Official NASCAR thread...(spoilers)

[Dean]

Bristol!!! Tonight (Friday) & Saturday night!!!

Racing should be great!

[Dean]

JPM = "The fastest 40th place guy here!" -Kyle Busch

[MattR]

Originally Posted by Dean

JPM = "The fastest 40th place guy here!" -Kyle Busch

That made me laugh, but it is very true... Great racing so far.

[Dean]

Originally Posted by MattR

That made me laugh, but it is very true... Great racing so far.

JPM probably got more air time than any other driver outside the top 3-5... Way to make the sponsors happy. Ended up a respectable 19th.

Great race. Bristol remains my favorite oval.

[Dean]

More JPM.... Having a great race and then apparently he pissed some racing god off!

And can you stop Jimmy Johnson? I don't think so... What a great team effort. Chad made a great tire call at the end of the race...

[MattR]

JPM has the worst luck in all of racing. It's good to see his car is finally competitive in the last 5 races of the year. Marcos Ambrose was in the field today as well in a Michael Waltrip car, he ran well.

[Dean]

Ok, Jamie McMurray needs to go kick ass in Formula D!!!

He just drifted his Cup car for about 8-10 seconds around LVMS at about 180MPH!!! (Lap 67)

It was quite impressive, though he did get some help initiating it.

[MattR]

Originally Posted by Dean

Ok, Jamie McMurray needs to go kick ass in Formula D!!!

He just drifted his Cup car for about 8-10 seconds around LVMS at about 180MPH!!! (Lap 67)

It was quite impressive, though he did get some help initiating it.

That was insane, I was impressed.

[Dean]

Here it is on YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7MR2dqeoPI

[Joeyy]

Lets see how Scott does on a short track. He'll have to race his way in to this one, now that he's out of the top 35 in points.

[Joeyy]

Originally Posted by Dean

Here it is on YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7MR2dqeoPI

He saved it because he drives karts in the off season.

[MattR]

Originally Posted by Joeyy

Lets see how Scott does on a short track. He'll have to race his way in to this one, now that he's out of the top 35 in points.

No, I think they have one more race to go before they go to the 09 owners points.

[Dean]

One Word: Bristol!

Next best thing to a road course.

Should be a great weekend.

[MattR]

I have a mean headcold this weekend, I'm not leaving the house. In fact, I may die. But, besides the Bristol races, the 12 hours of Sebring is on, Speed is showing over 9 hours of the race, so that should make me feel better. Go Audi!

Also, Dean, tonight at 3pm, there is an old-timers race from Bristol! I've heard Rusty Wallace, Junior Johnson, David Pearson are getting in cars to run a short race tonight. Should be a fun event.

[Dean]

Damn, Damn, Damn...

JPM throws away an easy win and Mark Martin lets that damn punk kid Johnson get by him.

Why in the hell would you run anywhere near the pit lane speed limit when you have a 5 second lead and a dominant car. He only has himself to blame, and swearing on your wife and child that you didn't do it doesn't make it so.

I actually really like Jimmy, but am required by AARP to root for Mark. (Who I actually really like as well.)

The chase is going to be very interesting this year I do believe.

Now I'm watching F1 where again, the single wheel nut scheme fails. A couple more people fall out and the new kid might score a point.

[Dean]

It is very lonely in this thread.

Come on, I know some of you are watching....

Watkins Glen had two good races. Montreal is coming up so you can watch them turn right and left.

Hope it rains in montreal again! Stock cars on wets seperate the men from the boys.

To throw out another topic or three...

Should there be a road course in the chase?

Do you like restrictor plate racing?

Should they take some of the boring 1.5 mile and longer cookie cutter ovals and throw in the inside road course sections that ALMS and such use on a couple? That might encourage some of the oval fans to like road racing more...

I hope a Toyota wins Michigan!


On a side note: The WG Sprint Cup race is a perfect example of why many "club" track events don't allow passing in the corners... No matter how good the two people are, mistakes are made and $41+ happens! What was going to be a nice clean pass turns into a red flag mess with car parts everywhere.

[Dean]

Toyota wins in Michigan on fuel mileage over the big three, what an metaphor for the auto industry in general.

[tysonK]

I'll watch again when it's back on abc or fox or whatever.

[MattR]

Red Bull! Finally...Nice win for Vickers.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

Toyota wins in Michigan on fuel mileage over the big three, what an metaphor for the auto industry in general.

