Also i would LOVE to see how the Americans would react to a V8 super car round in the states at like.> laguna Seca or something .. !!! i would love to watch that !

^They wouldn't react because they'd be watching NASCAR.

Awesome. Sonoma is my favorite NASCAR race of the year. I'm still ticked off about the fates of my three favorite road course racers though (Gordon, Fellows, and Said.) I guess I'll have to wait for Watkins Glen to see them up in front again.

This thread has confirmed my ignorance toward Nascar.. I didn't even know there was road courses. I now have much greater respect for it. :-)
How many are there in total in the season?
Do you find that teams who do well on a speedway circuit may be replaced by other teams at the top of the grid on the roads circuits?

2 i believe... dont ask me where...

but honestly they arent very good cars for the road courses... they spinout a lot...

There are only two road cource races in the season. :-(

Not really. Top teams are usually in the front. You'd think road course specialists would always lead, but they don't have clear domination over the rest, probably because NASCAR drivers do not use the same normal racing line for the track (let alone same configuration), and the car feels different from what they usually drive.

Top drivers who do well in ovals might fall back. You might see a non-first tier team getting close to front, but it's not guaranteed.

*I should mention that I was talking about the Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel Cup). The Nationwide Series (formerly Busch Series) has two road course races too, I believe. One at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico and at Watkins Glen like in Sprint Cup.

I'm not at all a fan of the new fatter stock cars, but you can say the same about any production based road racing series where they race at 9-10/10's in traffic.

To be perfectly honest I wouldn't be so annoyed with nascar if there was variety to the racing. Bring back multiple models to the series. Allow different teams to use different body chassis, just make them look like actual muscle cars like back in the old days.

Out of all the racing series nascar is the slowest to implement new racing changes to their respective series. F1, Le mans, etc all do a variety of changes every year. Next year in F1 the aero in the rear is completely changing for the cars to allow closer racing.

The COT cars in nascar were a response to Dale Sr's death, it's taken them 7 years to build what is essentially a slightly different shaped replacement with a splitter and rear spoiler. Congratulations, you have joined racing technology from the 1980's, now about those carbeurated engines...

Nascar like to advertise it's about the drivers not the cars, that is a very backwards way of dealing with people who have issues with the lack of technology in the racing.

Right now I could pour a package of skittles in the toilet and flush and it would look about the same as a "stock" car race.

That sounds a bit too much like NASCAR (which is the epitome of restricting in the name of competition without being a full-on spec series.) I'm cynical towards F1 and generally see those changes as being made to help the red skittles get around their respective pathes first.

So which do you want, technology (aero in this case) or looks? With the current safer and fatter bodies in NASCAR. . . they kind of have neither, but the point remains, that would mess up the aero. I think some of my favorite stock cars were from the 80's as those were the last ones that weren't so rounded off. I blame modern (read aerodynamically efficient) car design in general for that though.

Horsepower gains in NASCAR are more likely to be relevant to normal cars as the 5.7 litre V8's actually have to have some torque to pull a 3400 pound car around. Drag racing and NASCAR have done much more for real world cylinder head and camshaft design than F1 ever thought of. There's something to be said for the tech of mechanical intelligence. I don't exactly see F1 technology trickling down to the masses. Then again, I don't want to preheat my engine before startup because of race temp only tolerances. Equally irrelevant to normal production cars are the suspension systems used on their ultra-light cars.


Anyway, this is a good chance to bring up a tangent question. What changes would make NASCAR "not low-tech" in your eyes?

Fuel injection? Direct injection? Smaller displacement force-fed engines? Higher revving engines? DSG style transmissions? More emphsis on right hand corner carving? Lighter vehicle weight? More exotic construction materials (in the name of reducing weight?) Drivers going on fitness programs? More computer nannies/aids? Needlessly complicated but nevertheless seemingy high tech systems that do little to aid final performance?

Come on folks, put in your two cents.

I could care less about racing technology getting into production cars, only ever so rarely does that ever happen in the real world. Ferrari is the only company that translates it's F1 technology to it's production cars.

For stock cars it would be going backwards to take it's "race" technology to a modern sports car.

Drivers going on fitness programs - That's a start, a lot of the stock car drivers are rather porky which shows the dramatic contrast between every other motorsport out there.

