The All-Star race is just around the corner.
It takes place at North Wilkesboro Speedway, which is a short track. Everyone involved with the sport knows that the short track package is not putting on good races in its current iteration.
NASCAR is obviously aware that the racing is not good and attempted to see if the teams would be interested in helping try and find a solution to make things better. It floated a trial balloon to the teams to have an open rule book for the All-Star Race and let the teams develop their own solution.
If things were successful for some of the teams, the sanctioning body would look at adapting them. Every team in the garage said ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ because they didn’t want to spend a bunch of money and time developing things for one race that would be obsolete after the checkered flag flew.
It was a forward-looking concept but, unfortunately, the canvas was too blank and too broad for a reasonable attempt from the teams. If there had been some limitations to focus on specific aspects of the car, it very well could have been a beneficial idea.
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There are several aspects of the new version of the car that could be tweaked to make racing better, at short tracks and other courses as well. Anyone who has paid attention to articles from this author over the last handful of years knows that getting the cars raised up off of the ground has been the drum beaten consistently.
When the sport went to the splitter instead of the valance, they put the front of the car on the ground and there is simply no air flowing under the car. The person in Daytona who is absolutely terrified about racecars taking off simply loves the concept of having these vehicles glued to the track.
Unfortunately, that makes these cars incredibly dependent on every last bit of air pushing down on the splitter and the front of the car to keep it sealed off and turning as well as possible. Once the cars get up to speed and are behind another vehicle, the pressure on the front of the car is reduced, the handling gets worse, and the car slows down.
We end up with the dreaded “aero-push” thanks to dirty air. It is so bad with the current car that it is tremendously aero dependent even on short tracks where the cars are barely over 100 mph. If you want to watch the cars handling much better with the nose off of the ground, watch the original Brickyard 400. Cars were slingshot passing and able to run right up to the back of others with no issues. Get the nose of the car off of the ground, and the racing will be much better.
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Another option the teams could have pursued would be increasing the horsepower on the short tracks.
The fact that tapered spacers are run at all tracks has done nothing but hurt the racing in the sport. It is understandable at the superspeedways, but other tracks need to be able to experience full horsepower and put the driving back in the hands of the drivers. The basic premise of racing has always been who can drive the car the fastest.
That includes being able to drive it further into the corner and hit the brakes later, or lift early and be able to get back on the gas faster than anyone. Whatever the case, it is much harder to do if there is more horsepower coming out of the cars’ engines. Take the spacers off at North Wilkesboro and let’s see who can drive it in until they see Elvis before hitting the brakes.
The other items for the teams to work with would include geometry for steering and for rear-end travel and yaw. Allowing the teams to play with the geometry, change the toes and cambers, along with the changes in angle of the tire as it travels up and down has long been a science that made cars faster.
It has been taken away thanks to the new “bolt-together” version of the car that we now have. There are hundreds of engineers employed by all of these race teams that could probably come up with remarkable handling advantages for these cars if they were just given the opportunity to stretch their minds.
As stated earlier, we can’t do all of this at one time.
Give the teams a chance to change the A-arms. Give them an opportunity to tweak the horsepower of an unrestricted engine. Bring back the valance and let them set it to ride four inches off of the ground. All of those have the potential to make a difference with this package. We just can’t do all of them at one time.
Pick one, let the teams run with it and let’s see which team comes up with the best result. Once they are happy with that option, then pick something else for the teams to tweak. It wouldn’t cost them an exorbitant amount of money and, if it worked, it could be implemented easily going forward.
Kudos to NASCAR for at least trying to give the teams a shot.
They simply need to limit the target so that there isn’t an enormous bill associated with it. One thing is for sure: this version of the car is putting on absolute snoozer races and it needs to be changed. If not, the sport is headed for a death that will see the fan base continue to shrink and the value of teams shrivel to nothing. The teams are willing to work on it and have the people to make it better, but they have to work together with the sanctioning body and get the product that makes everyone happy.
What is it that Mike Neff doesn’t do? Mike announces several shows each year for the Good Guys Rod and Custom Association. He also pops up everywhere from PRN Pit Reporters and the Press Box with Alan Smothers to SIRIUS XM Radio. He has announced at tracks all over the Southeast, starting at Millbridge Speedway. He's also announced at East Lincoln Speedway, Concord Speedway, Tri-County Speedway, Caraway Speedway, and Charlotte Motor Speedway.