2015 Rules Package Announced

KevinWI

KevinWI

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http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2014/9/23/nascar-2015-rules-package.html

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Following more than a year of extensive collaboration with stakeholders throughout the industry, and with a keen eye towards the future, NASCAR has finalized and delivered to teams the 2015 racing package for all three national series.

"This race package represents a lot of hard work by NASCAR, the race teams, the drivers, our manufacturer partners and Goodyear," said Gene Stefanyshyn, NASCAR senior vice president of innovation and racing development. "We've remained committed to constantly looking at our racing, and the work that has been done has been aimed at getting a rules package delivered to the race teams as early as possible."

Highlighted in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series changes for 2015 are nearly 60 enhancements, including adjustments to the power train, aerodynamics and chassis that are designed to work in concert to deliver drivers more flexibility and teams more adjustability. Fans are expected to benefit from closer racing and more opportunities for drivers to pass on the track.


"We have had fantastic racing so far in 2014," Stefanyshyn said. "We remain committed to constantly looking to improve it. Our fans deserve it and our industry is pushing for it. That will not stop with the 2015 package; the development will continue over many years to come."

NASCAR will institute a shorter rear spoiler in its 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series package, which also includes a reduction of engine power, lower rear differential gear ratios and an optional driver adjustable track bar.

Based on the success of group qualifying formats, which were introduced in 2014 for all national series, NASCAR also announced that group qualifying will be utilized for the first time for the Daytona 500.

Additional changes for the 2015 rules include the elimination of team-facilitated private testing, with race teams being instead invited to participate in NASCAR/Goodyear tests throughout the season. NASCAR also will work alongside Goodyear to introduce rain tires should conditions warrant during road course events in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2015.

"We're very pleased with the rules package and what it will do for our racing," said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer. "We're confident it will continue to generate great racing, along with continuous safety improvements.

"The work alongside our industry has been unprecedented. We've had great dialogue with our drivers and teams, our manufacturers and Goodyear, allowing us to build greater efficiencies into the 2015 rules package. We've met our goal of delivering rules to teams with time to prepare for next season and we're seeing the benefits of an updated process for developing our rules paying dividends. It will only continue to improve."
 
NASCAR.com is hella slow, everybody rushing to read this.
 
The cliff notes:

- Tapered spacer to reduce hp to 75.
- Roller valve lifters to replace flat valve lifter
- Lower rear differential gear ratios targeting 9,000 rpm
- Rear spoiler cut to 6 inches (this year is 8 inches)
- Track bar will be adjustable in-car by the driver.
- 38-inch radiator pan (anybody know what it is now?)
- Minimum vehicle weight is 3,250 lbs, down from 3,330 this year.
- Cup teams will be required to have RAIN TIRES, WIPERS, DEFOGGERS and REAR FLASHING RAIN LIGHTS at the two road courses
- No more team testing, NASCAR/Goodyear testing will continue with all teams invited.
 
RAIN TIRES, WIPERS, DEFOGGERS and REAR FLASHING RAIN LIGHTS at the two road courses


:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:partytime:djspin::lurk::lurk::lurk::lurk::lurk::lurk::lurk:

Im dreaming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Someone on my friend list posted a link to this and said that this will cause them to hate NASCAR next year.

I can't figure out if he's anti-rain, thinks that faster = better or is just stupid.
 
The Nature Boy said:
Someone on my friend list posted a link to this and said that this will cause them to hate NASCAR next year.

I can't figure out if he's anti-rain, thinks that faster = better or is just stupid.
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If you put stupid first, it's not impossible to be all 3.
 
ChexOrWrex said:
Soooooo

Downforce? 2 inches of spoiler does much?
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Prob.... 100 pounds of downforce less I bet.
FenderBumper said:
300 lbs. Considering how teams cheat to get 50 lbs, that's huge.
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Or 300 :p

I know from IndyCar, a little wingding gets knocked off a wing and they talk to the engineer in the pit box and he says "Oh that was about 500 pounds of downforce so we're ******". Just kidding but barely. Cars push big holes through the air at 180+ mph.
 
I know @Revman will be disappointed. He wanted a purpose built new engine. Is there something in the rules to prevent a team from building a new engine that makes 725 hp?
 
Excited to see how the racing at the cookie cutters turns out.
 
Like:
Less weight
Less downforce
More control
No more team testing

Dislike:
In-car adjustments
Less HP :mad:

And about the rain tires and stuff, we probably won't touch that stuff for years. The Cup series goes to 2 road courses: One is in a desert, the other hasn't been rained out in at least 8 years (that's as long as I have been watching).
 
KevinWI said:
Prob.... 100 pounds of downforce less I bet.
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FenderBumper said:
Ummm....probably 30 to 40 things in the rules prevent that.
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JGR could just put magnets behind the gas pedal when they give the new engines + cars to NASCAR for dyno testing or whatever they tried that one year. :D

The magnets in the dyno should be a bigger thing we joke about and reference. Everybody remembers Michael Waltrip and the "rocket fuel" the first year of the TRD engines but that was just bumbling ineptitude. JGR is more dangerous and probably were a lot closer to getting away with it with the magnets behind the foot pedals than MWR did.
 
So the drivers said constantly that reducing horsepower wouldn't change the racing and were totally against it. What does NASCAR do?

....reduces horsepower.

I hope they know what they're doing. I think reducing downforce would've been enough.

Sounds like they're gonna be simular to a Nationwi....I mean Xfinity series car.

I doubt the Sprint cup will ever use those rain tires, would be cool to see though.
 
Speedbowl14 said:
And about the rain tires and stuff, we probably won't touch that stuff for years. The Cup series goes to 2 road courses: One is in a desert, the other hasn't been rained out in at least 8 years (that's as long as I have been watching).
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Yeah, as I recall this was attempted once before and they stopped because Goodyear was throwing out the Cup rain tires year after year.
 
