Daytona 500 Pole Qualifying is today, so might as well start a thread.
Caught the last few minutes of qualifying on Sunday. Am I mistaken or were they doing single lap runs? The height of Speedweeks is nuts in Daytona. I was in college there and the entire town gets turned upside down as they re-route traffic in and out. It was an exercise in utter futility as my apartment and the campus were both within half a mile of D.I.S. and the way they had traffic routed, it would take nearly an hour to get to school. The best option then was to evacuate town and head back Sunday night after the whole thing was over. Long lines everywhere and price gouging on a level not to be believed. The best option for locals (at least) was to retreat! Not sure if the Speedweeks of today draws the same sort of crowds but in late 80's it was a train wreck. BHW
While I don’t care for it, those guys are REALLY good. I’ve driven a road course cup car and, it’s a handful to say the least.
How could that "race" be described as anything but a complete and utter debacle? Hope poor Newman pulls through. BHW
I've taken a few around some short tracks. Really explains why it's so hard for and open wheel guy to be successful in a stock car...like going from a Ferrari to a dump truck. Will be interesting to see how the new car handles. Clint Bowyer and his brothers used to throw parties at a go cart track before the Kansas race I'd go to and I'd watch Clint beat everyone, pull over and let everyone pass, then work his way back to the front just for fun. These guys are not just pedal monkeys, it takes some serious skill to do what they do.
No one can take anything away from NASCAR drivers. When you see one of these cars up close and how flimsy they are, you'd have to be mental to want to get into one and go racing. That they're running 200MPH nose to tail, door to door the way they do lap after lap, those guys have some serious balls. Always interesting to see NASCAR drivers reactions when they drive a real racing car such as F-1, Indy Car or sports cars. Even Kyle Busch who ran the GTD Lexus at the 24 Hours of Daytona this year was astounded by the performance. Well, sure, even GTD cars have like, you know, real racing brakes and aero so of course they're going to be fast and nimble compared to a near 4,000 behemoth with scrawny little brakes, etc. Good to hear Newman has no life threatening injuries after his horror crash. That was pretty scary as the Safer Barrier did its job and absorbed a lot of the first impact but when he got hit by the trailing car full on into the driver's side cockpit while inverted that looked really serious. Newman must owe a lot to the cockpit safety structures they have now as 15 years ago, that would have been a fatal impact. The other scary aspect was the huge amount of fuel pouring out of the tank after the car came to rest right near open flames with Newman still very much strapped in the car. Very fortunate all that fuel didn't explode or we'd be eulogizing Newman this morning. BHW
flimsy? Newman survived (although not sure how badly injured he is) multiple heavy impacts at 200 mph in a 3500 pound car. those things are tanks.
True, sure barton was referring to the Sheet metal used to surround the Tank that stuff is very flimsy.
The good news is it sounds as though Newman is awake, alert and talking to doctors at Halifax. I'm aware of the internal crash structure in NASCAR cars these days. They nearly resemble a open wheel cockpit within the roll bar structure. Definitely what saved Newman's life as that most certainly would have been fatal 10-15 years ago. That was an enormous impact he absorbed while flying inverted through the air. Perhaps one of the worst shunts I've ever seen and I've seen plenty. BHW