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Mariah Carey’s STILL got it.
24 42 88 18 84 10
COT on 1.5 mile tracks, something needs to change
Abnormal User
Total Posts: 2402
Joined
We'll have to see how things go at Pocono. Just looking at it I am getting the feeling that most teams will be running skewed at those tracks without much of a straight-line penalty. But I haven't seen the numbers so that's just my best guess.
Veteran
Total Posts: 109
Joined 03/16/2008
All this is fine and dandy at low speeds. Passenger cars are designed to create downforce. Without it, racing as we know it would not exist. Aerodynamics must be managed at racing speeds simply because it exists. Physics ... can't be ignored.
A passenger car will generate lift if it doesn't have a spoiler or wing as the natural shape of a typical car tends to develope lift. For an example of lift in a racecar..They had to redesign the Silvercrown sprint car to run on 1.5 mile tracks because at higher speeds the car was generating too much lift and caused a safety concern. It is very very possible to design and develop a car that is aerodynamically neutral and that should be the target if creating good racing is the goal.
Passenger cars require stability at speed and generate downforce, by design, to accomplish that. A 3450 lb. cigar is highly unstable at 200 mph. The Silver Crown cars you reference had plenty of downforce designed into them. That's what the side pods were there for.
Try some research into this idea of yours, racing is dynamic and a statically aero neutral car does not remain so. Races are not run in wind tunnels.
You have to trust me on this, Gray, a trypical passenger car isn't developing downforce, they produce lift. You take a typical road car with no spoilers or wings and take it to 200mph and it will be very unstable as the rear of the car will try to lift off the ground. Hell, some sports cars when you reach a certain speed will automaticly deploy a spoiler on the back to reduce lift.
The silvercrown car never had sidepods. The car with sidepods is the speedway silverscrown car and is the car they developed to run on speedways because of the lift generated by the silvercrown car. Btw, I don't like the speedway silvercrown car either.. Ugly as the COT.
A 1967 F1 car was cigar shaped and was VERY stable, even above 200mph. They were stable enough that they would jump them over a hill crest and get a foot of air at 170mph yet not blow over or have other aero related consenquences.
Veteran
Total Posts: 109
Joined 03/16/2008
doing things to the current car to make it faster in the turns will make the aero push worse, the goal should be to slow the cars in the turns, this will promote more side by side racing, I watched a race from the late 90's the cars had at least 2" of clearance under the valance while in the turns, in this race the cars looked to be effected very little by other cars around them, I think the only way to help these cars is to figure out some way of keeping the splitter from getting so close to the ground.
I agree 100%!! NASCAR needs to redesign the car, the rules or both so they allow the full stream of air to get under the cars. Ban the side skirts and other aero aids as well as all they do is make the cars more aero sensitive.
Veteran
Total Posts: 109
Joined 03/16/2008
IMO, people who expected the COT to be 100% perfect in all respects from day one has never actually attempted to take something complex from idea to real-world application. One designs, one creates prototypes for testing, one corrects the design, one creates more prototypes for more testing, one corrects the design, one creates the first generation for distribution, on collects real-world application information and, in due time after sorting out the significant from the insignificant, one creates the next generation.
No one was expecting it to be 100% perfect. What I was expecting was a willingness to "correct the design" as you say, once the "real world application information" came in. The information is in. It's way past time to correct the design.
We're only 1/3 of the way through the season. There have only been 4, big-track races. Teams have only just come up with the first COT innovation -- the yaw setup. Its hardly "way past time". They're still exploring and discovering what changes have what effect.
Throwing new rules at them every 4 races would serve no purpose except to confuse people and stifle innovation.
Rear steering like we saw at Lowes wasn't innovation, it was a hack. It is not new technology. Its just people never had to do that with an ashpalt car before because normally the car was designed well enough that it wasn't necessary to get the car to work. The cars are handling so bad they have to resort to such hacks and unconventional methods to get it workable.
Ultimate Insider
Total Posts: 824
Joined 02/23/2008
All this is fine and dandy at low speeds. Passenger cars are designed to create downforce. Without it, racing as we know it would not exist. Aerodynamics must be managed at racing speeds simply because it exists. Physics ... can't be ignored.
A passenger car will generate lift if it doesn't have a spoiler or wing as the natural shape of a typical car tends to develope lift. For an example of lift in a racecar..They had to redesign the Silvercrown sprint car to run on 1.5 mile tracks because at higher speeds the car was generating too much lift and caused a safety concern. It is very very possible to design and develop a car that is aerodynamically neutral and that should be the target if creating good racing is the goal.
Passenger cars require stability at speed and generate downforce, by design, to accomplish that. A 3450 lb. cigar is highly unstable at 200 mph. The Silver Crown cars you reference had plenty of downforce designed into them. That's what the side pods were there for.
Try some research into this idea of yours, racing is dynamic and a statically aero neutral car does not remain so. Races are not run in wind tunnels.
You have to trust me on this, Gray, a trypical passenger car isn't developing downforce, they produce lift. You take a typical road car with no spoilers or wings and take it to 200mph and it will be very unstable as the rear of the car will try to lift off the ground. Hell, some sports cars when you reach a certain speed will automaticly deploy a spoiler on the back to reduce lift.
