Racing News Digest

So what did you think about the Amp Energy 500 race Talladega Superspeedway?

I have a feeling a lot of people thought it was boring and even the ABC announcers hinted towards and almost sounded apologetic about the race being the way it was.

NASCAR implemented a couple new rules for safety which in the end made no difference. They produced what was maybe a boring race and there were still wrecks with a car going airborne, and going airborne in a bad way.

One of those new rules was that they made the teams go with a smaller restrictor-plates. Which in my opinion was the wrong answer. I don’t know how much that factor really played into the racing though. But NASCAR’s thought on it was to slow the cars down a little in response to Carl Edwards wild ride in the spring race this year.

I didn’t think this was a good idea because while I am no mechanic or engineer, I didn’t think it was going to matter how LITTLE they slowed the cars down, they could still get airborne. Ryan Newman proved that Sunday.

I posted something here about it.

No bump drafting or pushing in the corners was another brilliant idea by NASCAR. Pretty soon NASCAR will come around saying no bump drafting period because it was on a straight away that Newman got turned and airborne.

HERE I wrote about how NASCAR was considering measures like this right after Carl Edward’s crash.

The “no bumping or pushing” in the corners has always kind of been achieved anyways by drivers respecting each other. But there are times where they do push each other through the corners and get great runs doing so. But since NASCAR had to implement this new rule, drivers were very careful about not breaking that rule during the Talladega race.

“The more rules, the more NASCAR is telling us how to drive the race cars, the less we can race and the less we can put on a show for the fans,” Newman said.

“We should be able to race the race cars how we need to race them as drivers,” Newman said. “If drivers can’t respect each other then we’ll go … out in the back parking lot and talk about it.

“NASCAR doesn’t let us do that anymore, either.”

Carl Edwards agreed with Newman about NASCAR basically not allowing the drivers to race.

“I know exactly how Ryan feels. I know exactly how he feels.”

Hamlin thinks it is actually safer to push through the corners, I assume he doesn’t mean bumping…but pushing.

“Pushing each other in the corners and all the way around, that is the safest drivers can do because you are linked together,” Hamlin said.

“Let us race,” said Denny Hamlin, whose day ended early with a blown engine. “They gave us the car to race. Now let the drivers handle it.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. thinks they have over engineered the race at Talladega. His thinking is a little bit different about what needs to happen and makes sense to me as well.

“If they have to slow us down and run around these tracks at slower speeds, they have to make a smaller motor, make us run a smaller motor but be able to open it up so there is throttle response. Then slow the cars down with a little more drag or something. Them old cars in the 80s’ didn’t cut the wind like these things do. We have got them in ground and everything else advantage-wise to make it smooth and sleek and now we are having to trim the motors back to make the cars slower. It is probably the opposite of what needs to be going on. Probably need to open the motors back up and slow the cars down with the air. “

At the end of the day we had the following –
Average Speed: 157.213 mph
Margin of Victory: Under Caution
Time of Race: 03:13:54
Lead Changes: 58
Cautions: 6-8, 50-55, 106-108, 139-143, 185-189, 191

That with a pretty exciting ending. It was unfortunate to see those drivers wreck, but it did make for a fireworks ending to an otherwise pretty uneventful race. I was glad no one got hurt.

And if memory servers me right, almost every time we race here people are complaining about how boring the race was. So it is just Talladega and that is how it is?

What are your suggestions?

AND
At the end of the day NASCAR’s “slow em’ down” rule did nothing for keeping the cars and drivers safe. Ryan Newman proved that which is really ironic because after the Carl Edwards incident in the spring race which Newman was involved with as well, Newman was the only driver really saying that the biggest problem is keeping the car on the track. Not necessarily slowing them down but re-engineering the flaps on the car and maybe implementing more flaps to help keep the car down in those situations.

And then Newman goes airborne. Not from pushing or bumping in the corners. Slowing the car down didn’t help either (which no one really thought it would). You would really have to slow the cars down to a crawl in order to prevent them from going airborne.

Now, in all fairness, we probably would have seen more wrecks and cautions if there was not a rule this weekend not to push and bump in the corners.

What are your suggestions?

What would make the racing better at Talladega (remember..this isn’t the first race you have complained about it)?

What about keeping the cars from going airborne? What are your thoughts?