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Weight --- vs --- Restrictor Plates


An alternative to restrictor plate racing, a universal head and neck restraint, and soft noses.





A Different Concept.........

I get quite a few E-mails, and every now and then someone enters something in the Comment area available at the bottom of the article page. I always try to answer all of the E-mails and comments. In doing this, I have met some really interesting people who all have the same thing on their minds that I do, Winston Cup racing.

Some of the people who write in are rather unhappy with me about something I wrote, or didn't write, about their favorite driver. Others think that some of my insinuations are kind of outlandish and/or mean spirited. I am not going to deny this, I do make mistakes, and sometimes I do tend to get carried away on a particular subject. I am only human, just like the rest of you.

At any rate, one fellow wrote in with an idea that I had not heard or thought of. This fellow is a former engine builder who seems to know a lot of folks associated with Winston Cup racing, from drivers to team owners and NASCAR officials. His answer to the restrictor plate racing fiasco is "weight."

Weight bars are now added to the frame rails to make up the difference in the weight of drivers, parts, etc., to reach the required 3400 pounds that each racecar must weigh for competition. These weight bars are moved around to different places in the bottom of the racecar to enhance race setups for the different types of tracks on the Cup circuit.

Instead of restrictor plates, and the "dirty air" aero-package fins, why not make the bottoms of the racecars three or four hundred pounds heavier? Something has to be done to put the racecar back into the control of the drivers. Adding this extra weight to the frame rails would make it much more difficult to reach the high speeds that the sanctioning body and some of the whining drivers are afraid of.

The added weight would also make the racecars more stable, and serve to curb the jumping and floating around that they tend to do on the superspeedways. The twenty racecar packs that are the norm in the present form of restrictor plate racing would cease to exist. The horsepower variations that are present in Cup racecars today would help to create smaller drafting packs.
The copyright of the article Weight --- vs --- Restrictor Plates in NASCAR is owned by Thomas M. Sampson. Permission to republish Weight --- vs --- Restrictor Plates in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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