NASCAR was able to lure them back) by allowing the unibody intermediates to run with Galaxie rear-steer front suspension and a fabricated frame to tie the two together. Junior Johnson would pioneer the use of truck-trailing arms and coil spring rear suspension a year or two later and this basic combination or something similar has been under almost every NASCAR racer since.

If you're talking stock-bodied, then the Chevy Lumina was the first car that the NASCAR body templates wouldn't match up to its street car counterpart, but long before that the cars were almost entirely fabricated, the hood skin, roof skin, and decklid were the only mandated stock parts for years. The teams petitioned NASCAR that it was easier and less time consuming to fabricate body panels than to modify stock ones.

NASCAR never let any particular car or team dominate for long, see what they did to the Hemi, the Ford SOHC 427, the aero cars, etc... NASCAR has never been an "unlimited" type of racing series. They've always had pretty restrictive rules.

[Harry P.]

I think NASCAR would be a lot more interesting if they had a basic set of rules everyone had to abide by (safety rules, for example)... but otherwise. let the racers be racers. Let them try to squeeze out a few more HP or cut lap times by a second, in any way they could, while of course still staying within the rules. More like the spirit of NASCAR as it was back in the '50s.

Just my opinion, of course. Like I said earlier, I am by no means a NASCAR fan... I find three hours worth of identical cars going in a circle to be incredibly boring. But if the cars really had some personality, really were different from one another, and maybe the races were shorter (maybe an hour on TV?), I'd be a whole more tempted to watch it.