Saturday, March 7, 2009
NASCAR's Car Of Yesteryear
If you've read my site or blog for any length of time, you'll know I'm not the world's biggest fan of American cars. As an extension, I think NASCAR is the most pointless waste of motorsports in the history of Creation. (And I'm an atheist so that's saying something).
So it's amusing to read about their Car Of Tomorrow that was introduced in 2007. It had 'cutting-edge' innovations like crumple zones, a rerouted exhaust designed not to fry the driver, a front splitter, a larger rear wing and - well - that's it really. It still uses pushrod engines and with the exception of a couple of courses like Watkins Glen, they all still drive in left-handed circles.
Those design features would have been the Car Of Tomorrow in the late 70's. Most other motorsports have had all of those features and dozens more true technical innovations for decades. So from this should I conclude that NASCAR is a full 30 years behind the rest of the world when it comes to their 'technology' ? I know it was only fairly recently that they decided the drivers would fare better in crashes if the circuits had tyre walls and impact barriers rather than three metres of impenetrable concrete to stop wayward cars.
So it's amusing to read about their Car Of Tomorrow that was introduced in 2007. It had 'cutting-edge' innovations like crumple zones, a rerouted exhaust designed not to fry the driver, a front splitter, a larger rear wing and - well - that's it really. It still uses pushrod engines and with the exception of a couple of courses like Watkins Glen, they all still drive in left-handed circles.
Those design features would have been the Car Of Tomorrow in the late 70's. Most other motorsports have had all of those features and dozens more true technical innovations for decades. So from this should I conclude that NASCAR is a full 30 years behind the rest of the world when it comes to their 'technology' ? I know it was only fairly recently that they decided the drivers would fare better in crashes if the circuits had tyre walls and impact barriers rather than three metres of impenetrable concrete to stop wayward cars.
// posted by Chris @ 17:46 
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Yeah, I agree. NASCAR is pretty bad in the technology department, and with excitment.
A friend of mine follows IndyCar series, and whenever he talks about it, I always tell him that F1 racing is the same thing, just 100X more exciting and challenging to the drivers. He usually just stares at me like..
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A friend of mine follows IndyCar series, and whenever he talks about it, I always tell him that F1 racing is the same thing, just 100X more exciting and challenging to the drivers. He usually just stares at me like..
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Joely08 : March 16, 2009 9:07 AM
Joely08 : March 16, 2009 9:07 AM
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