Superspeedway rules save lives, rookie roundup, and the Bass Pro MBNA 500 from Hampton, Georgia.
Superspeedway Rules.......
10/27/03......... I've carped incessantly over the years about restrictor plate racing, as have dozens of others in the media, along with a multitude of teams, drivers, and race fans. The past few months of activity in the IRL have added credence to NASCAR's penchant for slowing the cars down on superspeedways following the 1987 crash that damaged the fencing at Talladega. It's amazing how the aerodynamics and physics change between 190 miles per hour and 200 plus miles per hour. The biggest factor involved here is one that involves the race car leaving the track surface and becoming airborne. Sure, we've all seen the cars fly through the air during wrecks at 180 mile per hour, but not like they would if they were traveling at an even higher velocity.
Racecars that differ in style and weight have different airborne limits. NASCAR feels that their restrictor plate program that keeps the stock cars below 200 miles per hour on the superspeedways is providing a positive safety factor for both drivers and fans. After what has happened lately with the faster, lighter weight open wheel cars leaving the track going airborne into, and through, the fence at speeds well over 200 miles per hour, I think NASCAR needs to be applauded. I never thought I'd be writing that statement, but the facts are the facts.
Still, yet, or whatever, I think, along with a multitude of others, that there are better alternatives out there than the restrictor plate. I've carped about using smaller engines, but they claim that with today's technology, the same horsepower can be derived out of half of the amount of cubic inches. I don't believe it, but then again, I'm not an engineer or engine builder. If that's the case, then let them race 200 cubic inch V 6's with small carburetors on the superspeedways. I'm pretty sure that they won't get the same speeds with them that they do with the 358 cubic inch V 8's, and the drivers will be able to race instead of riding around in a 190 mile per hour parking lot waiting for disaster to strike anywhere from 6 to 20 cars at a time. As we should all be aware of by now, NASCAR has gone to great lengths to try to allow competition to flourish at the restrictor plate venues of Talladega and Daytona, but haven't really gotten a solid handle on it. They've tinkered with the aerodynamics from time to time, once even creating what they called "dirty air" to try and slow the cars down while giving the driver's more control. Nothing has really worked. Then they've tried unsuccessfully to alleviate the "big one" which is the term given to the huge multi-car wrecks that occur because of the bottled up closeness of the 190 mile per hour parking lot. One of the tactics that they are still using is the smaller fuel cells. They went from the regular 22.5 gallon fuel cells to the 13.5 gallon design to make the cars come to pit road more often for fuel. They figured that by making the cars stop more often, they'd string out the field more and there wouldn't be the two large packs of cars, but a few smaller packs instead. Well, as we have all seen, it works for maybe three or four laps, and then it's right back to the two big 190 mile per hour parking lots, an accident looking for a place to happen.
