2016 NASCAR thread

I have a theory about Eric Jones. It goes something like this: JGR owns him, wants to keep him, and has every intention of getting him into a cup car. Problem: Everyone at Gibbs right now is a "premier" driver in the cup series. We all saw what Eric could do in KB's car last spring. Solution: Pick up a smaller championship caliber team and provide chassis, engines, technology, and then you have an alliance. Alliance you say? Furniture Row Racing is now running Gibbs equipment. I'm thinking a 2nd car in the Furniture Row camp would make Eric Jones eligible to slide right into basically another JGR car. Problem solved.

 

Yep. All but officially confirmed

 

Did they actually come out and say it?

 

Per Jayski this was just posted:

Updates to the current rules package aimed at reducing both downforce and side force will be in place this weekend when NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams travel to Charlotte Motor Speedway to compete in the Sprint Showdown and Sprint All-Star race. According to Gene Stefanyshyn, senior vice president of innovation and racing development for the sanctioning body, three areas have been addressed with the updates. They involve truck trailing arm and crossmember assembly, electric fans used for cooling purposes on the cars and rear wheel toe alignment.The trailing arm issue was actually addressed previously with a change put into place before the series competed earlier this month at Kansas Speedway. Teams must now weld truck trailing arm mounting brackets (and mounting tabs, if used) to prevent movement. That change will remain in place for the remainder of the 2016 season.
Limiting the number of cooling fans will provide "a good efficiency improvement as far as managing or attenuating some costs ... and it also gave us a downforce reduction," he said. "So it was a win-win. Some of those fans were driving things like bigger fans, bigger alternators, bigger batteries ... that kind of thing."
Rear toe alignment changes will decrease the amount of skew (slant) allowed in a car's setup. "We currently allow them to set up the car with some skew that provides not only a turning advantage but also a side force advantage," he said. "Usually the way a team would set that up is on the right side they take 0.6 degrees of toe out and on the left side they do about 0.3 degrees of toe in. We're going to change the specifications so it's going to be neutral; it will be zero setup. That will take some of the skew out of the car, which will take some of the side force off the car." It is also expected to reduce corner speeds approximately 3 mph at a track such as Charlotte. Because the Sprint All-Star Race is a non-points event, it provides officials and teams the opportunity to observe the impact of the changes without the fear of upsetting the integrity of the regular season. "Depending on how the journey goes and what we find out, that could be something we could consider for '17."(NASCAR.com)(5-16-2016)

 

An MRN reporter spilled the beans during a race broadcast. Somehow it's flown under the radar for two weeks. All he said was Jones in a second Furniture Row car next year.

From what I've been told (via a friend in the Toyota mgmt. camp), is that they want a veteran Mark Martin type to shake down the car later this season or during the '17 season, perhaps splitting the ride with Jones, since they'll be building an entirely new team from the ground up. This puts Jones full-time in 2018. There's no one in the Toyota camp available for shake down this season. Ryan NewmN is available next year.

 

Bring back John Andretti! LOL

 

Crap, I totally forgot about the obvious Toyota veteran who could shake down the car: Brian Vickers.

 

Well he definitely knows how to wreck one up pretty good.

 

JJ is an idiot.... Let's neglect driver safety...

 

I think he feels like he has to speak up now that Jeff is gone, like people are going to listen. Now if Tony said it, he probably would've gotten fined for criticizing NASCAR LOL!

 

I can understand the point of view of the drivers (not just JJ) that don't feel the need to put a safer barrier on the outside wall on the stretches at Dover, with the banking that throws the cars inside and how narrow it already is coming off the turn. However, somehow, some way, someone will hit it and get hurt, all tracks need those safer walls at all spots on the track. Period.

 

NASCAR is playing favorites...

yes!

 

these grandstands look more vacant every year.

 

You seen this, @thewarriordinghy ?


Looks good. I was there for the '93 Daytona 500.

 

Lol it reminds me of the Bobby labonte figure I have (it was his scheme way back) it looks good

 

I don't like it cause it looks too much like this

 

Yeah, but the 18 car could actually win..

 

It's a throwback to Dale Jarrett's '93 Daytona 500 winning car:

 

But labonte ran a similar car...

 

This is true. The 10 car can win too so long as Danica isn't the driver or everyone else in the field isn't racing.