Quote:
Originally Posted by BAN SUVS
That's kind of my point. Why are the rules coming together to create a requirement for running such difficult/dangerous in order to be fast enough to win? What is it about the restrictions that prevents a properly sprung suspension from being competitive? I understand the difference between what they ran being necessary, and that setup being considered ideal. But like Austin said, these aren't backwoods yokels- so if these professional race car engineers are forced to resort to such a poor setup, the rules are broken.
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My guess is that NASCAR designed the COT and tested it without seeing what happened when you put a bumpy race distance on bumpstops on the suspension. Meanwhile, running the car as low as possible (i.e. on the bumpstops) is aerodynamically the fastest way around Daytona because aero grossly out weights handling there as far as lap times are concerned, so the teams are just slamming the car as low as geometrically possible with soft springs.
NASCAR won't want to extend the suspension's throw because teams will just lower the car even more thus making them more slippery and undoing some of the progress made in lack of competitiveness as restrictor plate tracks. Plus, if they go too low, we're back with cars that bottom out in every corner. Last time we had that situation, NASCAR started raising spoilers, fixing ride heights, fixing spring rates, etc. All that crap was supposed to be solved by the COT.
The only alternative is to reinforce the suspension so it survives a race on the bumpstops and/or mandate springs at restrictor plate tracks, which is counter to the whole point of the COT as far as I thought.