Posted on 11/02/2009 5:21:33 PM PST by NormsRevenge
As long as it took them to get him out, it’s a good thing the car didn’t catch fire.
Yup, gotta wonder how much worse it would have been if his landing wasn’t softened by Harvick.
I think Rusty Wallace ran an unrestricted Talladega lap of 223 MPH a couple years back and that was without a draft.
Genius.
About 50 mph as I recall.
The never exceed speed for an airplane is designed to keep the plane - which is designed to fly - from ceasing to fly due to breakup. The never exceed speed for a car is designed to keep the car - which is not designed to fly - from flying. Of course, I know I'm stating the obvious.
I agree that the landing was softened by Harvick. By all accounts, it wasn’t a “jarring” wreck.
That said, I’m tired of NASCAR changing the rules mid season. Leave these guys alone and let them race. Its like NASCAR is being taken over by liberals or something.
In this case NASCAR changed the rules an hour before the race.
Or, they could just run crappy tars like they did at the 2008 Brickyard , and have a cartion every 10 laps :o)
I can’t remember any speed this great. So far as I know Bill Elliot got up to 212 and that is when the restrictor plates finally came in. The necessity was when Bobby Allison nearly went into the stands. I’ve been to the track three times and I can remember when one of the cars nearly went into the stands. The best place to watch the race is at the end of the front stretch at the corner and it necessary to stand to appreciate the speeds. I saw my first race in 1990 if I recall correctly and it was something to behold as Dale Earnhardt led the pack into the turn. I saw one of the wrecks where cars went everywhere and Mark Martin was involved and it is a wonder he wasn’t killed. The smell and smoke is incredible.
There are really no good options here except to flatten the track out like Pocono or reduce the power still further by using V6 engines so the cars can separate further and eliminate the packs. However, those engines are so raspy that it would make everyone deaf. That is one of the reasons they quit using them and they were less reliable.
Probably the best and most enduring suggestion I read a long time ago would be to close both Talledaga and Daytona. I can’t imagine how they would cut the speeds by flattening out the tracks as the track would not be visible from the stands. I suppose they could introduce chicanes like Watkins Glen but that makes it a road race in effect.
The “cookie cutter” tracks are godawful and boring. Also the coverage is over saturated and there is no good reason to go to the track because you can see it so much better on a HD big screen set at home without all of the heat and misery of being at the track.
That’s correct! What if they changed the rules one hour before a football game?
And the chase for the cup is quickly becoming not interesting. Jimmy Johnson can sit out next week and still be in first.
NASCAR only knows one thing - cars race in circles and ONLY turn left. They need to look at other racing venues to see how to easily control speeds.
The track at Le Mans, France, has a straight (the Mulsanne Straight) that is over 4 miles long. Fast cars like Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari, etc. used to exceed 240 MPH for 24 hours on this section of track. A few years ago a car went air borne and flipped like happened Sunday. The fix was to add two chicanes to this section to force the cars to slow down before reaching top speed.
Maybe the easy fix is a couple chicanes at Talladega. Oh wait – that would cause the cars to use their brakes, turn to the right, and then accelerate. Probably can’t be done in a NASCAR “stock car”.
Move the Talladega track to Utah! If the weather doesn’t slow em down, the potholes will!
I’d like NASCAR to use a true stock body on the plate tracks. All body panels must be factory stock. The rest of the car can be purpose built.
Neuter'dCar
Fryer’s Five: NASCAR neutered Talladega
TALLADEGA, Ala. – There are only a few things you can count on each year from NASCAR, and a great race at Talladega Superspeedway is pretty much guaranteed.
By great, I don’t mean the spectacular wrecks that have come to signify NASCAR’s fastest track. What makes Talladega so special is the bumping and the banging, the slicing and dicing for position, and the white-knuckle race to the finish line.
So if Sunday was your first exposure to Talladega, well, you sat through a tremendous letdown. That race fell far short of expectations, and nothing NASCAR says or does is going to convince anyone otherwise.
A pre-race ban on bump-drafting through the turns essentially neutered the race.
Me likey ,,,
3 wide,,,
3 deep,,,
200+ goin’ into 1 ,,,
And hope it sticks...;0)
Why can’t they run half the race Counter Clockwise and half Clockwise...
We’d lose too many tar changers.
They could put the northbound pits on the left and the southbound pits on the left...
Yah, that was about as much fun as Dale Jarrett’s last win at Michigan.
Dude, don’t we need to go check the smoker again? Hate to see all that pig burn... wait, the Vikes are playin, right? Can I go buy some more beer? Series game? Good Eats reruns? Backgammon? Need some help with that laundry? Sock drawer? Dang, you’ve got a lot of leaves in the back yard...
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