Plates Are For Snacks, Not For Race Tracks
10/18/2013
PattyKay
Lilley
I bid
you welcome gentle readers, to a discussion I've instigated time and again over
many years, that being restrictor plate racing at our two giant Superspeedways,
Daytona and this week's host track, Talladega. My last column regaled you with much
of the myth and legend surrounding the Talladega track. That was Wednesday, and
my intent was to provoke and possibly scare you just a bit with all the
somewhat mysterious goings-on at the big track over the years. "Cursed",
they say it is. Perhaps, but more like a reason to curse, to
my way of thinking.
That
column on "The Curse" was originally intended... by me... to be my
Friday column, but someone got his signals crossed and before I knew it, it was
up and running and comments had already begun. "That's OK", says she.
"If I can do two, I can do three."
(Editor’s
Note: That “someone” would be me, Jim
Fitzgerald, and if you were to find a way to wrangle three columns in one week
out of PattyKay Lilley, would you not “get your signals crossed” too?)
Some
light banter between your scribe and friend Judy produced the idea of writing
about what I have long referred to as "Those dang plates!" Home Plate? Dinner Plate? Silver Plate? Nope... restrictor plates... a curse in their
own right... diabolical little devices designed to cut back horsepower to the
engines until they are all hampered to the exact same degree and can no longer
"race", but merely parade. Indeed, at many times during an
"event" on the big tracks, the cars more resemble a precision drill
performed by a marching band than any sort of racing I've ever seen.
**Short aside here... because
this column for the most part presents my opinion, formed by my experiences,
though certainly backed with many substantiating facts, it may contain more
than my usual short count of first person singular pronouns. Please indulge me,
as we only race at Talladega twice a year and this is my last chance to take
one more swing at that big ugly beast for 2013.
To be
perfectly honest, the Talladega track scares me to death! At the beginning of
the race, I say a prayer (I do that for every race), then take a deep breath at
the green flag and exhale when the checkers fly. The speeds don’t frighten me.
Certainly, no one can be a race fan and fear speed. Rather, it's the tight pack
of cars, artificially stacked four wide and ten deep for 500 miles, with the
fast cars being unable to pull away from the slower ones. One mistake by one
driver results in a huge multi-car accident that we've come to know as
"The big one." But it didn't used to be that way. That situation is
the direct result of that evil invention... or perhaps intervention is a better
word... called the restrictor plate.
Let's
talk about those restrictor plates for a while. Raise your hand if you can
remember Daytona and Talladega without them. As it's been 26 years now since
that happened, I don't think that too many hands are waving. For those who have
never seen "real" Superspeedway racing, let me tell you now that you
have missed something special.
Back in
the 1980's, or the dark ages as some see it, those not so stock "stock
cars" were circling the big tracks at well over 200 mph, and thrilling
race fans with the blinding speed. There was a huge difference however. Back
then, racing was about speed, and the fastest car won, for the most part. Take
a good look at the 2.66 mile high-banked track that is Talladega and picture
this: A young Bill Elliott, in 1985, going just shy of two laps down to the
field, then making up both laps without the benefit of a caution. That's right.
Under green flag conditions, he just caught and passed the field twice. That,
my friends, is fast!
To be
sure, you did not see a pack of 40+ cars glued together for 500 miles. That's
not racing, that's insanity, and I don't think you'll find a driver on the
circuit that looks forward to it, if they are honest with you. Veteran driver
Mark Martin, subbing this year for the injured Tony Stewart, arranged it so
that young Austin Dillon will be in that car on Sunday rather than Mark. Like
many other experienced drivers, Mark candidly admits a dislike for restrictor
plate racing. The late Dale Earnhardt, long seen as the master of "seeing
the air", oft opined, "That ain't racin'." So what happened that caused Superspeedway
racing to change so drastically?
In 1987,
Bobby Allison spun his car after encountering a piece of debris, and took it
airborne into the catch-fence at Talladega. Thankfully, although some debris
did make it to the grandstand, the wires held the car itself. Some fans were
injured by flying debris, but no one was killed. That would say to me that the
problem had more to do with cars simulating flight than with the speed at which
they were traveling. Common sense however, is not always on the menu at the
NASCAR restaurant.
In
response to the Allison accident, the 1988 Daytona 500 saw the introduction of
the restrictor plate, which is nothing more than a piece of metal with four
holes in it, placed between the (then) ever so obsolete carburetor and the
manifold, to restrict the flow of air to the engine. I suspect that the onset
of EFI on the cars was so long in coming because NASCAR had to find a way to
use the more efficient electronic system while keeping those plates in place...
not as easy as it sounds. (For the purists among us, I do know that
plates had been tried for a short time back in the 70s, but sanity prevailed
that time.)
That
same Daytona race saw Richard Petty launch his STP colors into the catch fence,
spraying parts and pieces into the grandstand, then roll it some 15 times, in a
truly frightening crash. It looked for all the world like that dang plate
hadn't worked!
