Dale Earnhardt Jr. on podcast: NASCAR won't give up on this damn splitter

I'm sure we will have O'Donnell on XM telling us they are looking into it, all things are on the table with the new design blah blah. People have been hating that thing every since it appeared and was nothing but a knife wielding tire cutter.
 
"I understand that the splitter was there to limit travel, but I've always thought the wing and the splitter was like a desperate attempt to grasp at the younger demographic," Earnhardt said. "This tech-and-tune generation, these kids that put all this tech into their cars. If you go to the (NASCAR Technical Institute,) you'll see these kids with wings on everything.

Epic fail as 12.9% of the viewers for the KY race were between 18-34 and 66% were over fitty and that ain't good unless you don't believe it of course.

Instead, the splitter was retained when NASCAR introduced the showroom mimicking Gen-6 machine back in 2013.

Showroom mimicking.......I haven't laughed that hard since I saw Howie Mandel at Yuk Yuks in 1978.
 
I love it! I'm very happy that Junior has become more vocal now that he's on his way out! He's starting to remind me of someone.:(
I wonder if our resident aero guru will get on here and tell him he's wrong and there's no possible way for the car to drive without that pice of crap on it!
 
I suspect the splitter helps stabilize the car at high speed tracks. Between the spitter and side skirts they suck the car to the track removing the suspension (I wonder how the bumpy ride affects drivers physically). I agree with Jr that they should get the cars off the ground. But they need to test how stable the cars are at 200 mph in traffic with a lot less down force.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I suspect the splitter helps stabilize the car at high speed tracks. Between the spitter and side skirts they suck the car to the track removing the suspension (I wonder how the bumpy ride affects drivers physically). I agree with Jr that they should get the cars off the ground. But they need to test how stable the cars are at 200 mph in traffic with a lot less down force.
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I'm not sure they will lose stability, they were running speeds comparable to that back in the 60's and 70's without much of the valance Jr is talking about. Some years on bias ply tires. I think some of it is lazyness on Nascar's part, they don't have to police the ride height with the splitter. Teams had really expensive shocks that would bounce back up (most of the time) after the race was over.
 
Dale Jr. is right about everything he said. The splitter came with the wing in an attempt to get the young kids intested in Hondas interested in NASCAR. It didn't work. He's also right about getting the cars off the ground. It doesn't produce great racing.
 
MRM said:
Dale Jr. is right about everything he said. The splitter came with the wing in an attempt to get the young kids intested in Hondas interested in NASCAR. It didn't work. He's also right about getting the cars off the ground. It doesn't produce great racing.
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could be, but what they said publicly was for safety reasons was the reason for the C.O.T. Remembering it was right after Sr. died and a lot of political pressure for more safety. Having a tire cutter on the front wasn't my idea of safety. Car was uglier than any **** box with a fart can sticking out the back
 
Old 97 said:
I love it! I'm very happy that Junior has become more vocal now that he's on his way out! He's starting to remind me of someone.:(
I wonder if our resident aero guru will get on here and tell him he's wrong and there's no possible way for the car to drive without that pice of crap on it!
Click to expand...

I know an aero guru that could be mired in dirty air and deny its existence and another who says aero will always be present. I don't disagree that aero will always be present however smart men and women, if allowed, could do several things to alleviate it.

Zerkfitting said:
I suspect the splitter helps stabilize the car at high speed tracks. Between the spitter and side skirts they suck the car to the track removing the suspension (I wonder how the bumpy ride affects drivers physically). I agree with Jr that they should get the cars off the ground. But they need to test how stable the cars are at 200 mph in traffic with a lot less down force.
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IMO the cars don't need to run anywhere 200 mph in order to have a good race. Some of the best racing we see each year are on tracks where 200 mph isn't even a thought and some of the worst is when it is an every lap occurrence.

MRM said:
Dale Jr. is right about everything he said. The splitter came with the wing in an attempt to get the young kids intested in Hondas interested in NASCAR. It didn't work. He's also right about getting the cars off the ground. It doesn't produce great racing.
Click to expand...

