Discussion
Bedazzled said:
Just watched the nationwide race on Motors TV, I thought Danica did a great job. JV was a bit naughty, he turned someone else round earlier on too. First time I've seen Nascar doing right turns! Do they change the car fundamentally for street circuits or just modify the setup?
I guess they must do but they still looked an absolute handful on the limit.eastlmark said:
unlikely I would think.
After a ordinary cup race at Sonoma, maybe they should take on road america instead. Or maybe it was just the lack of regular cup drivers doing double duties that made it a great race.
tough to work out a fuel stategie there given the length of the track, a single green white chequer would add 12 miles to the race! Notice some cars even had wipers. Good stuff!
Bedazzled said:
Just watched the nationwide race on Motors TV, I thought Danica did a great job. JV was a bit naughty, he turned someone else round earlier on too. First time I've seen Nascar doing right turns! Do they change the car fundamentally for street circuits or just modify the setup?
On the ovals the cars are set up with huge differences in camber at the front and the tyres are "staggered" in that they have different radiuses on each side. The road course cars are set up more conventionally. Typically on ovals NASCAR mandates the gear ratios in the gearbox to prevent the use of anything other than 4th gear, which is always 1:1 straight through, Pocono is an exception, they have taken to setting the ratios to make use of 3rd viable there, but at road courses the teams usually are free to choose their own ratios.Occasionally on an oval if a car is very damaged and comes out of the garage to make laps without any of the bodywork on the front end you can see the vast camber differences on the front wheels.
Because Stenhouse Jr comes with budget (sponsors).
As for the car setup, since they introduced the Car of Tomorrow, it's one chassis for all eventualities. Years ago they used the same chassis for superspeedways ('Dega or Daytona etc..) as road courses - obviously with a different setup. You'd have an offset chassis for short tracks which put more weight on the inside. The Car of Tomorrow is a "straight up" chassis, ie: symmetrical as far as it can be.
To summarise, on banked ovals you run "stagger" (bigger outside tyres than inside to help turning left), you also run positive camber on the left, negative on the right, so both sets of boots are leaning in a bit! Again, a few years back, it was common to "offset" the car by running the inside rear axle trailing arm a little shorter than the outside, so the cars looked like they were crabbing down the straights, well actually the were!. NASCAR have banned that now, the cars have to run "straight".
They do turn right, in fact the new car is very good on a road course. Even though NASCAR mandate very simple chassis specs, they are very refined. Yes they're a handful. You'd be a handful with 900+ hp and no electronics to contain it. These flat tappet (no nice funky roller rockers here) motors rev to 9000+ and drive through the most rudimentary 4-speed dog box to a pretty basic live axle which is 3-linked with a panhard rod. They have got clever with adjustments on the chassis using things like spring packing rubbers that can quickly be added or removed to change the spring rate at a pitstop. They can adjust the way the rear suspension at the rear by adjusting the panhard rod (track-bar as they call it) up or down which shifts the balance of the car and changes the way it handles. They've got really clever with tyre pressures to. 0.5psi can make all the difference! And what's more, pit stops. 5 men over the pitwall max - two for refuelling (might be only one now they have gone to dry break self-venting systems), and three to do the wheel changing (one jack man, two wheel men), changing four tyres, 5-stud wheels, with one trolley jack, and standard (but fast) nut-guns, plus 22gal of fuel in 13 seconds. F1 used to be 20gal of fuel through a high speed rig, 4 wheels, 16 men - 9-10 seconds.
Next road course is Watkins Glen on 12th August, but for next weekend (1st July) they're at Kentucky - a 1.5Mile speedway - expect near on 200mph qualifying laps again! It's fast!
As for the car setup, since they introduced the Car of Tomorrow, it's one chassis for all eventualities. Years ago they used the same chassis for superspeedways ('Dega or Daytona etc..) as road courses - obviously with a different setup. You'd have an offset chassis for short tracks which put more weight on the inside. The Car of Tomorrow is a "straight up" chassis, ie: symmetrical as far as it can be.
To summarise, on banked ovals you run "stagger" (bigger outside tyres than inside to help turning left), you also run positive camber on the left, negative on the right, so both sets of boots are leaning in a bit! Again, a few years back, it was common to "offset" the car by running the inside rear axle trailing arm a little shorter than the outside, so the cars looked like they were crabbing down the straights, well actually the were!. NASCAR have banned that now, the cars have to run "straight".
