2017 Nascar Thread

Dirt is like crack for me, it wouldn't stop at $99.

 

That will be a first, you detriment to the sport in all. I hope they let the two sort it out, could make for a great season

 

Two nearby tracks are offering Rusty & Kenny Wallace driving experiences. The Kenny Wallace dirt deal is $99 for ten laps in a sprint car or late model car at Toccoa. Meanwhile, Rusty Wallace driving deal is 10 laps in late models at my favorite nearby asphalt track, Anderson Motor Speedway.

 

Don't penalize Kyle for "just racing" at Phoenix this upcoming weekend... 2 can play the dump game... Hell Dale SR did and he's the biggest icon the sport ever had. (Not endorsing dumping)

 

You dont honestly believe logano dumped kyle on purpose do you?

 

You really think Logano went that deep going into the corner and thought it would stick on old tires? Lots of racers over the year have used an outside car as a cornering "assist."

 

I guess everyone just looks right past the fact that keselowski was slowed on the outside due to a front right hub issue causing kyle to come down on logano entering the turn; which caused logano to get loose and never really gathered it up and his car jumped off the bottom into kyles car.

 

Nope, I didn't look past it. I'm saying that Logano made a calculated, spur of the moment, move. I think if Busch was not there Logano would have lifted going into the corner, but being the racer he is, he went for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he went in trying to spin the 18 car. I think he did what a lot of the drivers, including the 18 car, do every race...they take chances trying to improve their position on the track.

 

Yea they had been battling for quite a few laps side by side, which is why there was more frustrstion than usual anyway from Kyles end. Logano didnt do anything wrong imo, he could have gave up the position after contact yea, but who the hell does that after you worked for it for 10+ laps? No good driver would.

 

Whuuuuuuuut?
Nooooo

 

I wished he would have done it on purpose even though it was for 3rd haha; glad he did it to Kenseth last year for the win though, dude was hungryyy. Hope he just keeps doing him honestly, love it.

 

Brad and Joey compliment one another as teammates perfectly. They are like the younger sibling that sits in the middle goading the other two into a fight, then when the older siblings start to clean their clock they start yelling and carrying on about how they're getting beat up.

Matt Kenseth's exclamation point at Martinsville was priceless.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe7YunsEg2M

 

I find myself losing interest in NASCAR. The drivers are such whiners. I've been a fan since the 60s and when Pearson, Petty, Yarbrough, et al, would get spun or knocked into the fence, they didn't whine or cry about it. But you knew, as did the driver that caused the incident, that there would be payback. And I think that if they spun someone, they knew that what goes around, comes around. While some of the guys back the may have been angry, I guess they were never interviewed. When asked about an incident, for the most part they'd say it was "just racing."

Somewhere along the way, we went from "just racing" to a lot of whining and crying, and I think I know what may be a factor in this. Back in the sixties NASCAR still raced on dirt tracks. Shoot, I don't think think some of these kids today have ever raced on dirt. But on dirt, if you're blocking the line in a turn and are going slower that the guy behind you, you will be moved, and your car won't be torn up...usually.(Ask me how I know that.) Touching and rubbing was just a fact of life on those tracks...and there's a lot of give and take. Don't see that too often on these paved tracked.

 

Disagree completely, but everyone percieves things differently

 

Hell i hope to see more Elliot Sadler type moves on logano...

 

"Back then," they didn't have a microphone shoved in their face before they could get out of a car. I'm sure Petty, Pearson, Yarbrough, etc had an outlet somewhere to vent their frustrations. There are plenty of stories about guys like Childress, Turner, and others going after each other with tire irons.

If I had to garner when things "changed," I'd say when money came into the sport and marketing got involved. TV contracts have only upped the ante over the decades. They have to promote something, and when they no longer care to promote the actual on-track competition (because they don't know how to sufficiently do so), they lean on lowest common denominator stuff to sell ads.