Maybe a metaphor of the auto industry in 1973. Unless you're suggesting Toyota won because the other race teams spent too much money building race haulers instead of race cars while paying pensions to Richard Petty, Darryl Waltrip, and Dale Jarrett.

I guess my point is that winning a race on fuel mileage in NASCAR is more "winning a race because you got luck and the cautions worked out to allow you to apply your tiny fuel mileage advantage" rather than "finishing the race with 12 less pit stops because your diesel is so much more efficient" like winning a race on fuel mileage is at Le Mans, for example. I'm never all that impressed by "fuel mileage victories" in NASCAR.

/nascar humbug

[Dean]

Originally Posted by sperry

I guess my point is that winning a race on fuel mileage in NASCAR is more "winning a race because you got luck and the cautions worked out to allow you to apply your tiny fuel mileage advantage" rather than "finishing the race with 12 less pit stops because your diesel is so much more efficient" like winning a race on fuel mileage is at Le Mans, for example. I'm never all that impressed by "fuel mileage victories" in NASCAR.

I am a little surprised to read this considering how much F-1 relies on fuel and pit strategy which appears to be what you are bashing. Am I missing something, or do you dislike that in F-1 as well?

And in this case, many of the leaders pitted at the same time. They Toyota and its driver used less fuel than the competition over the same number of laps.

It was also a pretty good race form a competition and passing perspective.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

I am a little surprised to read this considering how much F-1 relies on fuel and pit strategy which appears to be what you are bashing. Am I missing something, or do you dislike that in F-1 as well?

And in this case, many of the leaders pitted at the same time. They Toyota and its driver used less fuel than the competition over the same number of laps.

It was also a pretty good race form a competition and passing perspective.

F1 doesn't really have any strategy with fuel mileage. If they want to get 5 extra mpg, the just turn a knob on the wheel and get it, what with modern fuel injected motors and all. Only once I've seen someone lose positions over lack of fuel, and that was because Massa's pit crew failed to put in the right amount of fuel at the last stop. Plus, the cars have such large tanks and the races are so short they can run a whole round on one fill up if they want to. So in F1, it's not really "fuel mileage" that makes a difference, it's just "fuel strategy", which is the balance between how often they stop vs. the penalty for carrying more weight. Sure, getting better mileage gets you more laps for the weight of the fuel, but it's such a small difference that plenty of other factors obscure the advantage.

It's pretty much the same deal in NASCAR as in F1 regarding the fuel mileage "advantage", but with their "small" fuel tank size NASCAR has a real opportunity to make fuel mileage actually matter, if only they were to allow higher tech motors. But as it is, a fuel mileage "advantage" in NASCAR usually only comes up when there's a caution 15 laps from the finish when 14 laps is a full fuel run. Then the team with the tiny bit better mileage eeks out just more lap while everyone else does a splash and go... which is often negated by another caution with 5 to go allows all the "bad" mileage cars to get their splash *and* new tires. i.e. winning a race "on mileage" is still more luck than anything else.

What I'd like to see is one team out there w/ a direct injected V8 getting twice the mileage as the push-rod dinosaurs... then we can talk about a fuel mileage advantage, since they'd need to pit half as often, assuming Goodyear brought tires that can last that long.

[Dean]

First, I am not trying to start an argument, just trying to understand what you are saying...

I don't think the level of technology changes the fact that there is strategy is involved or that one team can have an advantage over another in that area. In many respects, carburetor choices made before the race are a strategy in themselves, as are how many stops in a F-1 race, wing angle for speed vs. downforce, etc...

In this case, it was also the way Vickers drove vs. the other drivers. I would think that would be true in F1 as well. Changing from a 2 stop to 3 stop strategy due to race conditions or vice-versa must involve the driver and how he conserves or expends fuel and is not just a matter of turning a knob/switch. I swear I have heard conserve fuel and drive like hell, fuel is fine type comments on F-1 radios...

Martin who was saving fuel to an even higher extreme still ran out in his Chevy, so there was definitely a significant difference between the teams.

I think both series have quite complicated fuel strategies regardless of technology.

Fuel Strategy might play more of a role in NASCAR than F-1 and both are subject to "luck" factors, but NASCAR sees more "luck" factors due to the length of their races, the number of cars on track and the older technology.

[Dean]

Bristol Fri. & 5at. afternoon! 5PM & 4:30 respectively for Nationwide/Sprint.

Should be good if Truck race Wed. was any indication.

[MattR]

Weird, the post at the top of this page is for Bristol one year ago.

I missed the truck race, I wonder if it's on replay.