Posted on 02/02/2011 2:28:44 PM PST by WestCoastGal
Dang. With all the folks show’n up its starting to really feel like home. Missed it more then I thought.
I’m probably going to regret it but what tunes does grand daughter play...and be nice to me, by the end of next week I’ll almost be your neighbor.
Sorry - my car quit on me again - a real pos!! And, the mechanic I went to 2 weeks ago screwed me by saying it was the battery when in fact it’s the fuel pump.
Slowly going down the drain here financially.
Here’s the lineup for tonight
1. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2. Tony Stewart
3. Carl Edwards
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Kasey Kahne
6. Bobby Labonte
7. Clint Bowyer
8. Ryan Newman
9. Derrike Cope
10. Michael Waltrip
11. Greg Biffle
12. Jeff Gordon
13. Juan Pablo Montoya
14. Jamie McMurray
15. Jeff Burton
16. Kevin Conway
17. Kurt Busch
18. Kevin Harvick
19. Matt Kenseth
20. Mark Martin
21. Kyle Busch
22. Joey Logano
23. Jimmie Johnson
24. Regan Smith
Nice pic - I actually saw pics of Jr and KB drafting together yesterday AND talking in the garage - I’m too lazy to post them though.
Everyone hated that new format - why they couldn’t leave it alone is beyond me. I liked it when all the drivers came out and sat around the tables chatting together while one by one went up to draw. This time was lame - stupid people sitting up there in the background - what for? And, the Budweiser fla girls ??
Everyone hated that new format - why they couldn’t leave it alone is beyond me. I liked it when all the drivers came out and sat around the tables chatting together while one by one went up to draw. This time was lame - stupid people sitting up there in the background - what for? And, the Budweiser flag girls ??
Practice starts at 11am today on SPEED and it’s on all day - other shows like Live in between until the Shootout on Fox tonight at 8pm. Great start for our racing fix!
Dale Jr among drivers saying #NASCAR should INCREASE plate size after cars hit 203 & what others said about practice. http://bit.ly/h2i64g
My day to work so I’ll be back home about 2 real time. I will checkin from time to time until then...
OK, they didn’t drink the beer. I forgot about Logano, ya can’t be serving alcohol to minors on national TV.
I was watching but also fixing supper. Actually just heated up left over ribs.:)
You can say that again! ;)
THE DRAFT ACCORDING TO THE MASTER
Q: How soon do you think drivers will link up into the two-car drafts?
First lap. I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Guys are tuning their cars to where they’re getting more comfortable putting their engines through that.
The most concern is the engines – cycling the motors in and out of temperatures like that. I think guys are getting a little more comfortable with that.
In the Shootout, it’s possible to see guys push the envelope and see how much the engine can take.
Q: You practiced the exchange between the two cars a lot during practice.
Yeah, the exchange is important. It’s real hard to get back to the guy in the lead when you get put into second place. The leader has to slow down to half throttle and brake to what feels like 60 mph to get the other car back up underneath him.
There’s a beach ball effect (of an air pocket) between the two cars, and to be able to bust through that and get the car back up there, get the cars sealed up together and get going again, you’ve got to do that quick. It’s kind of tough to do.
As the lead car, you’ve got to go completely out of your way to get the car behind you reattached. It’s just taken everybody a little while to understand; you know, we’re not used to lifting and giving up that much speed.
Q: Can you actually feel it when you break through that air bubble?
You can feel and you can see it visually. (The trailing car) will sort of be sitting there, and you have to brake-check, and he’ll bust through the bubble and it sort of plugs him in.
Air is coming around the tail piece and it’s also coming over the spoiler – he’s got to get around that and get underneath it.
It’s always been there, but the cars haven’t been so slow that you can push each other all the way around the racetrack like you can now. It would be fast enough to where it would be too dangerous and you’d feel so out of control in the corner, we never did it.
Q: If NASCAR changes the restrictor plate to reduce speeds, how will that change the two-car draft?
Well, if they slow us down, we’ll just be able to do this better. And it possibly could come a situation where even three or four cars could do it together.