Whining is part of NASCAR. Drivers have been whining about one thing or another since before NASCAR's inception. The first Daytona 500 finish took days to sort out, the first Talladega race was boycotted by the drivers, Darrell Waltrip and Tim Richmond ran their mouths in the early '80s before handing it over to Rusty Wallace & Geoff Bodine in the late '80s. Kyle Petty took them helm of Whiner in the '90s. NASCAR exists in its current form because of personalities. It exploded into the mainstream in the early '80s because the marketing team learned how to capitalize on personalities. They don't call them "Superstars" for nothing. This is why traditional fans dislike guys like Jimmie Johnson. They're unrelatable machines who succeed more than others. I don't hear many drivers whining. What I do see is the press hyping things up, but that's their job. Most of these guys just want to go out and run for the win, take off the suit, hang up the helmet and go home. Unfortunately, their job stipulates pre & post-race interviews, public appearances and being spokespersons for their sponsors and the sport. They have to develop some kind of personality that is marketable. It's part of the job.
The only guys I see consistently harping about getting raced hard are usually Gibbs drivers: Busch, Hamlin, Edwards, Kenseth. I don't hear Penske guys complaining.

As for young guys not knowing about dirt, many grew up running and winning on dirt, or come from dirt running families. The one thing all the new young drivers has in common is families with deep pockets. Larson, Kahne, Blaney, Johnson, Edwards, Bowyer, Stenhouse, Newman, Stewart, Gordon (Jeff & Robby) all have successful dirt backgrounds.

I agree with you, that there used to be more give and take. Back when the cars weren't so aero dependent, and cornering speeds were slower, the cars could recover from a nudge. NASCAR needs to slow the cars down BIG TIME or at least take away so much downforce that the guys back off closer to 150 mph in the turns. Once you get a stock car up around 170mph, they get REAL twitchy in the turns (ask me how I know ). I'm all for dropping the V8s down to a smaller displacement (Ford 302, Chevy 305, Dodge 318, Toyota 300), raising them up, ditching side skirts, passenger side windows, front splitters, rear deck fins, and slimming up the tires a good 4 inches to get them "woahed down in the corners" as DW would say. Actually, he did say that to me in the Atlanta garage back in the mid-90s

 

Well said @MadDaddy

 

You're right about it being settled in the garage in the old days. Probably no one better at it than Big Bill France hisownself. The man backed down from no one from what I have read. Some of the drivers I've admired the most over the years, such as Earnhardt, Stewart, Foyt, the Allisons, knew how to take care of themselves. I've always liked Dale Jarrett, but he used to whine about whatever make if car he drove being at a disadvantage. And you're right about Kyle Petty and Waltrip. I remember when he started getting competitive, Cale Yarborough called him"Jaws."

And while most of these boys have a bit of a dirt background, once they start moving up the ladder, they leave the dirt behind...for the most part. Didn't they run a truck race on dirt at Tony's track a couple of years ago? I would love to have seen that.

Even though this forum is considered social media, I'm not a big fan of it. You know that some of these drivers just hate being in the public eye every single day. I think that was the bane of Tony Stewart's existence.

And finally, I couldn't agree more about making changes to the cars. To see how they've changed, go to some place like the Talladega Speedway museum and compare a modern day car to the ones that Fireball Roberts drove. Man, that car still had the original dash in it, it still had the original taillight lens, and the driver's seat was covered with the upholstery from the original seats. Petty used to talk about being able to slide under his car on a creeper and work in it.

I've thought for years that they needed to remove the rear spoiler and air dam and raise the car to factory ride height. I think they should put the setup back into the hands of the drivers and the mechanics and not the aeronautical engineers. I'll guarantee that if they had to lift to run into the turns at tracks like Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta, there would not be these long lines of cars running around the tracks like a train. Whoever could make their cars handle best would leaves the others behind.

 

Penske doesn't whine lol.... Crack is a hell of a drug...