Fuel injection/Direct Injection - Nascar is only sticking with carbonated engines to appease the old school fans. For crying out loud fuel injection has been around since the late 50's. This is not new fangled technology.

Small discplacement/Forced Induction - I have no doubt if a new engine formula using small engines with turbos or super chargers wouldn't be big with the crowds. V8 rumble is what sells the series.

Flappy paddle gear box - why the hell not? Or the very least a dog box, I always wondered why they don't just put an automatic in those cars.

More emphasis on right hand corner carving - What is this "right hand" you speak of. There is only left. Seriously though, more than 2 road courses a year would get more respect out of real racing enthusiests. As far as I know, a stock car has never attempted the cork scew.

Lighter vehicle weight - 3500 lb race car = fail, needs to be under 3000 lbs

Computer aids - F1 cars don't use them anymore, these don't have to.

People who claim they are devils advocates about multiple racing series including nascar don't get the real purpose behind it. They are 187 mph billboards. Nothing more, nothing less. I have no doubt the reason the COT took so long to finish was to maximize how many advertisement sticks they could get on it theoretically.



There is my two and a half cents.

^Here's a thought. NASCAR's successful formula doesn't really rely much on its cars. Then why would they try to make everything high tech when things are going well as they are? Let's be honest. Making NASCAR high tech isn't going to increase number of fans in any case.

But I do agree with one of your points, though. Diversity in cars would definitely help. And making cars look like actual street cars would be awesome.

If you think about it, isn't all racing series that way? ;-)

I don't question that sponsorship in all racing series is the primary source of income to allow continued progress for the respective racing teams.

But nascar takes it to a whole other level. Every single race a brand of some kind is being mentioned prior to some mundane event either it be looking at track positions or even a damn camera view. The track announcers do it during commentary. And as for the drivers...

Every single time they are interviewed they do mini-commercials for whatever top sponsor brand is on their car. It's pathetic how they do it too, it's like "I suck dick to race this car!"

In ALMS I don't see this going on, every once in a while it happens but all I see are drivers thanking what matters, their team and driving ability. Same for F1.

And F1 is the most profitable motorsport in the world. So you can do it with out getting on your knees.

Why do you think ALMS is not a mainstream motorsport? It's popular among people who know it. It's one of the best respected. But is it mainstream? Is it that profitable? No. Probably not. It's a different ball game altogether.

F1 is most profitable by sheer figure or percentage? Either way, teams spend $3 billion dollars each year. Tracks cost hundreds of millions. New Gran Prix organizations now get fundings from governments. FIA Super License costs $15,000 per driver and they have to pay $3100 for each point they've earned in a race while teams have to pay $467,000. And FIA's thinking about increasing that to $1.15 million. As if that's not enough, FIA wants each Grand Prix organizer to pay $20 million+ per race to keep it on the calendar. And take a look at what kind of companies sponsor F1. Giant corporations who can "afford" to pay millions of dollars for a tiny spot on an already tiny car. That's before considering that good F1 tickets cost hundreds of dollars.

It's a different kind of approach to making profits. True. NASCAR does have huge paying sponsors, but not as much as F1.

At least I don't have to listen to commercials during a race and drivers prostrating themselves.

Because you don't see it on your F1 coverage doesn't mean they don't shill. ;-)

Michael Schumacher for the Swiss Agriculture
http://www.sniffpetrol.com/wp-conten...chuswissad.jpg
http://www.sniffpetrol.com/wp-conten...erlollipop.jpg

Giancarlo Fisichella for Drive beer
http://www.drivebeer.com/

Fernando Alonso for Visa credit card
http://www.cajastur.es/particulares/...oducto423.html

Juan Pablo Montoya for Cafe Tostion coffee
http://www.cafetostion.com/index.html

Kimi and Michael for Fiat Bravo

Oh, and that's right. All the F1 drivers often advertise for big expensive looking brands, so they don't look like they're whoring themselves. Hugo Boss, Tag Heure, Abbey National etc...

And there was that big gaff where Lewis Hamilton played the Greek god Apollo for Vodafone. What a tosser. :-P
http://image.motortrend.com/f/motors...-as-apollo.jpg


In the end, it's all the same thing. ;-)