NASCAR Bristol Tire Conservation Race

[bdcardinal]

Just to point something out. The TV ratings were up 10% over last year.

Also with the current Gen 7 car, the 1.5 mile races have arguably been more entertaining than most track styles and especially with the Gen 6 car.

 

[72C10]

I'm happy to see a short track have an interesting racing for a change. The latest car has been terrible on short tracks, which is hard to fathom.

I'm not a huge fan anymore. What really brought me back to watching a few races was the resurrection of North Wilkesboro.

 

[Nesterenko]

Nascar's popularity has long since peaked and it has been on a steady decline for years. They aren't helping themselves with all the dumb changes. It would be so simple to fix it.

1. Get rid of stages. It's bush league nonsense.
2. Get rid of the Chase. No reason someone in 16th with 10 races to go should be in the hunt for a championship.
3. Stop with all the cookie cutter cars and setup restrictions. Allow ingenuity to return. It isn't helping the smaller teams.
4. Allow the drivers to have a personality.
5. Cut back on the 1.5 mile tracks. The racing is boring.

Agree with almost all of this, especially the item no.1, get rid of the stages. Item no.2 get rid of also.

 

[CapriRacer]

Nascar's popularity has long since peaked and it has been on a steady decline for years. They aren't helping themselves with all the dumb changes. It would be so simple to fix it.

1. Get rid of stages. It's bush league nonsense.
2. Get rid of the Chase. No reason someone in 16th with 10 races to go should be in the hunt for a championship.
3. Stop with all the cookie cutter cars and setup restrictions. Allow ingenuity to return. It isn't helping the smaller teams.
4. Allow the drivers to have a personality.
5. Cut back on the 1.5 mile tracks. The racing is boring.

I thoroughly disagree.

1) The middle of NASCAR races were boring. Adding stages added some spice in the middle. I want NASCAR to keep them even for the road courses!
2) The old way was a point system - and frequently a driver would get enough points that the last 2 races would be meaningless. But I can see a change that wouldn't make the championship dependent on 1 race. I don't want luck to play into the final result.
3) Cheating was rampant and the big teams had a large enough budget that they could do multiple illegal things. The big teams also had a large advantage in funding car prep. The latest car, while highly regulated has helped reduce the cost - to the point where even smaller teams have a chance. That wasn't the case before!
4) Driver personality is because of sponsors. Some drivers had a toxic personality and they had trouble with sponsors. That is not going to change until sponsorships are unnecessary - in other words, ain't gonna happen!
5) They've changed the mile and a half tracks enough that each track has a unique personality. I'd like a good mix of tracks - short track, road course, super speedway, etc. The only thing I think they need to really work on is super speedways. I'd like it not to be foot-to-the-floor. A little more driver skill, please!

 

[KCJeep]

I do like the stages, as mentioned it encourages racing throughout. The old days of 450 miles of driving in ovals to wait for the real race at the end are reduced.

I like the championship structure, but I HATE that they call it the "playoffs". Just dumb. Are they trying to bring over NFL fans or what? Not gonna happen.

 

[bdcardinal]

 

[bbhero]

I thoroughly disagree.

1) The middle of NASCAR races were boring. Adding stages added some spice in the middle. I want NASCAR to keep them even for the road courses!
2) The old way was a point system - and frequently a driver would get enough points that the last 2 races would be meaningless. But I can see a change that wouldn't make the championship dependent on 1 race. I don't want luck to play into the final result.
3) Cheating was rampant and the big teams had a large enough budget that they could do multiple illegal things. The big teams also had a large advantage in funding car prep. The latest car, while highly regulated has helped reduce the cost - to the point where even smaller teams have a chance. That wasn't the case before!
4) Driver personality is because of sponsors. Some drivers had a toxic personality and they had trouble with sponsors. That is not going to change until sponsorships are unnecessary - in other words, ain't gonna happen!
5) They've changed the mile and a half tracks enough that each track has a unique personality. I'd like a good mix of tracks - short track, road course, super speedway, etc. The only thing I think they need to really work on is super speedways. I'd like it not to be foot-to-the-floor. A little more driver skill, please!