KahneFan said:
So the drivers said constantly that reducing horsepower wouldn't change the racing and were totally against it. What does NASCAR do?

....reduces horsepower.
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It's worked in other series though.
 
DanicaFreak said:
I'd like to see a new engine...be interesting. But this is the cheap way to go...
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Yeah, NASCAR has used air restriction to the engine for 20 years (a la restrictor plates) so this is something everybody should be comfortable with, vs. gear ratios or ECU.

They seem to want the barest bones ECU just to handle the fuel injection and nothing else.

Until I get my push to pass in 5 years. :cool:

inception-HATERS-GONNA-HATE.jpg
 
Speedbowl14 said:
And about the rain tires and stuff, we probably won't touch that stuff for years. The Cup series goes to 2 road courses: One is in a desert, the other hasn't been rained out in at least 8 years (that's as long as I have been watching).
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Watkins Glen: postponed to Monday twice in the last six years (2009, 2011).
 
Something no ones really commented on....is the lack of private testing. All teams gonna be in the same boat. But nothings to prevent the top tier teams from taking the cup cars to a "non-nascar" track and test is there?
 
While these changes obviously affect NASCAR teams, they more directly affect the engine builders who create the horsepower for the teams. One of those engine builders, Roush Yates Engines CEO Doug Yates, shared his reaction to the new rule changes Tuesday afternoon.

Question: What is your reaction to what this rules package will look like for next year?

Yates: “I think we’ve got a lot of work ahead. The engine configuration as we know it is going to change considerably and what that means is a different camshaft. They’re going from flat tappet to roller lifter, which is a step in the right direction for longevity, but as far as the cam design, the cylinder head, intake manifold and exhaust system – all of those things that are related to air-flow – is going to have to be developed and tested over the winter to have a package that’s ready to go race next March in Atlanta. At the same time, they’re reducing the horsepower target 125 and they’re also reducing the RPM from 9,500 today to 9,000 RPM going forward, so there are a lot of changes and a lot of work ahead.”

Q: So is this basically going to be a new engine?

Yates: “In a lot of ways. It’s not a total tear-up by any means. Gene Stefanyschyn and the guys at NASCAR have done a good job of talking to the engine builders and trying to get our input and feedback on how we would like to go about and that process went through many different ways of reducing power, but at the end of the day I think we as a sport have made a good decision and a good cost-effective decision going forward for the engine shops and the teams and the sport. There are a lot of ways you can do it, but this makes sense for the current engine we have today.”
Q: Is this enough time to be ready for Atlanta in March?

Yates: “There’s never enough time and we would work as hard as possible no matter when they told us, so I think NASCAR is trying to do a better job of getting the rules out. They targeted September and we’re here, and now it’s time to go to work. At the end of the day, no matter what the target power level is it’s our job to try to find an advantage and make more power than the next guy and the next organization. That’s the challenge ahead and we’re excited about it.”

Q: Just to be clear, the rules for Daytona and Talladega have not changed, correct?

Yates: “They’ve held the rules for Daytona and Talladega constant, so that’s good. We know what to do there and we continue to work on our plate program, so this is for all of the open races outside of those two tracks.”

Q: How will not being able to test affect the way you develop this engine?

Yates: “I’m not sure how I feel about not testing because we have an aerodynamic change and a power change. The way that we achieve the RPM targets is through a gear ratio, so selecting that gear ratio is going to be a bit of a calculation going forward as we go to these race tracks as opposed to testing at the track and seeing exactly what you need. So I have some reservations about that, but we’ll just have to work together with NASCAR. What keeps an engine builder up at night is making sure that we’re designing an engine and the valve train to operate at a certain range. If we’re in that range, we’ve done our homework and we’ve done a good job and everything goes according to plan. If we’re outside that range, either high or low, we may not have enough speed in the car or exceed the limits of the parts we develop. That’s a little bit concerning, but I think we’ll continue to adjust and work with NASCAR to dial that in as we go forward.”

Q: Are there any other points you’d like to make?

Yates: “I think one point is that this isn’t a horsepower-regulated series. I think most people know that, but they don’t test the engines to make sure they make a certain amount of power. The engine shops are free to work on those engines and if you get an advantage, you get to keep that advantage. I think that’s something that may sound a little obvious, but it has come up and we need to make sure that’s understood by our fans.”
 
DanicaFreak said:
Something no ones really commented on....is the lack of private testing. All teams gonna be in the same boat. But nothings to prevent the top tier teams from taking the cup cars to a "non-nascar" track and test is there?
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Getting a P6 fine will probably keep them from testing (150 points, a minimum $150,000 fine and a six-week suspension for the crew chief and other crew members), I am sure no team is going to risk it.
 
KevinWI said:
Yeah, as I recall this was attempted once before and they stopped because Goodyear was throwing out the Cup rain tires year after year.
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You have it backwards, Goodyear kept bringing the same old rain tires (that dated back to the Suzuka Japan non-points races) to the road course events. It wasn't until the tires were well over ten years old that they made a new batch.

In Cup it's really just for Watkins Glen, because Sonoma has a 0% chance of rain that time of year.
 
NASCAR also announced that group qualifying will be utilized for the first time for the Daytona 500.

Because it's so awesome at the other plate tracks. :rolleyes:
 
I'm indifferent on these changes. The reduced horsepower and adjustable track bar are stupid. And why for the love of Christ will they not get rid of the damn splitters on the nose. They look retarded and are a one way ticket to aero push. Not to mention everytime someone spins through the grass, they end up digging for natural gas unintentionally...
 
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