The hilarious thing about that statement is the younger fans didn't even know Nascar was trying to appeal to them.
 
But they kept the splitter

NASCAR bids goodbye to Car of Tomorrow
Safety was the common thread when designers stitched together the template for the car. It came on the heels of the death of NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001. In the preceding year, three other drivers also had died in accidents.
"That wing," said Felix Sabates, a partner in Chip Ganassi Racing. "My God, they should put that wing on top of Gary Nelson's head and send him to orbit."
"The Car of Tomorrow was the worst mistake ever made in the history of NASCAR," Sabates said. "And they know that. But they couldn't change overnight because of the investment we have to make on these cars."
"We beat that COT to death," team owner Rick Hendrick said. "This is the best I've felt before the COT."'
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...0216_1_race-car-felix-sabates-robin-pemberton
 
StandOnIt said:
But they kept the splitter

NASCAR bids goodbye to Car of Tomorrow
Safety was the common thread when designers stitched together the template for the car. It came on the heels of the death of NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001. In the preceding year, three other drivers also had died in accidents.
"That wing," said Felix Sabates, a partner in Chip Ganassi Racing. "My God, they should put that wing on top of Gary Nelson's head and send him to orbit."
"The Car of Tomorrow was the worst mistake ever made in the history of NASCAR," Sabates said. "And they know that. But they couldn't change overnight because of the investment we have to make on these cars."
"We beat that COT to death," team owner Rick Hendrick said. "This is the best I've felt before the COT."'
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...0216_1_race-car-felix-sabates-robin-pemberton
Click to expand...

Felix Sabates' comments, LOL :cheers:
 
StandOnIt said:
"That wing," said Felix Sabates, a partner in Chip Ganassi Racing. "My God, they should put that wing on top of Gary Nelson's head and send him to orbit."
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lmao

R Clarence said:
Early after the decision to dump the wing, Helton said the thing was an attempt to appeal to a different demo.
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A lot of good that did.
 
StandOnIt said:
I'm sure we will have O'Donnell on XM telling us they are looking into it, all things are on the table with the new design blah blah. People have been hating that thing every since it appeared and was nothing but a knife wielding tire cutter.
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Pretty good shovel too. Lots of landscaping done with that thing.
 
I like the idea that they can try a little corner cutting without losing the whole front end. Kick up a little dirt, make it interesting.
 
StandOnIt said:
I'm sure we will have O'Donnell on XM telling us they are looking into it, all things are on the table with the new design blah blah. People have been hating that thing every since it appeared and was nothing but a knife wielding tire cutter.
Click to expand...
When you read O'Donnell's reply to Brad, he thinks all is OK. I wonder if he cares what DE thinks?
Why have a ******* running things and making decisions about cars if he never drove a race car?
 
http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/sto...airman-biggest-failure-car-of-tomorrow-032015

When designing a race car safety should always be top of mind and as many safety features should be build into each race car as possible. The problem is when safety becomes the only thing as you end up with terrible cars like CoT and whatever it is they use now. There are many things that have caused people to turn away from Nascar but what is perceived as boring racing is likely near the top.

In short order we will have a couple of self styled experts come along and tell us that everything is great and the racing has never been better than it is today. IMO a person likes what the like for a variety of reasons but for arguments sake lets just say the racing has never been better than today. The only response I have is maybe the majority likes the bad racing and crappy rules they had in the 80's and 90's as Joe and Mary Public are tuning out the product Nascar provides today in historic numbers.

In summation we have the safest car ever and the best racing (according to some) ever but fewer and fewer watch. How can that be?
 
ToyYoda said:
Because nothing will get the kiddos to follow NASCAR more than slapping wings and splitters on Impala, Camry, and Fusion family sedans.
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I have always been partial to this look.

ugly-spoiler-1.jpg
 
Team Penske said:
When you read O'Donnell's reply to Brad, he thinks all is OK. I wonder if he cares what DE thinks?
Why have a dipsh!t running things and making decisions about cars if he never drove a race car?
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O'Donnell is their point man, he will spin it to death I believe with a bunch of we are looking at it this or that, he won't come out and say we are getting rid of it I bet. He doesn't have any decision power so he tip toes around everything. I can't see team owners being in love with a piece on the car that every time it sees a grass blade the front end explodes. But it isn't costing Nascar anything they think, they don't have to check ride heights anymore..let em spark and scrape and plow.
 