1. Stages are stupid and unnecessary…. And confuse the hell out of the whole points system… It’s dumb as dirt.

No more lucky dogs… No more wave arounds… You have to earn your lap back… Double file restarts with lap down cars inside…

The last 10 laps in a race… Single file restarts …. If you are a lap down… well then that’s the way it is…

It used to be finishing on the lead lap was a good accomplishment… Now it means nothing…

And yeah did some races have only 2-6 cars on the lead lap back in the mid 1990s going farther back in time ? Yeah it did happen.

But it was real and people had to actually EARN their final finishing position… And yeah Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt Sr. made up being 2 laps down and won races back then… So did other drivers back then do that too.

2. A season championship should mean the WHOLE season…. And let’s be clear…. If Dale Earnhardt Sr won the 1987 season championship by nearly 500 points… ITS BECAUSE he deserved to do that…

And yet at that time NASCAR was still growing and growing…

And not every year is going to be like 1988, 1989, 1990 or 1992 or 1997… That’s why those years were truly SPECIAL… It is REAL… Not phony made up bull number two exit material…

I had no problem with Matt Kenseth winning the 2003 championship because he had a 448 point lead with 4 races to go…. He earned it and yeah he was lucky as hell too… But he earned it.

3. Let’s be clear…. In the early 1980s a single car team could compete and win a championship in 2 years…. Dale Earnhardt Sr and Austerlund Racing did that… Single car teams back then were the “ little guys”… And IF you had the right driver… the right team and mechanics…. And the right owner back then they could compete almost right away… Rick Hendrick did the same thing by the way… So did Alan Kulwicki…

So… Why did that happen back then ?

Maybe just maybe NASCAR needs to go back to a circumstance like that to make it better for all teams…

GET RID of ALL the stupid over regulation rules in NASCAR… It’s ridiculous…

4. If a driver is an idiot a owner used to be able to drop him like a bad habit… Maybe that needs to get back to the way it used to be…

No long term contracts… year to year only.

And no more sponsor massive control over a driver either…used to be that way….

And it can and should get back to being that way.

5…. Easily answered… Get rid of restrictor plates … Get rid of the bottom 50-100 rows is stands at Talladega and Daytona …. Take those same seats and add them to the top of those tracks… That addresses better seats for those fans and addresses the safety concerns all in one swoop. Also at Talladega get a rougher grade pavement put on the track so drivers will have to slow down a bit and have to have a better handling car to make speed through the corners.

The mile and a half tracks largely suck….

Those are the bane of NASCAR because Bruton Smith kept building them to be just like Charlotte motor speedway…

What needs to actually happen..NASCAR needs to cut the schedule down to 29 races…

Only one race at Dover, Atlanta, Kansas, Las Vegas, Kentucky, Loudon and Pocono


If you want to keep 1 race at California, Michigan, and Phoenix that ok I think …


Get rid of the race at Indianapolis… And Texas too..

Keep the road course races at The Glen and Sonoma…

Keep 2 races at Daytona and Charlotte.. And Talladega.

2 races at Martinsville, North Wilkesboro, Bristol.

1 race at Richmond.

That leaves 4 other races… How about NASCAR go to smaller venue tracks.

Say like Asheville NC, Bowman Grey , Winchester, and maybe bring back a short track in Nashville… Or how about have them race at El Dora dirt track ?

Or other small venue short tracks…

Get NASCAR back to its roots…, They need to get back to reconnecting to the real everyday fans.., And 8 races at very small venue tracks will help do that in a very good way in my opinion.


And qualifying only 30 cars when they go to the small tracks. Hardly any provisionals…

 

[97prizm]

If you watched the NASCAR Bristol race - and you know me - you'll know I was very interested. Lots to unpack!!

If you didn't watch the race, the tires were wearing extremely fast, apparently because the track (concrete) wasn't "rubbering up" - that is having rubber embedded into the macrotexture like normal. As a result, the tires had to get all their grip from the track surface and none from the adhesion to the embedded rubber. That wore the tires much more rapidly than normal - so fast, they were wearing through the cords. Lots fo flat tires at the beginning.

It was possible to wear off a set of tires (either the right front or the right rear, depending on how the car was handling) within a few laps. This presented an unexpected challenge to the drivers and the crew chiefs. The drivers who did well were those with lots of experience in saving tires. The top 3 were Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex, Jr, and Brad Keselowski.

