Changes the Big 3 Want to See in NASCAR

1. Challenger, Mustang, Camaro...would love to see that! Think NASCAR meets Trans-Am from the late 60's/early 70's
2. Hello, 1980? You want your technology back? Plus, a tech war would hand Toyota all the beans.
3. Can anyone say Portland and Road America? Would love to see that, too!
4. I think eliminating one series is probably a better way to go there (see below)
5. Truck series is the best racing in the NASCAR touring divisions, but otherwise useless. On its way to becoming the NASCAR Senior Tour. Find a way to make the COT race like the Trucks and you got a deal
6. Won't happen, since most of the sponsors in NNS are there to get cut-rate access to Sprint Cup drivers. NASCAR is still driven by market forces.

 

1. I'd rather see these cars in a revived SCCA TransAm, where they belong. But I'm all for a return to stock bodies.

2. Fuel injection, at least. When is the last time that Detroit sold a car with a carburetor? A reduction to around 5 liters might make restrictor plates unnecessary.

3. Agreed, and one should be in the southeast. I'd like to see one of the AMS dates moved to Road Atlanta. They already race historic stock cars there, and they put on a heck of a show!

4. Agreed, to no more than 26 a year. Eliminate second dates at most tracks except Daytona and Charlotte.

5. I don't care about this one way or the other. Or maybe change it to an SUV division?

6. At least, restrict regular Cup drivers to no more than, say, 5 races in the Nationwide series per year. Name another major racing series where the drivers from the top series also race in the "development" series -- there isn't one that I know of.

Another change I'd like to see:

7. Reduce fields, to no more than 36 at most tracks, and 30 on the short tracks. And they should all have to qualify on speed -- no more "provisionals". (And why 43 cars now and not 42 or 44? Paying homage to Richard Petty, perhaps?)

 

I've always wondered why 43 cars, too. I would love to see smaller, higher-quality fields too, and all qualify on speed (I believe that is done in the truck series?)

However, I seem to recall that both promoter and TV contracts call for 43 car fields, at least for the foreseeable future. Bruton Smith would have a field day with smaller fields, breech of contract, "NASCAR's cheating the fans", etc etc

 

I do't care about all the other things like the number of races, the size of the starting line-up, it works at this time. I would like to see the cars look like cars. I do not see why they can make the cars as safe as COT but at least have them look like the cars they represent.

No more Fusion or Camry coupes!!

 

I thought ALL COT's were the same body, the only difference being the headlight 'stickers' ?

nascar needs the truck series - or a 'third, less expensive' series to sell to venues that cannot always afford one of the top two series.
These series are pretty-much where a lot of tracks make 'just enough' money on them to stay open, much in the same way
small dirt ovals would lose money on all races except they would make enough to live on for the entire year when the WOO Sprint
Cars came to the track once or twice a year.

 

Weren't the last Trans-Am cars just road racing NASCAR gear?

 

They were tube frame silhouette cars, and some did run engines built by NASCAR teams (i.e. Roush) but they weren't identical to a NASCAR car.

 

Roush built engines for ALMS cars also. Could this be a sign that Americans
are starting to miss road racing?? With NASCAR and IRL trying to kill off the
road racing tracks 10 years ago this is really funny. NASCAR circle track racing is f-cking boring!

TT

 

not even close!

 

I agree that the truck series is and was stupid. However, you sometimes do things not because you want to do them, but because you don't want someone else doing them. I believe at the time the truck series was initiated to keep someone else from getting a toehold in stock car racing. That probably doesn't apply now that the economy is a bit tighter.

 

Trans Am were tube frame cars in the later years but started as stock body and frame cars. Bad pic, but it's all I have as the location.
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Michael, is that one of the infamous "acid dipped" Penske Camaros?

 

I don't know, this was from 3 years ago. Claimed to be authentic. If it was a Donahue car, it probably was. I have pics of the interior with documentation on the dash on an old computer. I'll have to dig later.

 

And F1 - where only 6 cars are capable of winning - maybe even 5 (If whiner Kimi cannot start in the first 2 rows) - is boring.

From what I read in the book, I understood that the only 'acid-dipping' was the engine block in the Javelins one year.
The book says they dipped 10 or 12 of them at the factory - then the factory 'lost them', so it figures some
little old lady from Pasadena was cruising in an AMC with a somewhat lighter-weighted engine block.

 

ARCA could have - except the political machine that is in Daytona Beach would have killed ARCA if it ever got any bigger than it is.

 

I was watching a NASCAR program on SPEED where it was stated that NASCAR wants to add two more road courses to the schedule for a total of four(one per quarter) and developing better rain tires so that road course races could be ran in the rain...

 

Sounds fantastic! Nothing breeds innovation like competition!

 

I can't figure out why the manufacturers support NASCAR at all any more. Everybody knows that the OEM content in a NASCAR Ford, Chev, Dodge or Toyota is virtually nil, so how do they gey any marketing payoff when their cars win? Truck racing is dumb as cardboard. I think the manufacturers are on the right track with their suggestions, but why would NASCAR listen? As far as I can tell, the car companies have little leverage on the sanctioning body. But then, I really don't know much about NASCAR, just my uninformed opinions....


Jack.

 

NASCAR will listen because the manufacturers dump between $50 and $75 million EACH into their sport every year. If you were staring at upwards of $225mm in unhappy customers, you'd listen too!

 

That was one of my points. It hardly seems like the manufacturers are getting a decent return on their investment in NASCAR, seeing as there's virtually no brand identity happening there. All the eyeballs seem to be on driver personalities and primary sponsors rather than vehicle manufaturers.

So it makes sense that the car cmpanies would want to have a lot more say in how NASCAR is run.

Jack

 

Well, most nascar fans that have a clue know this (OEM content), and those that don't do not care.
Fans follow drivers more than they do teams, and that is in every from of motorsport, not just nascar.
In F1, fans follow the teams, but also the drivers: Kimi fans followed him from McLaren to Ferrari, but by and large they are ALSO still McLaren fans.
We all want Ross Brawn to turn Honda around.... (?) I do.

They DO see a return on sponsorship, but I really don't think they are throwing 225M a year into it, I'd be surprised if it was over 50M.
If the manufacturers had any pull at all, I think they would have balked at all the 'aero modifications' nascar forced on teams to 'even out' the competition.
And you can only do some much with a 358ci pushrod motor with a carb on it.

It truly is nothing more than an IROC series now: but few seem to care.

 

I wouldn't mind if the National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing lived up to it's name a little bit more...

 

which part, National, Stock Car, or Racing?

 

As I recall, the Penske acid dip cheats can be identified by their vinyls roofs, which would be antithetical to racing but for their hiding the resultant ripples and dimples from the weakend panels.