NASCAR's
answer to that was to mandate an even smaller restrictor plate. I told you
there was no logic in this! In the early 90's, someone (His name was Jack
Roush) came up with a wonderful idea that actually worked well. He designed
roof flaps that are activated by the air current created when a car gets
backwards, and very effectively keep the car from going airborne. That should
have solved the problem, but remember, we are dealing with NASCAR here. The
roof flaps worked just fine, but the plates stayed. Over the years, NASCAR has
tried all sorts of things to counteract the plates and make the racing the way
it used to be, but all to no avail. We've seen many changes in the size of the
openings in the plates, and all sorts of aero packages have come and gone. A
variety of springs and/or shocks have been tried and done away with, but the
cars still run in tightly bunched packs, with a fast car unable, for lack of
horsepower, to pull away from a slow car in his draft.
Another
"fix" was the mandating of smaller fuel cells, necessitating more frequent
pit stops. The theory behind that brilliant move was that more pit stops would
break up the huge and dangerous pack of cars, however the drivers are not
stupid. No one pits alone if he can help it, since drafting partners are a
necessary thing, so we see large packs of cars all pitting together. The pits
can be a very dangerous place, and with this new "rule”, they get to go
there twice as often. Once the cars return to the track they are just sucked
right back together by the draft. If there is a move toward safety in all that,
I fail to see it.
Just a
couple of years ago, compliments of a new nose on the still ugly COT and a new dress
on Lady Daytona, the drivers figured out something that I'm sure never occurred to NASCAR, and to be honest,
it never occurred to me either. Seems that two cars...not
three or more, but only two...travel at faster speeds in this configuration
than that massive snarling pack is able to achieve.
Drivers
aren't as stupid as some think, so when practicing for Daytona, they began
trying something out, and we saw the result in the Daytona 500, a good result
for Trevor Bayne, but not so good for spectators.
Instead of racing, they were dancing, and not with the stars, but with each
other. (And the dance was not limited to teammates, but to anyone that would
push or pull you. As anyone my age would and did say, "That ain't racin'." Real racing
at the giant tracks had gone from the sublime to the insane and finally to the
just plain ridiculous.
Okay!
Exit logic and enter truth. It was never about safety at all. It was all about
insurance. It seems that their insurer told NASCAR that either the cars slowed
to less than 200 mph or the insurer took a hike. Of course, the cars slowed
down, but the racing suffered greatly as a result. After 26 years of spoiled
races at the two giant tracks, isn't it time to try something different? (I
know I will receive messages telling me how great it is to watch those huge
packs of cars, running four wide for 500 miles. Forget it! I can tell you are
not a driver)
The
following video, only 4 minutes in length, is a compilation showing several
cars in flight over the years, starting with the Allison crash in 1987 and culminating
with the car of young Kyle Larson making a valiant effort to get up close and
personal with folks in the grandstand at the Nationwide
race at Daytona last February. The drivers involved are:
Bobby
Allison Talladega 1987
Neil
Bonnett Talladega 1993
Ricky
Craven Talladega 1996
Geoffrey
Bodine Daytona 2000
Carl
Edwards Talladega 2009
Dennis Setzer Talladega 2010
Joey
Coulter Daytona 2012
Kyle
Larson Daytona 2013
Gentle readers, that is by no means all of the airborne wrecks that
have occurred since the advent of the restrictor plates, whose sole purpose was
said to be to stop cars from doing what you see them doing here, over and over
again. NASCAR, get a clue! It's not working!
There's
an answer to the problem, and other than obstinacy on the part of NASCAR, I
can't imagine why it hasn't been employed. It's all about the aerodynamics, and
always has been. Michael Waltrip once called for a simple raising
of the front air dams at tracks like Atlanta and Texas, saying that a few
inches there would cut speeds by some 20 miles per hour. That probably wouldn't
be sufficient on the two largest tracks, but coupled with larger spoilers, the
absence of side skirting and some square corners to upset the airflow, I think
they could easily get to where they want to be and lose those dang plates.
I have
long said, and only half jokingly, that if they just sent the drivers out in
any model (or replica thereof) from the early 1970's, there is no way on earth
for them to exceed 200 mph. Surely, these cars have come so far from
"stock" that it's immaterial in what configuration they appear, and
heaven knows, there are any number of engine combinations available that don't attain the speeds
or rpms that the current models produce.
Here's
another idea that you might want to toy with for a moment. Once upon a time,
they were called "stock" cars because that's what they were. What
would happen if we just returned to that? What if, just like in the old days,
you could take a car straight from the showroom floor to the racetrack? Well,
as nice as that seems, it won't work altogether. Safety has to be a prime
consideration and the cars would have to be outfitted with the proper roll
bars, seating, roof flaps, belt mountings, etc. By all means! Use it all! Any
measure that promotes driver safety should be employed without question. If we
were looking at stock bodies, with, heaven forbid, stock engines, wouldn't that
solve all the problems? There isn’t a stock Ford, Chevy, or Toyota that will go
200 miles an hour. Furthermore, they don’t approach the aerodynamic perfection
that their cloned cousins boast these days. If we want to watch perfectly
sleek, tricked up cars with mega-power, we have F1. Rolex,
ALMS and IndyCars. As for me, I think that putting at least some of the
"stock" back in stock cars would be fun.
I'm sure
there are those among you, with the degrees and expertise that I lack, who have
even better ideas of how to slow the cars without choking down the engine and
forcing the cars to remain in those large and dangerous packs or dancing in the
daylight. Wouldn't you think that the brain trust that is NASCAR could think of
one or two? Mr. Helton, Sir, with all due respect, plates have many varied
uses, but racing really isn't one of them.
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~
PattyKay