They do turn right, in fact the new car is very good on a road course. Even though NASCAR mandate very simple chassis specs, they are very refined. Yes they're a handful. You'd be a handful with 900+ hp and no electronics to contain it. These flat tappet (no nice funky roller rockers here) motors rev to 9000+ and drive through the most rudimentary 4-speed dog box to a pretty basic live axle which is 3-linked with a panhard rod. They have got clever with adjustments on the chassis using things like spring packing rubbers that can quickly be added or removed to change the spring rate at a pitstop. They can adjust the way the rear suspension at the rear by adjusting the panhard rod (track-bar as they call it) up or down which shifts the balance of the car and changes the way it handles. They've got really clever with tyre pressures to. 0.5psi can make all the difference! And what's more, pit stops. 5 men over the pitwall max - two for refuelling (might be only one now they have gone to dry break self-venting systems), and three to do the wheel changing (one jack man, two wheel men), changing four tyres, 5-stud wheels, with one trolley jack, and standard (but fast) nut-guns, plus 22gal of fuel in 13 seconds. F1 used to be 20gal of fuel through a high speed rig, 4 wheels, 16 men - 9-10 seconds.
Next road course is Watkins Glen on 12th August, but for next weekend (1st July) they're at Kentucky - a 1.5Mile speedway - expect near on 200mph qualifying laps again! It's fast!
thunderbelmont said:
Because Stenhouse Jr comes with budget (sponsors).
current sponsor Ford, already in bed with Roush and involved with Bayne as well. I guess our Matt has never been the most promotable of NASCAR stars and even admits to hardly ever being recognised in the street which is probably the main reason for dropping him.Seems the trend to rush young kids into top seats and then let them slowley decline is set to continue. Seems Joey Logano is favorite to loose his drive to Kenseth.
Thanks for that info thunderbelmont, really interesting stuff.
The pit crews really are impressive, same deal as we see in endurance/LMS/ALMS racing.
To be fair though we saw a 2.9s pitstop from McLaren this weekend which is an eternity from most other forms of racing. I think it'd be good to see F1 get a bit more basic though.
The pit crews really are impressive, same deal as we see in endurance/LMS/ALMS racing.
To be fair though we saw a 2.9s pitstop from McLaren this weekend which is an eternity from most other forms of racing. I think it'd be good to see F1 get a bit more basic though.
Kentucky this weekend. Fast tri oval.
Big news is that Andretti racing are to start a cup team to run one car in 2013. They've signed a deal for Penseke engines and are believed to be chasing Matt Kenseth to drive the car after he was released from Roush earlier this week. Looks like Petty Motorsports are also tied up in this deal.
Trucks are back, but they ran yesterday.
Nationwide race is tonight. Starts at around midnight. It'll be on motorstv tomorrow (Saturday) at 9pm.
Cup race starts about 12:45am Monday morning our time.
Big news is that Andretti racing are to start a cup team to run one car in 2013. They've signed a deal for Penseke engines and are believed to be chasing Matt Kenseth to drive the car after he was released from Roush earlier this week. Looks like Petty Motorsports are also tied up in this deal.
Trucks are back, but they ran yesterday.
Nationwide race is tonight. Starts at around midnight. It'll be on motorstv tomorrow (Saturday) at 9pm.
Cup race starts about 12:45am Monday morning our time.
Dillon got 6 points docked, $10k fine for crew chief.
Okay, so back to Daytona. No trucks. This is a restrictor plate track.
Nationwide race is tonight at around midnight or so. Will be on Motors TV at 15:15pm Saturday according to their schedule : http://www.motorstv.com/tv-guide?d=2012-07-07&...
Cup Race is Saturday night, green flag scheduled for 12:50am Sunday morning our time.
Hamlin has a back problem so will not be running in Nationwide, Logano takes the #18 in his place and Bowyer will run the #20
Also watch for a familiar name: Jeffery Earnhardt is in the #15 for the Rick Ware team.
In Cup there has been a subtle mod to the rules - radiator caps can be 32psi now (up from 25psi for the 500 and 28psi at Talladega). This helps with cooling temperatures (basically means you can run hot for a little longer in the draft).
Michael McDowell is not running the weekend, Mike Bliss will drive the #98
Okay, so back to Daytona. No trucks. This is a restrictor plate track.
Nationwide race is tonight at around midnight or so. Will be on Motors TV at 15:15pm Saturday according to their schedule : http://www.motorstv.com/tv-guide?d=2012-07-07&...
Cup Race is Saturday night, green flag scheduled for 12:50am Sunday morning our time.
Hamlin has a back problem so will not be running in Nationwide, Logano takes the #18 in his place and Bowyer will run the #20
Also watch for a familiar name: Jeffery Earnhardt is in the #15 for the Rick Ware team.
In Cup there has been a subtle mod to the rules - radiator caps can be 32psi now (up from 25psi for the 500 and 28psi at Talladega). This helps with cooling temperatures (basically means you can run hot for a little longer in the draft).
Michael McDowell is not running the weekend, Mike Bliss will drive the #98
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