Lesson 2: NASCAR Glossary
Restrictor Plate Racing
This lesson will expand on the glossary term “restrictor plate.” Please refer to the glossary to get the exact meaning of the term. Restrictor plate racing is a hot issue in NASCAR racing. No one really likes it, although there are those who say that they do in order not to rock NASCAR’s boat. People that make their living in the sport are careful not to bite the hand that is feeding them.
Restrictor plate racing got its start back in 1987. This is the period when racecars easily reached and surpassed the speed of 200 mile per hour. The speed situation came to a head at the Talladega Superspeedway at Talladega, Alabama. Bill Elliott set the NASCAR’s top qualifying speed record of 212.187 miles per hour qualifying for the ’87 Winston 500 on May 3rd at Talladega. In all, thirteen cars broke the 200 mile per hour mark while qualifying for the event.
During the race, Bobby Allison got involved in a wreck causing his Buick to spin around backwards and become airborne coming out of the fourth turn on lap 22. The rear of the car hit the fence separating the grandstands from the track and took out more than 30 feet of the fencing. The race was red flagged for more than two and a half hours while the fencing was repaired.
NASCAR decided that for the safety of the fans and drivers alike, something had to be done to slow the racecars down. That is when they came up with the idea of the restrictor plate mounted beneath the carburetor to limit the racecar’s horsepower to approximately 450 by reducing the air and fuel flow through the intake manifold to the engines cylinders.
This practice called “restrictor plate racing” is used at the 2.5 mile Daytona Superspeedway and the 2.66 mile Talladega Superspeedway. Both of these superspeedways have very high banking in the long sweeping corners equaling the height of five to six story buildings that allow the racecar to continue around the tracks at top speeds.
A lot of problems have evolved out the practice of restrictor plate racing. The main cause of these problems stems from the fact that the racecars are not able to move as fast as usual due to their limited horsepower. This causes large groups or packs of racecars traveling together at high speeds, side by side, sometimes three or four cars wide racing just inches from each other. Please see “drafting” in the glossary. This causes a lot of aerodynamic buffeting from the “dirty air” created from these “trains” of cars traveling at high speeds. It causes the cars to float around in the air currents, a dilemma which even veteran drivers have a difficult time controlling.
Eventually, someone (usually a rookie driver) will make a mistake and all of the cars will get collected up in one big tangled wreck. They are all traveling so close together that there is no way for them to avoid getting involved. Remember, with restricted horsepower, they lack the power to get away from trouble or rookie drivers with limited skills.
Drivers and team owners have complained bitterly about what has become known as “the big one” when referring to the multi-car wrecks that have become synonymous with restrictor plate racing. Sponsors have even gone as far as instructing teams that they sponsor that they do not have to race in restrictor plate events. This is all well and good, but the teams always enter the events, for fear of losing valuable driver’s and owner’s points. Some of the fledgling teams that only run limited events during the season stay away from restrictor plate racing and even some of the short tracks.
NASCAR has experimented with different aerodynamic packages for the cars to try and alleviate the cars bunching together, but have not been successful in their efforts. They have tried packages that were intended to create dirty air to force the cars away from each other, but it was considered a failure. Their latest effort that they tried this season was also what many consider to be a failure. They limited the size of the fuel cell to 13.6 gallons as opposed to the 22.5 gallon cell that is usually used. Their thinking on this one was that the large packs of cars would be broken up by having the cars enter the pits for fuel more often. This was actually accomplished, but only for about three laps, then after their fuel stops the cars were all bunched back together again.
Most stock car racing insiders feel that the only way to improve restrictor plate racing is to do away with it. The France family, owners of the superspeedways where the restrictor plates are used, are also the same people who own NASCAR. They have been pleaded with to reinforce the fencing at Daytona and Talladega to hold the cars on the track. Do away with the restrictor plates, and let them race. But, pleas from the racing community have fallen on deaf ears. Nobody likes restrictor plate racing. The late Dale Earnhardt coined the phrase, “That ain’t racin’.” It was a disastrous turn of events when he was killed in a restrictor plate race from being bunched up within a group of racecars that forced him into the wall at a high speed.