The silvercrown car never had sidepods. The car with sidepods is the speedway silverscrown car and is the car they developed to run on speedways because of the lift generated by the silvercrown car. Btw, I don't like the speedway silvercrown car either.. Ugly as the COT.
A 1967 F1 car was cigar shaped and was VERY stable, even above 200mph. They were stable enough that they would jump them over a hill crest and get a foot of air at 170mph yet not blow over or have other aero related consenquences.
Typical passenger cars are not "taken" to 200 mph. Downforce is produced by the sloping nose/front facia and helps to maintain stability at the highest speeds the cars were designed for. Look it up - this info is available to all who seek it. Known operating speed is essential to aerodynamic design/development for road and racing cars.
Your comments on the Silver Crown cars are presumably intended to be educational. You simply restated what I said.
Please post a quote or a link regarding the stability of 1967 F1 cars. One that suggests that zero downforce was generated by the bodywork would be nice.
You seem well-intended. The simple fact of the matter is that your concept is deeply flawed and flies in the face of 45 years of accumulated aerodynamic knowledge as regards auto racing. An aerodynamically neutral car would remain so for a very short time. On the track, at racing speed, in traffic and subject to the vagaries of wind and weather, its dynamic aero "condition" would oscillate from lift to negative lift and do so with alarming speed. Inevitably, the thing would fly ... in a manner of speaking. It would also be the fugliest "stock car" anyone had ever seen.
The last line is my opinion. The rest is from the vast storehouse of knowledge that is available to you and anyone else who wants to learn about this stuff. Trust me ....
Ultimate Insider
Total Posts: 824
Joined 02/23/2008
Rear steering like we saw at Lowes wasn't innovation, it was a hack. It is not new technology. Its just people never had to do that with an ashpalt car before because normally the car was designed well enough that it wasn't necessary to get the car to work. The cars are handling so bad they have to resort to such hacks and unconventional methods to get it workable.
That setup was used at Phoenix and other west coast asphalt tracks in the 70's. Your declarative statements always sound so factual. Why is that?
Abnormal User
Total Posts: 9069
Joined
Throwing new rules at them every 4 races would serve no purpose except to confuse people and stifle innovation.
I'm not suggesting "throwing new rules" at them, I'm suggesting taking away some of the rules. That would hardly stifle innovation.
Legend
Total Posts: 225
Joined 03/02/2008
I just got to thinking the trucks in the truck series don't seem to have near as many aero issues as the COT does, but they still have a somewhat similar nose shape with the spliter and the fast bumpouts of the valance where they are infront of the tires. I wonder why the trucks are racing so much better?? are the trucks allowed better weight distribution?? whats the deal, I also agree with GA, an aero neutral car is not an option, for the reasons he stated, and do you really think the teams wouldn't figure out some way to get around that. I say allow the teams a no maximum height rule like they did with the old car and switch it to a minimum height rule again like the old cars, additional height is a disadvantage on the track, so allow them to travel what ever they want in the front, then hand out nascar mandated bump stops that will not let the front end splitter go so very low to the track, get the car up about 2" off the track. then let them do the 55-45 left side weight to help with mechanical grip, these would be the rules on 1.5 tracks, short tracks the existing rules would apply, with some air going under the car making a little lift, then when they get behind a car they get a little less lift to help get close and pass. but what do I know I am not an engineer.
Abnormal User
Total Posts: 9069
Joined
The car wasn't meant the be a great driving car, it was meant to be a challenge for the drivers to even out the talent level.
That's the elephant in the room when people start demanding that Nascar change the car to make it easier to drive.
Nascar deliberately designed the COT to be a handling challenge because they wanted to take the car out of the equation and put the race back into the drivers' hands.
And that's not a new concept or restricted only to the COT. The same reasoning was behind the 2004 spoiler chop.
I never heard that it was meant to "even out the talent level." I don't even know what that means. I did hear that it was meant to put more emphasis on the driver. I think it does the exact opposite - how well you do has everything to do with how good the car is and not much to do with the talent level of the driver.
I don't believe for a second that this is what NASCAR had in mind when they designed this car.
Abnormal User
Total Posts: 1325
Joined
The car wasn't meant the be a great driving car, it was meant to be a challenge for the drivers to even out the talent level.
That's the elephant in the room when people start demanding that Nascar change the car to make it easier to drive.
Nascar deliberately designed the COT to be a handling challenge because they wanted to take the car out of the equation and put the race back into the drivers' hands.
And that's not a new concept or restricted only to the COT. The same reasoning was behind the 2004 spoiler chop.
I never heard that it was meant to "even out the talent level." I don't even know what that means. I did hear that it was meant to put more emphasis on the driver. I think it does the exact opposite - how well you do has everything to do with how good the car is and not much to do with the talent level of the driver.
I don't believe for a second that this is what NASCAR had in mind when they designed this car.
Agreed. All the CoT does is seperate the have's and have not's even more than the old car. One team figures out something about it and dominates the rest of the season. I for one don't want to see a single team dominant every year from now on like we have since the CoT entered. 2007-HMS, 2008-JGR