StandOnIt said:
could be, but what they said publicly was for safety reasons was the reason for the C.O.T. Remembering it was right after Sr. died and a lot of political pressure for more safety. Having a tire cutter on the front wasn't my idea of safety. Car was uglier than any sh!t box with a fart can sticking out the back
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The COT was created to make a safer car (cabin area) after Dale Sr. died. But the look of the car (wing and splitter) was an attempt to attract younger fans. Instead, they drove a lot of fans away with that ugly thing.
 
Part of the reason they went with the splitter was to help reduce the "aero push" everyone was complaining about back before the COT came around. The problem is that as Jr points out, all the cars are basically running the same setup so the splitter doesn't help, it hurts in this scenario. We could still utilize a splitter to help with aero push but it doesn't need to be scraping the ground. Just pick it up off the ground 5 inches or so and let the suspension travel a little more. Allow the cars to run different setups so their speeds aren't so identical. Ultimately, I don't think you can really get rid of aero push and the higher the track speeds the worse the push is going to be. Correction, I don't think there is aero push on the short tracks! haha

I think some of the cars in IMSA or WEC have some "shark fins" (for lack of a better term) on the outside of the fenders to help with down force at the front. Not too sure how NASCAR fans would take to those.
You can see the "shark fins" on the Ford just below the word ECO on the front right bumper of the car. Looks like the Vette has one too.
Ford-GT-IMSA.jpg
 
Shark fins were in the mix with the C.O.T. when it was being designed. IMSA is in love with splitters and shark fins also built in side skirts. They have a whole lot more opportunities to pass.


upload_2017-7-13_14-37-9.jpeg


.
 
I'm sure one of the big issues with the shark fins is that, like you pointed out, they become knives to cut open tires.
 
LouieLouie said:
... I think some of the cars in IMSA or WEC have some "shark fins" (for lack of a better term) on the outside of the fenders to help with down force at the front. Not too sure how NASCAR fans would take to those.
You can see the "shark fins" on the Ford just below the word ECO on the front right bumper of the car. Looks like the Vette has one too.
Ford-GT-IMSA.jpg
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I believe the term y'all are looking for is 'dive planes', not 'shark fins'.

2014 article with photos of dive planes on the #2 and #10 in testing.
http://buildingspeed.org/blog/2014/08/22/dive-dive-dive-planes-on-stock-cars/
 
LouieLouie said:
I'm sure one of the big issues with the shark fins is that, like you pointed out, they become knives to cut open tires.
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yeah exactly, I don't think they called them shark fins, that is on the top of the car. I can't remember what they were called but they were nixed.. on the first version of the C.O.T. the splitter wrapped around the front of the car and was a heck of a tire shredder. Newer versions they continued to make is smaller and they first revision the removed it from sticking out the side..it still was a piece of crap.
First version



83COTtalladega.jpg


One of the many revisions


upload_2017-7-13_14-56-10.jpeg
 
Skinner knows all about "dive plates"/"canards"/whatever you wanna call em



I think NASCAR needs a better solution than more aero trinkets
 
Hate the way the COT looked, but it really produced some fun racing. Much better than the Gen 6

The Gen 7 will have to balance fender flares for front downforce & the spoiler for rear. Im open to dropping speeds to create better racing in the driver's hands.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I suspect the splitter helps stabilize the car at high speed tracks. Between the spitter and side skirts they suck the car to the track removing the suspension (I wonder how the bumpy ride affects drivers physically). I agree with Jr that they should get the cars off the ground. But they need to test how stable the cars are at 200 mph in traffic with a lot lesss down force.
Click to expand...
Hmmm see the 70s videos, cars were traveling in the draft at close to 200 without all the bs aero we have now.
 
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