All the talk at Michigan about high speeds and the hoopla over passing the 200-mph barrier prompts me to offer this caveat: Take the speeds you hear with a grain of salt because the average lap speeds are estimates, not measurements. […]
The speeds at Pocono were high, but the speeds at newly repaved Michigan are even higher. Nine drivers posted lap times over 200 mph on Thursday, leading to media and driver hysteria about the high speeds. What is the lift-off speed at Michigan? […]
NASCAR engines like to run at about 8000-9500 rpm (revolutions per minute); however, the tires on the car rotate around 2400 rpm at 200 mph. The gearing in the transmission and the rear end gear reduce the rotational engine speed, with different gears providing different reductions. When you talk about the size of a gear, you’re actually talking about the relative sizes of a pair of gears. The gear on the left in the diagram has 20 teeth, while the gear on the right has 10 teeth, so this gear would be a 2:1, meaning that the smaller gear rotates twice every time the larger gear rotates once. […]
This was the first year that most people noticed a decrease in the number of cautions, but (as I’ve pointed out), 2012 is merely the latest in a six-year trend of decreasing cautions. The same downward trend is evident in the Nationwide Series. This year is perhaps notable for it being so extreme.
The data clearly shows the trend: The question, of course, is why?
The question of why it is so difficult for cars to pass each other at 1.5 mile and 2 mile tracks is getting more and more attention. Carl Edwards put it succinctly:
“I firmly believe, and NASCAR hates it when I say this, that we should not be racing with downforce, sideforce and all these aerodynamic devices. We do not need splitters on the race cars and giant spoilers. I have not been around long enough to say something definitely, but it is pretty common sense: if all the cars are very similar and all the drivers are within a tenth of a second of each other but are relying on clean air and downforce, then by definition if the guy in front of you is disturbing the air then your car is not going to be able to go as fast as it could in clean air.” […]
Statistics Reported Without Comment […]
An usual number of teams “ran out of gas” or had engine troubles during the Talladega race. The TV analysts had some ready answers for what might have caused these problems. Their extemporaneous theories tend to elicit sighs from engine builders, who know that problems can rarely be diagnosed at the track – and even more rarely by someone who hasn’t looked at the car.
A wonderful aspect of blogging is that we’re not called to have answers on the spot like the television broadcasters and we have the leisure of time. Let’s examine some of those theories. […]
Most of the issues we were talking about at the start of the year regarding the measures NASCAR has taken to eliminate or reduce the two-car draft are still in play, so I thought I’d put the most important in one place as you start getting ready for Talladega this weekend. […]
NOTE: Some clarifications added 1:00 p.m. 4/30/12. Thanks to all the commenters, especially @nateryan! I think Dave Moody did a good job breaking things down. The situation is confounded because there were so many different […]
Saturday’s race in Richmond was a festival of miscues. Carl Edwards mistakenly thought he was leading, then he jumped the restart, although he wasn’t the one to lead the restart because he wasn’t the leader. One would think we have the data that could prevent incidents like this. We probably do. But do we want to use it? […]
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