Train wreck

[OldSchool+]

EG--To your point, I think that in their current state, "stages" are nothing more than "competion yellows" (a clear oxymoron). And they are .

Much better would be to have them in a couple three shorter increments and a longer one at the end. "Heats" and a "feature", if you will. The feature would carry a larger points benefit.

And in between each would be, say, a 20 minute break where teams could change a number of critical items--Springs, shocks, gear, etc.

Legality? At the end of the day everybody has to pass tech or face the usual ridiculously punitive NASCAR wrath.

Dirt will come when they need a last ditch (pun intended) effort when all else has failed. Remember, they are desperately holding on to "big time", and we cannot have Brittany and Tad getting dirt on their blouses now, can we?

[luke81]

I think we can all agree that IndyCar is a far, far level below NASCAR at this point, but I think NASCAR would do well to look at their model. IndyCar is growing, adding more teams and keeping costs in check. I know it's popular to hate on the "spec car" model, but it sure does work in IndyCar. Part of the egregious cost of operating a major Nascar team is that not only are you running a race team, you're running an entire fabrication and manufacturing facility. And in the end they're all building the same thing with slight variations that they hope will give them the edge. It would be vastly more cost effective if most of the parts were built at one central facility and then just sold to the teams to be bolted on. This concept is already proven to work in NASCAR! Stewart-Haas won 2 championships buying parts and cars from Hendrick, and Furniture Row did it on a smaller budget, with a smaller team by buying cars and parts from Gibbs. Plus when every car in the field is built with the same set of parts the tech process is easier. I don't think the teams are ever going to want to do that, but it's worth a look for sure.

[OldSchool+]

Luke, Though not a bad idea in theory, in the various "Fix NASCAR Threads" that pop up from time to time, by far the most common (and uninformed, imo) suggestion is: "They should run stock stock cars, like back in the early days.".

Clearly, the objection is that the cars are currently too much alike, and a spec car per se would further alienate at least some of the paying public.

And, like the Sportsman/Crate class, it just seems "right" that there is room for innovation somewhere.

Eb--"Say, Zeke, y'all reckon we ort to run the Riley or Dallara cha-seese in Cup this here year?"

Zeke--"Say whut...?"

[luke81]

Luke, Though not a bad idea in theory, in the various "Fix NASCAR Threads" that pop up from time to time, by far the most common (and uninformed, imo) suggestion is: "They should run stock stock cars, like back in the early days.".

Clearly, the objection is that the cars are currently too much alike, and a spec car per se would further alienate at least some of the paying public.
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But that's a ridiculous suggestion that isn't realistic, so I'm ok with just ignoring it and doing something to make the actual product better. The chances are less than zero that NASCAR ever gets to a point where Joe Gibbs strolls on down to the Toyota dealer in Charlotte and buys up every Camry on the lot just before racing season. And I don't think anyone actually wants to see the on-track product that would produce either. Even in IndyCar there are certain areas on the cars that the teams can tweak and engineer on their own, and I think that should always be there in racing. I'm just not convinced the finances of running a full production facility is going to be sustainable for these teams going forward.

[jacko241]

The chances are less than zero that NASCAR ever gets to a point where Joe Gibbs strolls on down to the Toyota dealer in Charlotte and buys up every Camry on the lot just before racing season. And I don't think anyone actually wants to see the on-track product that would produce either.

I don't think that is necessarily true. You should take a look at Australian V8 Supercars. They are heavily based on production cars, will go 190mph, and put on great shows. Take a look at this video and tell me that isn't racing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAFRS5r2g8E

[OldSchool+]

That is great racing.

But the street platforms of the various current Cup participants vary significantly compared to those cars.

IF that changed, it could happen.

But I don't see it coming. Nor do I see a spec chassis on the horizon as it is the custom --historically and currently-- across all of stock car racing--to build one's own chassis.

Either would cut costs, but I believe a serious reduction in horsepower (that is way overkill for the current tire anyway) would cut more.

All that said, NASCAR, er, I mean IMSA, took a perfectly good NASCAR-ish easy to work on "Daytona Prototype" sports car:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...0qbjcFG1M0MTM:

And replaced it with a largely European spec class car:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...Uyqdz8M7ZbAoM:

Some of the absolute fugliest cars of all time, imo.

So, gents, who knows. Anything is possible these days.

[luke81]

I don't think that is necessarily true. You should take a look at Australian V8 Supercars. They are heavily based on production cars, will go 190mph, and put on great shows. Take a look at this video and tell me that isn't racing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAFRS5r2g8E

I love SuperCars! But I don't think they would translate well on to the 1.5 mile ovals that nascar loves so much. Which is a whole different part of the problem!

And it wasn't that long ago that Nascar teams didn't build their own chassis. Banjo Matthews built most everyone's chassis through the 70's and early 80's.

But you're so dead on right, anything can happen out of the nascar offices right now.