It took the drivers and the crew chiefs 2 stages before they really got a handle on how to deal with the situation. One of the interesting things was that any car could run a few very fast laps, but the tires would be gone in those few laps! It didn't take long for the drivers to figure that out, but it wasn't until the 3rd stage that enough was known, so the drivers and crew chiefs could plan a strategy.

As a tire engineer, I noticed quite a few things:

The tires had a single cap ply and perhaps only one belt not made of steel, probably Kevlar! The single belt doesn't make sense to me, but that's what it appeared to be.

The wear was on the inboard shoulder. Does that mean Goodyear was using a tread with 2 different compounds - inboard vs outboard? Or does it mean that there was too much camber?

If I were Goodyear, I would be assigning the fix to the Rubber Chemists! I think the tread compound was too dry and didn't adhere to the race track - but rubber chemistry is not something I understand very well, so take that with a huge amount of salt.

Did it make for an interesting race? You betcha!! I hope Goodyear doesn't change things too much as the sight of a front runner suddenly falling back because he pushed too hard was soooooo exciting to watch!

Are Nascar tires still bias ply? I know a few of the avon, And Hoosiers are. Not sure why as radial tires excel in just about every area that I can think of. Two from numerous articles tire manufacturers engineer tires and compounds for each track so why the issues at this track?

 

[97prizm]

I thoroughly disagree.

1) The middle of NASCAR races were boring. Adding stages added some spice in the middle. I want NASCAR to keep them even for the road courses!
2) The old way was a point system - and frequently a driver would get enough points that the last 2 races would be meaningless. But I can see a change that wouldn't make the championship dependent on 1 race. I don't want luck to play into the final result.
3) Cheating was rampant and the big teams had a large enough budget that they could do multiple illegal things. The big teams also had a large advantage in funding car prep. The latest car, while highly regulated has helped reduce the cost - to the point where even smaller teams have a chance. That wasn't the case before!
4) Driver personality is because of sponsors. Some drivers had a toxic personality and they had trouble with sponsors. That is not going to change until sponsorships are unnecessary - in other words, ain't gonna happen!
5) They've changed the mile and a half tracks enough that each track has a unique personality. I'd like a good mix of tracks - short track, road course, super speedway, etc. The only thing I think they need to really work on is super speedways. I'd like it not to be foot-to-the-floor. A little more driver skill, please!

One of the local teacks near me is a nascar sanctioned track but no nascar events. A few years ago I was able to get pit passes and cover the last big race of the year. The kid leading in points was so far ahead he didn't have to race the last two races, which waz a bummer. It's always fun to see a race come down to the very end.

 

[bbhero]

Are Nascar tires still bias ply? I know a few of the avon, And Hoosiers are. Not sure why as radial tires excel in just about every area that I can think of. Two from numerous articles tire manufacturers engineer tires and compounds for each track so why the issues at this track?

They haven’t used bias ply tires since the early 90s man….

 

[97prizm]

They haven’t used bias ply tires since the early 90s man….

Thats good. I haven't kept up with Nascar for quite a while

 

[MParr]

I haven’t watched NASCAR in many years. The so-called “parity” introduction was part of why I quit watching. The final straw was when Goodyear conspired with NASCAR to exclude Hoosier Tire.

 

[CapriRacer]

Are NASCAR tires still bias ply? I know a few of the Avon, And Hoosiers are. Not sure why as radial tires excel in just about every area that I can think of. Two from numerous articles tire manufacturers engineer tires and compounds for each track so why the issues at this track?

The race referenced in the title had radial tires - with belts. You can tell if the tires are radials when the tires fail, there's a large flap that is created that beats the fenders to pieces! That's the belt!

Why the problem at Bristol? I suspect the tires had a tread compound designed to wear and fall off in grip. What happened is that the concrete didn't rubber up, so instead the tires wore out faster.

 

[tmorris1]

Are Nascar tires still bias ply? I know a few of the avon, And Hoosiers are. Not sure why as radial tires excel in just about every area that I can think of. Two from numerous articles tire manufacturers engineer tires and compounds for each track so why the issues at this track?

No. They are radial

 

[tmorris1]

This is interesting. Rusty Wallace talking about taking off the restrictor plate at Talladega and driving 242mph.