NASCAR: It’s the Physics Stupid!
The NASCAR Oracle (A/K/A The Diecast Dude) tossed up a post that provided comments by Ward Burton and Clint Bowyer after they wrecked their cars during the CoT tests at Bristol.
I won’t recount them here other than to say they both expressed surprise how loose the car was off the turns and how much damage both rides incurred when they smacked the retaining walls.
Below is what I left as a comment in his thread.
Two words as NASCAR professes:
Crush Zones.
And now for a bit of history: Way back when… when I had hair, a 16 year old girlfriend and Pop had a ‘61 Ford Starliner, cars had bumpers, steel bumpers.
Highway death toll was sky high. Within a few automobile generations bumpers went from steel… real steel to real plastic and they fronted Crush Zones.
Highway death tolls have gone down as damages in minor accidents have sky rocketed.
One more word: Physics.
Question, why did NASCAR build Crush Zones into the CoT?
To provide a safer environment for the Driver. The Crush Zone takes the energy and the Drivers Pumpkin doesn’t.
It’s simple and understandable folks. But in the end more damage means more cost in both cash spent for repairs or complete replacement of a chassis or the less visible (to fans) cost to a team in finishing further down the order in some races for what previously was sledge-hammer repairs done on pitroad.
Toto, I don’t think we’re in 1961 any more!
NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Sports, Car of Tomorrow, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle
Maybe a side benefit of the law of physics and crush zones: We will no longer see cars barely maintaining minimum speeds, with no hoods, fenders, or rear ends, limping around tracks attempting to collect points.
Crush and park sounds like a good idea to me, especially if it spares pumpkins.
I don’t have a problem with it either George.
The “problem” of having cars in the garage with no hoods, fenders, or rear ends, vice slowly going around the track dovetails very nicely with the many high buck sponsors being aced out of the starting lineup.
Different cause, but same result. Mr High Buck sponsor fails to get the exposure they desire which is also a problem for NASCAR.