I’ve been lobbying for years for them to try a standard dirt track format (heats, feature) for the All Star Race. That seems like the best testbed for this type of racing.

What’s funny is if you look at the standings at the end of the year WITHOUT the Chase factored in, there is better parity in champions. Jeff Gordon gets 7, Johnson has 3, and several others (Joey Logano, Carl Edwards) get a championship.

Exactly. Road Course ringers in the Cup Series are a thing of the past. Today’s drivers are good enough to compete at all tracks.

Off topic (but kinda on topic because of earplugs, Andrew when are you going to go to an NHRA event and do a story on it???? If you haven’t been you NEED to go.

Also over 25 million dollars in real estate.

He’s always been one of the classiest guys in the sport. Going to the pit box of the guy who you just had a wreck with while racing for a championships shows the caliber of person he is. However, as all of the reports have said, he’s a private person and the grind of a 38 week season can get to you after awhile. He…

That I’m not entirely sure of. I’m sure it’s “up to the discretion of NASCAR” or something stupid. Regardless, Manufacturers do manner in NASCAR.

Then why keep a “retro” brand like Indian and ax your forward thinking and modern brand?

Because the nose and tail come directly from the manufacturer and vary between the brands. Those pieces must have a resemblance to the road car. The nose piece is obviously the most important because it is what is being presented to the air first. Therefore, JGR and Toyota working together on the design of the road…

But first, a helmet.

Watching it again you’re 100% right. That race was a grudge race (heads up) which I missed. And you are correct, the S10 is a stick (odd choice for a drag car?).

Bracket racing. They were in an 11.0 index. If they run faster than an 11.000 they “break out” are disqualified. I’m guessing he saw how far out front he was and tapped the brakes to make sure he didn’t run faster than 11.0.

Great point. They couldn’t deviate too much at the start for fear of rattling the core audience. They have three years to steer the ship in whichever direction they want.

NHRA now regulates the angle of the headers. Cruz said in his interview that they didn’t even have their most laid back set on the car. Regardless, it’s still much more angle then they used to run.

The headers certainly didn’t help, but the main cause of this was the clutch grabbing all at once at 330 ft. The clutch shouldn’t be fully locked up that early in the run. The result was waaay too much power at that point of the run.

Ahhh yes that’s right. I had forgotten about that. That thing is insane.

Exactly right. The article states that the car was .010 out of spec. The tolerance is .012. If I’m understanding this correctly, they were within the tolerance? Or .002 outside of it?

Where did you see that? I can’t believe I missed it!

NASCAR can and has taken steps in-race to prevent this. If they see a team do something to change the body shape or intentionally alter the car outside of the rules they will make them fix it, like the jackman on the #2. A team might get away with it once or twice, but after the second time a car comes through post…

All of the rules NASCAR has have a tolerance built in. At the measurements we’re talking about there needs to be a tolerance built in. Ten-thousandths of a inch is too fine of a margin to police. NASCAR gives them a window to play in. It’s up to the teams to decide how far to push that window.