Posted on 10/17/2005 5:40:57 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
NASCAR had the opportunity to build on its fan base Saturday night when the UAW-GM 500 roared to life seconds after Southern California's 34-31, come-from-behind victory over Notre Dame.
NBC viewers who were curious about stock-car racing simply needed to stay put following college football's thriller in South Bend, Ind., where the Trojans charged past the Fighting Irish with three seconds remaining. But as the prime-time TV cameras cut to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., NASCAR failed to seize the moment.
A rash of tire failures sent a succession of cars slamming into the track's concrete retaining wall and scared drivers so witless they barely raced at all. Instead of dicing for position as NASCAR's best do so expertly, racers kept safe distances between one another and didn't push their cars to their limit, many said afterward, for fear of blowing a tire. Despite the precautions, the 500-mile race was halted for a crash roughly every 20 laps. Nearly all of the crashes were caused by blown tires; not necessarily the fault of the tire supplier, Goodyear, most drivers argued, but the result of speeds generating more heat and abuse than the tires could withstand.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sounds like a cop-out to me. The track has been in it's current state since the spring. They held a 600-mile race there at the end of May and what, nobody has been out there testing? All I can say is "BuschSh!t" Goodyear engineering failed.... again.
The Cup race started about post 525.
I read somewhere that NASCAR intends to introduce a car with reduced aero. The code name for the basic car is "the Brick". I think that they intend to introduce it either this year or next, but I'm not sure how this effort dovetails with that of the manufacturers...
I love the taste of calcium chloride on a Saturday night. Nothing better than 1/2 mile dirt tracks!
The important part of this article?
"Southern California's 34-31, come-from-behind victory over Notre Dame. "
All the rest is filler.
He had his coke can prominently displayed after his crash, too. NAPA loves him, as do the rest of his sponsors. His brother taught him well. How else do you explain grown men to wearing a Tide jacket around town.
I think you are wrong on that. The reason NASCAR is so big IS because of TV.
Incompetent half-a$$ed engineering. Cars should not fall apart for any reason except accidents.
I don't know what race they are talking about here, but the one on Saturday night was a waste... at least the part of it that I saw, on the one screen in the bar... was watching the baseball playoffs.. and frankly if they got 20 laps between wrecks during that race I'd call it a miracle.
Admittedly in spite of being born and raised in NC, I have never cared for stock car.... and with the concept that allows an "overall champion" who could in theory have never actually won a race I find it even more of a joke then when I was groing up.
BEST WAY to watch NASCAR.
Record the whole race. Stay away from the news so you don't hear the name of the winner.
Then, play the tape of the race. You can fast-forward through the routine laps. Stop and re-play the exciting parts, especially the close calls and the smash-ups.
Great entertainment!
NO, NASCAR is because of it's FANS. TV is just exploiting the fan popularity.
That must be true because I do not have tv, the ONLY time I hear about nascar is on this forum. Secondly NEVER in 15 years have any of my friends mentioned, car racing, or nascar in any conversation.
It's been decades since I've been to a dirt track. Amazingly, when I went to the site to steal the photo, the same ol' boy (Dana Eiland - #K9) is still giving the competition a run for their money. I swear, I think we beat him only once in a hundred races.
WTF??? The DH comes to Auto Racing.
Sorry, sompetative bocci ball is more exciting to watch than NASCAR.
Well, someone said that NASCAR does not need TV. My answer is that if they want to keep making money hand over fist, then they need TV. NASCAR went from a southern interest to a nationwide phenomenon. No longer are the companies kung fu fighting for ad space just beer, cigarettes, and oil.
Funny how that works. At my favorite dirt track, Lebanon Valley, NY, it's the same names, but in most cases the next generation as when I started going in the 70's as a yung pup.
Back then, if you wanted to see racing, you went to the track and got lucky to catch Wide World of Sports do a 20 minute piece. Even indy was tape delayed, and went late, so I missed it. Damn 8:00 bedtime. Noe it's speed channel, VCR, DVR & Tivo. It just doesn't taste the same, though.
Remember that no one liked the flip side of the coin either. When one team had an ideal setup on hard tires, they took a huge lead for the entire race and it was boring. Indestructable tires = boring racing too dependant on engineering and not enough on drivers skill.
Now they have a softer tire that forces teams to manage their available grip. That encourages smarter racing and showcases drivers talent, not car set-ups. Too many teams are putting excessive downforce and using ultra aggressive suspension set-ups that abuse the tires down to nothing in short order.
Collective temptation to use setups that maximize grip and handling is not the fault of the tire engineers. With soft tires you only get so much grip so it's on the crew chief to put in place a thought out set-up and it's on the driver to either care for his tires to extend their grip, or choose to use it up in carefully chosen battles for position.
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