Full Throttle

Those of us that consider ourselves part of NASCAR Nation spend a significant amount of time bashing perceived and real problems within it.

However, with the current state of things, and the fact the sport is an easy target because it uses (OMG hide the wife & kids!) “evil” gasoline, the brickbats are coming from far and wide.

As a preface I have to note the following example comes from the Huffington Post. If your the slightest bit close to the political blogging scene you know within its confines reside all sorts of misguided loony tunes all, not so coincidentally, are of the liberal persuasion.

With that as groundwork, or warning take your pick, I give you Dawn Teo who attempts to lump Detroit’s current financial morass and NASCAR into a tidy ball making it hardly worth reading, but soldier on I must, and point out its deficiencies bullshit.

She starts thusly:

America’s stock car racing is to international racing as the Big 3 (Ford, GM, Chrysler) are to the international automaker industry - both are the laughing stock (no pun intended).

NASCAR has become such a joke that something like Godwin’s Law has developed: The longer a conversation continues among international racing enthusiasts, the more likely someone will make a joke about NASCAR or their misnamed Car of Tomorrow.

Huh!?

“International racing enthusiasts” hardly know of NASCAR and the ones that do, like the Aussie V8s, are looking to NASCAR for potential changes to compete in safer cars after a couple deaths recently.

Here she fleshes out her thoughts, if that’s what they can be called, on the CoT:

Like the bloated American car companies and the fat cats that run them, NASCAR made their new Car of Tomorrow bigger and boxier, not sleeker and slimmer. International racing rewards those who build smaller, lighter, more efficient engines that squeeze more horsepower out of smaller and lighter engine blocks. The engine block and cylinder heads of NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow, on the other hand, is based on a V8 engine from the 1960s.

Note the factual error?

While it’s true NASCAR uses the V8 it’s no longer based on the ’60’s design, that went out the garage door when Toyota entered the series and for the first time in history the old design was tossed aside.

The ref to international racing is also misguided, the previously noted V8’s in addition to the new Asian/Middle East based Speedcar Series are not “smaller, lighter” although Speedcar uses fuel injection.

Instead of taking advantage of cutting edge technology, American automakers and NASCAR tap into obsolete technology that even car consumers aren’t buying anymore. Even the American government has modernized more than NASCAR. It has been illegal to sell a new car that runs on a carburetor in America since the mid-1980s, but the Car of Tomorrow continued NASCAR’s tradition of using carburetors.

Who’d a thunk it, carbs were illegal in the USA.

Actually no one did, except this factless nitwit who, dreamed up something that isn’t true. The fact that fuel injection is an all-round better fuel delivery system and governmental intervention via CAFE standards is what directed Detroit, in addition to the worlds auto makers go the fuel injection route, not some fictional law.

But what the hell, let no rant go on facts alone right? They have to be “fluffed-up” with the strong odor of bovine excrement.

In noting the CoT’s rear wing and front valance she claims they were added for “image” and a tip of the hat to Hollywood, or something:

NASCAR’s spoiler-splitter change came at a time when aftermarket rear wings had become very popular on street cars (think Fast and Furious). This was meant to reduce the benefits of “drafting” while providing the additional benefit of appealing (or so they hoped) to the young, hip import performance crowd (again, think Fast and Furious). Unfortunately, the NASCAR design has made the cars notoriously more difficult to maneuver, especially when passing. The cars are also more difficult to setup (prepare for each race tracks), and drivers most commonly describe the handling as “twitchy.”

Funny, she gave no citation by any NASCAR official claiming they were an appeal to “the young, hip import performance crowd.” And I assume, to be fair, she’s too young to recall NASCAR wings were all the rage. Way back in 1969!

As for the aero and drafting assertions, lets just call it what it is, Happy Horseshit, and move on.

The Big 3 tells taxpayers they are developing the cars of tomorrow — NASCAR claims they are racing them. The sad reality is that America’s automakers are recycling yesterday’s technology and sponsoring the racecars of yesterday.

Back to the fuel injection subject. A point I won’t disagree with other than to say when a big cost hit is given with introduction of the new car adding a new fuel delivery system simultaneously is financial suicide.

Despite her denial, Detroit is making progress on new technology, granted about a decade too late, but it’s there, for those not blinded. That’s especially evident when she attempts to claim NASCAR is racing Detroit’s “car of tomorrow.”

No nitwit, they are racing their CoT that is totally unrelated to Detroit’s, and designed to be safer and more cost efficient.

She goes on a multi-para slam of Detroit which I won’t bore you with, but I will mention this that comes from her response to someone in the comment thread.

Foreign car manufacturers compete in racing as a way to push their R&D guys to make better and better gains every day. American car manufacturers compete in racing as a way to market to uninformed consumers. I am calling shenanigans. They slap a grill onto their NASCAR cars that looks like the grill on the car they want to market, and they tell the public that’s what that car is, but it’s not. I’m tired of Ford saying, “Oh look, our Mustang won NASCAR this weekend,” when there was no Mustang in the race. They are racing phantasms of their cars, and nothing more.

Uh-huh, Mustangs eh? I think you’ll agree, Dawn Teo is a clueless ignoramus of the first order.

But, for the record, the last Mustang that competed at NASCAR top level - “top level” a generous description of the event to be sure - was in 1969.

UPDATE: This addresses this loony birds belief that “American manufacturers, however, refuse to compete on the world stage,” something I noted in reading but failed to address despite the shear nuttiness of the assertion.

Point one. The FIA GT series is competing at the Dubai Autodrome this weekend. Five of the top ten qualifiers in today’s session are comprised of 2 Ford GTs and 3 Corvette Z06R GT3s. I think that qualifies as competing on the world stage.

Point two. Yesterday Ford restructured performance vehicles projects by naming Jost Capito to the newly- created position of “Director, Global Performance Vehicles and Motorsport Business Development.”

Part of his new responsibilities is leading “the development of motorsport opportunities for Ford’s future global car products around the world.”

Oh, and did I mention Fords multi-million dollar effort in WRC? The Cortina, Escort and Fords current standard barer the Focus are part of a 70 YEAR history of competing on the world stage.

Dawn Teo - case closed, you’ve been hereby judged to be a disingenuous, misinformed, ignorant wench who couldn’t find her way around auto racing with both Richard Petty and Sir Jackie Stewart leading the way.