[zerofor]

Nascar has to make changes and in the next five years they will have no choice.The American car companies are not so slowly phasing their car lines out in favor of their light truck and utility lines.Toyota has downsized the Camry into the new Supra body and with Mustangs and Camaros the new norm in Nascar,in a few more years it will have no choice but to become another Australian Supercar type series.A point I brought up here several years ago.And no I don't think that translates well on 1.5 mile ovals either.With Nascar aquiring ARCA,the Xfinity series will cease to exist a few years from now.Arca will take it's place.The K&N series will take a step up.Nascar better start watching Lucas Oil Late Model series.Their " Dirt Million" at Mansfield Ohio last summer paid 203, k to win with another already scheduled for summer 2019.They have two or three more events where the winner's cut is 100k or more.Not exactly a normal Saturday night at ( fill in the blank) speedway.

[OldSchool+]

04--The dirt payout is a big deal. Dirt racers AND fans are hardcore, for sure.

BUT, I see it being less sustainable that the current clown show on a weekly basis, and I don't see the manufacturers or mainstream sponsors (read: money) getting behind it.

In other news:

"Banjo Matthews built most everyone's chassis through the 70's and early 80's." Luke81

Well, except for Hutcherson, Petty, Yunick, I think Childress, and more that I cannot remember.

[zerofor]

but that is in NASCAR's current form as you know it

I think other manufacturer's would jump in if it became more like the Australian V8 Supercar series.But once again that model would rely on more road course races.I think Honda has been a very interested spectator for quite a while for one.If the dirt car world ( World of Outlaw sprints included)can continue to come up with six figure winner purses coupled with the ability to continue to get corporate sponsorship on the level they have Nascar damn sure can't afford to ignore their business model.Nascar has far far more overhead.

[OldSchool+]

"Nascar has far far more overhead [than dirt tracks]."--04

Bingo, this man's a winner. One free pint of STP

And once it strangles their margin a little more, they will be forced to go to smaller facilities.

Hey, it's cool with me if they run a few events on dirt. They used to. It's cool with Tony too.

Just keep him in the tower (booth?) and away from the pace car.

[jacko241]

Since I cannot come up with a reason why cars like the Aussie Series would not work on ovals, maybe someone can tell me.

[OldSchool+]

Here is the reason you cannot come up with it: You ain't trying hard enough!
Just kidding, Joe.

To your point, I think that if we took those V8 Supercar series cars per se and put them on a boat, brought them over, and turned them loose on Charlotte's roval or a road course, I believe instantly they would do well. Likewise on Bristol and probably Martinsville.

After that, it gets...complicated.

To answer your question, here are two (2) reasons--

First:
Let's take Talledeger. Those are unibody cars with a cage in them. As is, can they take the stupid/horrendous wrecks that occur there and the driver, um, live?
If not, they need a bunch more tubing. And even if the guy lives, can you clip them or--as would be my guess--the uni-egg gets easily bent and then needs to be tossed?

If the second is true--and even if it is not--typically a purpose-built chassis is cheaper in the end for stock car racing. I could be wrong in this case, but I kind of doubt it.

And if it ain't cheaper, it ain't better, imo.

Second:
Let's ignore the fact that our current cars are not as close to each other in silhouette as the Aussiemobiles, and again assume we are talking about them per se.

On 1.5 mile tracks (and up), Teams have received serious fines for minor body mods in between the complex templates of "the claw" before they digitized the whole deal.

That is because, of course, that that is all it takes to have an advantage and run off. Hence, the cars look damn near identical in testing at Daytona in primer without their sponsor headlight (and tailpipe ) stickers.

The V8 Supercars have relatively minor appearing differences that would be relatively major if the Cup Teams were running them on the existing tracks, and the 2018-often-boring show would get far, far worse. In order to have close competition that would need to be..."fixed".

Of course, if we have tube chassis and identical bodies, that leaves us with...The Car of Today.

Now, I am not totally against the idea. I would be down with the stock type cars with different bodies and maybe even stock unibody based cars if they were not prohibitively expensive.

BUT, what that would take for a good show would be a bunch of short tracks, and at least chicanes if not infield road courses everywhere else.

Do we see NASCAR doing that...?

You see, the real problem is their (crappy) "coliseums of speed" and NASCAR's refusal to "fix" them. For years, they have been trying to band-aid the problem with the cars (with at best limited success), and are heading further than ever down that road in 2019.

Yer up!

[luke81]

04--The dirt payout is a big deal. Dirt racers AND fans are hardcore, for sure.


"Banjo Matthews built most everyone's chassis through the 70's and early 80's." Luke81

Well, except for Hutcherson, Petty, Yunick, I think Childress, and more that I cannot remember.

According to the Wiki (citing an article from Circle Track) he built 72% of the winning cars from 1974 to 1985.
I'd say that's a pretty good stat!

[luke81]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think the V8 supercars are showroom cars turned into race cars at all. They're fully purpose built race cars with a sort of showroom appearing body draped over them (essentially the same thing as a current cup car) just using a LOT more technology. And they basically use a spec chassis to start with. I'd be surprised if building a v8 supercar wasn't a lot more expensive than building a cup car.