If you slow the cars down, you make this easy. When the cars are just a little bit faster, you get into the corner and spin each other out.
We’re almost in that position in Talladega. It’s way easier to do (the two-car draft) here than in Talladega because of the speed. At Talladega, we almost wreck each other – as I’ve done to Burton last year – you can wreck each other bump-drafting in the corner.
But the plate is so small here that it’s way easy. So easy. But in December when we were testing with (a bigger) plate, we tried to do that bump-draft shit, and it wouldn’t work in the corner. We’d get in the corner and almost wreck – just that little bit (made the difference).
If you slow it down, it’s not going to stop it.
Q: When is the last point where you’d want to switch places with someone during the race?
Well, what you want to do is push somebody until the last straightaway – then pass him. You don’t want to pass him too early, because he’ll be able to pass you back. Or if you pass him and don’t let him get back to you, somebody (else) is going to run by you.
As soon as you pull out, his car is going to do 185 mph – that’s as fast as his car can go with that plate. It goes 185 by itself, and if you pull out, that’s (the speed) he’s going to be doing in two football fields.
Q: So it’s all about the slingshot move to win?
Absolutely. That’s the whole thing. When you’re in second, whenever you want to pass the guy, you can do it in 50 yards. You pull out, and he just stops – it just kills his car.
There’s a 20 mph difference between how the cars run by themselves and how they run in the bump-draft. As soon as you pull out, you can just go right by him.
It’s definitely best to be running second in a little two-car lock off of Turn 4 and (pass) somewhere between there and the flagstand. It’s the same thing they were doing at Talladega last year.
Q: Is the two-car draft going to spoil the show?
I’m not sure. I think it’s still dramatic. Ten two-car packs aren’t as cool as one 20-car pack, no. But it’s still going to be interesting, and everybody is going to be talking about the finish for weeks and weeks, no matter how it works out. It’ll be good.
Eh, they could give him a “neer” beer.
Jr’s starting first. That’ll get some folks excited.
Norm, you do know that Dish’s Speed Channel is in HD, right??
NASCAR to keep restrictor plate size same for Shootout despite cars hitting 203 in practice
NASCAR will NOT change the restrictor plate size for tonight’s Budweiser Shootout, Cup Series Director John Darby said Saturday morning but NASCAR is making a change in hopes of slowing the cars.
Ten drivers hit 200 mph or more _ led by Joey Logano’s lap of 203.087 _ in Friday night’s practice session at Daytona International Speedway. Drivers were aided by cooler evening temperatures, a resurfaced race track and the ability to run several laps in a row stuck in a two-car track, building momentum and speed around the 2.5-mile speedwday.
Here’s what NASCAR will do, according to Darby: (Hey Darby quit messing with things)
“There’s a couple of fresh air hoses that a lot of the teams added _ that are OK, it’s not something that they did outside of us knowing about it _ and we’re just taking them back off,’’ Darby said. “If the cars can heat up a little quicker to where we can limit the amount of laps that they push each other for all the reasons we’ll probably have a little better race out of the deal.
“At tracks other than Daytona and Talladega you would have a brake duct installed and run air hoses to the brakes. Nobody uses brake cooling here, so in the same real estate, we said, all right, go ahead and put a couple of hoses in here to help to get some extra air to your radiator and oil coolers. We don’t believe it’s needed for a normal, functioning race car on the race track, so we’re going to take it off.’’
When Time Warner moved Speed to HD I had to get a cable box.
Seven dollars a month for one channel, ain’t that special?
Actually get more, but rarely watch them.
I guess silly season for Nascar is never over.
Both Jr and JJ said they should have made the plate bigger - I guess we will find out tonight.
They mess with it too much and we’re back to follow the leader racing.
The ‘they’ in that sentence up there^ was for Nascar. :P
I believe Speed is part of a regular package from Dish Network. Speed HD is part of their HD package but we watch maybe 1/5th of the HD channels. Don’t have the time and can’t sit still for extended hours anyway.
Breakfast: Stuffed pancakes w/chocolate and peanut butter. I never get any of those north-coast CA donuts.
You back already? That was a fast trip...
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