Pit Stops
Pit-Stop Costs: The Next Way to Level the Playing Field?
The NextGen car promises to level the playing field for well-funded and less-well-funded teams. But what about pit-stop costs? […]
Pit Stops
Penalties
NASCAR’s Penalty Box: Uncontrolled Tires
NASCAR changed the ‘arms-length uncontrolled-tire penalty’ after pressure from fans and drivers who complained that the rule was too subjective. Does the new rule solve those penalty problems? Does NASCAR Need an Uncontrolled Tire Rule? […]
Busch, Kurt
NASCAR 2018: The Year in Charts and Graphs
This is the time of the year when everyone takes one final look back at the last year before turning to think about the new one. So, in this last blog of the year, I thought I’d summarize the season in charts and graphs. […]
Drivers
Do Less-Experienced NASCAR Drivers Get More In-Race Penalties?
NASCAR has assessed 376 in-race penalties after 34 races. Do less-experienced drivers make more of these mistakes? Let’s check the data. […]
Childers, Rodney
Jumping the (Air) Gun
(Air) Gun Control A lot’s changed on Pit Road this year. In addition to cutting the over-the-wall crew to five people, NASCAR decided (by majority vote of the Team Owners’ Council) that they would provide air guns […]
Bristol Motor Speedway
Will Tire Limits Improve Racing?
Will 2017 Tire Limit Rules Require Harder Tires? Back in the day, the only thing that limited how many sets of tires you could use in Cup-level racing was your budget. It was different in […]
Digital Dashboard
Is Stricter Enforcement of Pit Road Speed Limits Making Pit Road Less Safe?
The Purpose of Pit Road Speed Limits NASCAR implemented pit road speeding rules in 1991. The year before, Mike Rich, a tire changer for Bill Elliott, had been pinned between Elliott’s car and the car of Ricky Rudd when […]
Bill Nye
NASCAR and Electric Cars: A Response to Bill Nye
Bill Nye is getting a lot of press lately by suggesting NASCAR ought to be racing electric cars. I was rather disappointed with the reaction from NASCAR fans, as many dismissed the suggestion offhand, or offered ad […]
Building Cars
The Digital Dashboard
Those of you of a certain age may remember these odd looking flat black vinyl things called ‘records’. Records are analog devices. A groove is cut into the vinyl. A stylus rides along the groove and translates the wiggles in the groove into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted to a speaker, which turns it into a vibration (which, when pleasant, we call “music”.) […]
Lug Nuts
2015 Rules and Lug Nuts
Forty-three days till the Daytona 500. The shops are buzzing with activity as everyone adjusts to another new rules package. The engine folks are working overtime dealing with the changes there. The only thing that’s slowed down is planning for on-track independent testing, since that’s been eliminated this year. But more time in the wind tunnel, on the seven-post machine, at the computers. […]