Cazzie
SOH-CM-2024
Need a Like button Panther, so correct.
-
There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.
If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.
Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.
The Staff of SOH
bad day at daytona
- Thread starter Daveroo
- Start date
Need a Like button Panther, so correct.
Hey All,
Nobody including me is arguing this point from a DRIVER perspective. BUT faster speeds means more carnage in the stands when things go wrong. It is THIS issue that is driving 200 mph and no faster. It isn't about the driver it is about the spectator. NO writing on the back of a ticket stub protects NASCAR from a lawsuit placed by an injured fan who has a completely reasonable expection of watching the race in complete safety. Watch the lawsuits in this case - wanna bet they settle out of court because NASCAR does not want to go into court?
The question then becomes and is all about providing good racing AND keeping the cars SLOW.
I too appreciate the simple innocence of the past but you can never go back.
-Ed-
Nobody including me is arguing this point from a DRIVER perspective. BUT faster speeds means more carnage in the stands when things go wrong. It is THIS issue that is driving 200 mph and no faster. It isn't about the driver it is about the spectator. NO writing on the back of a ticket stub protects NASCAR from a lawsuit placed by an injured fan who has a completely reasonable expection of watching the race in complete safety. Watch the lawsuits in this case - wanna bet they settle out of court because NASCAR does not want to go into court?
The question then becomes and is all about providing good racing AND keeping the cars SLOW.
I too appreciate the simple innocence of the past but you can never go back.
-Ed-
Panther_99FS
Retired SOH Administrator
Correct me if I'm wrong,
But I don't think it's ever been proven that a 200mph accident is significantly safer to the fans than a 225mph accident - Case in point is the 1987 Winston 500.
Without plates, drivers would not “have to” lift at Daytona. They have to at Michigan because it's a flat track. Daytona is a longer track with high banking. That means the “gravity vector” remains “local vertical” in the corners, which means they do not “have to” lift at all, and that's the point, and the problem. For us aviation forum people, “the ball”, in the turn at Daytona, is centered, and that means they don't have to lift, until they fly into the air, that is... In some ways I suppose the “logic” here is hard to argue with: Take the plates off = more deaths = drivers (the ones that didn't die) will then be more scared, and so they'll lift, next time, unless they forget... Hmm, not sure I'd want to be the guy that has to sell that one...
- Paul
- Paul
Daveroo
Members +
lets climb into the wayback machine mr peabody..im not going to argue the plate vs no plate racing at daytona or talladega...ive never driven on either...but i know from personal experiance that the faster a driver goes,the more elated he(or she) is,and i think wombat would agree with that,i think i understood the pics he posted were of his car and his crash??..
to that wayback machine...how about the early Champ cars and midgets?...no cages..and early cars didnt even have a single bar,and when they did,,the bar was 3 or 4 inches below the drivers head..and these men would run on one mile flat horse racing tracks,i cant quote exact speeds...but i know they were well over 150 at the sacramento mile in the 40s and 50s...and i was turning average laps speeds in the 165 range at calistoga...even the cars i drove werent very safe...they sorta balled up when ya dumped em..i remember one night i was stuck with my chest pined on my steering wheel and the top of the cage on my shoulder blades....we had the back up car out the following day and i didnt give it a second thought...and thats my point....you can go end over end down the back stretch at eldora on thursday night in a qualifyer and yer back friday after noon in a consy race...yer not scared and yer not thinking about what cuased the bad wreck the night before....yer more than likely mad that that $1200.00 wing is coming out of your salary..i once got hauled off to the horsepital for observation...and was back at the track with forged paperwork in less than 30 minutes..and we had a back up car in the C main.....which i propmtly flipped...but i digress...
but my point is.......make em safer....make em more dangerous...make em faster...make em slower.....drivers wont change...we,,, ok..they ..want to RACE....ask tony stewart.....id bet you if you handed him a "Big Wheel" and said...race ya to the corner"...he'd be on it in a flash....or if you put him on a jet engine with nothing around him but 4 wheels a steering wheel and a throttle....he will "flat foot " it for as long as he can....he wont lift until you make him..
there have been other nascar great who have died on track...like fireball roberts for example....and more will die...and there will be more injuries..as long as someone straps into a race car someone is going to get hurt or die..and there is allways a chance spectators will be injured too...like kyle pretty said....stop the knee jerk reactions and work on a steadfast solution to the catch fencing.....maybe rebuild stands with seating farther from the racing surface...i remember back in the 1970s..at the auburn race track....McCann staduim gold country fairgrounds...guy named Sleepy Stevens was running one of the old california modifieds,he caught the concrete wall off four,the right front climbed the wall and got into the old steel pipe fence(it had just chicken wire to stop the dirt) and a wheel fence on top...but the right front wheel tore through the pipe fence and tore the lag off a woman sitting in the front row...something ill never forget...yet they were racing the next weekend..and i raced in the 80s...sooooo...
to that wayback machine...how about the early Champ cars and midgets?...no cages..and early cars didnt even have a single bar,and when they did,,the bar was 3 or 4 inches below the drivers head..and these men would run on one mile flat horse racing tracks,i cant quote exact speeds...but i know they were well over 150 at the sacramento mile in the 40s and 50s...and i was turning average laps speeds in the 165 range at calistoga...even the cars i drove werent very safe...they sorta balled up when ya dumped em..i remember one night i was stuck with my chest pined on my steering wheel and the top of the cage on my shoulder blades....we had the back up car out the following day and i didnt give it a second thought...and thats my point....you can go end over end down the back stretch at eldora on thursday night in a qualifyer and yer back friday after noon in a consy race...yer not scared and yer not thinking about what cuased the bad wreck the night before....yer more than likely mad that that $1200.00 wing is coming out of your salary..i once got hauled off to the horsepital for observation...and was back at the track with forged paperwork in less than 30 minutes..and we had a back up car in the C main.....which i propmtly flipped...but i digress...
but my point is.......make em safer....make em more dangerous...make em faster...make em slower.....drivers wont change...we,,, ok..they ..want to RACE....ask tony stewart.....id bet you if you handed him a "Big Wheel" and said...race ya to the corner"...he'd be on it in a flash....or if you put him on a jet engine with nothing around him but 4 wheels a steering wheel and a throttle....he will "flat foot " it for as long as he can....he wont lift until you make him..
there have been other nascar great who have died on track...like fireball roberts for example....and more will die...and there will be more injuries..as long as someone straps into a race car someone is going to get hurt or die..and there is allways a chance spectators will be injured too...like kyle pretty said....stop the knee jerk reactions and work on a steadfast solution to the catch fencing.....maybe rebuild stands with seating farther from the racing surface...i remember back in the 1970s..at the auburn race track....McCann staduim gold country fairgrounds...guy named Sleepy Stevens was running one of the old california modifieds,he caught the concrete wall off four,the right front climbed the wall and got into the old steel pipe fence(it had just chicken wire to stop the dirt) and a wheel fence on top...but the right front wheel tore through the pipe fence and tore the lag off a woman sitting in the front row...something ill never forget...yet they were racing the next weekend..and i raced in the 80s...sooooo...
Yeah, but restrictor plates are a cheaper solution than developing new engines. Another alternative would be the final gear ratio in the transmission and the gear ratio in the axle. If NASCAR dictates a higher ratio, then the axle turns fewer RPM's for any given engine speed and the result is decreased vehicle speed, but still good acceleration rates.