UPDATED NEWS FROM WEDNESDAY NIGHT
NASCAR outlaws "bump drafting" at Daytona 500
February 15, 2006
By Bruce Martin
SportsTicker Contributing Editor
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (Ticker) - Tony Stewart spoke and NASCAR listened, so the art of "Bump Drafting" is going to be outlawed for this week's Daytona 500.
NASCAR announced Tuesday it would start policing bump drafting by assigning spotters around the massive 2 1/2-mile Daytona International Speedway. Drivers who are cited for bump drafting, a tactic where a car slams into the rear of another car to keep it's momentum, will be black-flagged and penalized.
The prohibition will be tested for the first time in Thursday's Gatorade Duel at Daytona, the two 150-mile qualifying races that set the starting grid for Sunday.
The reigning Nextel Cup champion, Stewart publicly complained about the frequent bump drafting at Daytona after last Sunday's Budweiser Shootout.
But some drivers do not believe the threat of "drive through" penalties will not stop bump drafting.
"Honestly, no," three-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Jarrett said. "You can talk about it all that you want, but to say that you're going to put somebody on the inside or outside of the race track and monitor bump drafting at the right or wrong places, I don't know how you can do that.
"They can attempt to do anything. But until we do something that physically hurts the design of the car whenever you hit someone too hard, then we're not going to get much accomplished."
Jarrett said teams and drivers have realized they have a tool by ramming the car in front of them with the front bumper to keep up the speed. If done properly, bump drafting will make both cars go faster, but it has to be done on a straightaway. When drivers bump the car in front while in the turns, it can send it out of control.
On a restrictor-plate track like Daytona, that can be very dangerous.
"Coming off the corner and pushing the guy before he's quite straight," Greg Biffle said. "Maybe bumping a guy right going into the tri-oval or right coming off the tri-oval or getting in the corner, those are areas that we don't need to be pushing each other. If it's on the straightaway and everybody is straight and in the line and you come up and you shove the guy a little bit and get a little advantage, that's OK. But to constantly be jamming a guy's bumper all the way around is just not safe."
By placing even more power in the hands of its officials, NASCAR has satisfied the concerns of several drivers.
"I hope that NASCAR steps in," Elliot Sadler said. "They have to do something. Drivers all complain about different stuff all the time, but when we're all complaining about the same thing, then there must be a problem. We're always asking for help for the Fords or the Chevy guys are always asking for help for their Chevys. But when we're all complaining about the same thing for our safety, then I think NASCAR needs to step in and do something."
Sadler would like to see NASCAR take away the bumpers on the front of the Cup cars. That way, a front-to-rear impact would damage the front end of the car and affect its aerodynamic balance.
"We have more stuff done on the front of our car than you would have on a bulldozer, and it's made for that because you've got to get in where you fit in," Sadler said. "You've got to bump draft, if they're allowing it, to try to make passes. But I think if you weaken up the front ends on the stuff and make us take out some bars and all this metal plating that everybody is running ... it will make it a lot safer for everybody involved."
Think I said this LAST year!
You can measure the opening in a carburetor, bore & stroke, put a template on a car, all evenly, but this is nothing other than absurd.
Just get rid of the <expletive deleted> plates and get to racin'.