have's and have nots too predictable

hidesert cowboy

hidesert cowboy

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as I looked at the speed chart for practice. (which I think was kinda strange there is only one practice )and the results of qualifying. I wasn't surprised one bit. The cars are grouped in 3 catagories, faster than everyone else, medium speed and lost in the wilderness.

1) SHR faster than anyone else, the 4 car found what truex was doing and added their own stuff to it.
2) the toyotas are medium speed. some are faster than the less SHR cars at certain times.
3) lost in the wilderness. This is the chevy's except larson. HMS should be embarrassed what they are bringing to the track for JJ to drive.

for me I am losing interest in watching. I have to admit seeing the sports biggest characters leave the sport has left me wanting. I can't remember there being such a disparity with the cars. last year it was the 78 car. The problem is as I see it teams are hitting on something and maintaining the advantage for some time, which didn't used to happen. Maybe its a product of less money. Once your in a hole R&D wise you stay in it. I dunno but I don't like seeing certain cars just stomp the field. Its not really about the driver anymore, its about having a way way faster car than anyone else.

lets also remember that these fast cars probably are not being pushed as hard as they can run. even years ago jeff gordon admitted to not stinking up the show and sandbagging. the indication of that is the huge lead the 4 and the 78 take in the closing laps of the race. pulling huge leads in the final run of the race to insure a win, that is when there is sand bagging because why didn't they run like that in the middle of the race.
 
The days of front Joe are over, but be glad there are any cars at all
 
It's been this way for about a decade or so. You generally know who is going to run up front, who will run in the middle of the pack, and who will bring up the rear before the races even start. It hasn't always been this way
 
hidesert cowboy said:
as I looked at the speed chart for practice. (which I think was kinda strange there is only one practice )and the results of qualifying. I wasn't surprised one bit. The cars are grouped in 3 catagories, faster than everyone else, medium speed and lost in the wilderness.

1) SHR faster than anyone else, the 4 car found what truex was doing and added their own stuff to it.
2) the toyotas are medium speed. some are faster than the less SHR cars at certain times.
3) lost in the wilderness. This is the chevy's except larson. HMS should be embarrassed what they are bringing to the track for JJ to drive.

for me I am losing interest in watching. I have to admit seeing the sports biggest characters leave the sport has left me wanting. I can't remember there being such a disparity with the cars. last year it was the 78 car. The problem is as I see it teams are hitting on something and maintaining the advantage for some time, which didn't used to happen. Maybe its a product of less money. Once your in a hole R&D wise you stay in it. I dunno but I don't like seeing certain cars just stomp the field. Its not really about the driver anymore, its about having a way way faster car than anyone else.

lets also remember that these fast cars probably are not being pushed as hard as they can run. even years ago jeff gordon admitted to not stinking up the show and sandbagging. the indication of that is the huge lead the 4 and the 78 take in the closing laps of the race. pulling huge leads in the final run of the race to insure a win, that is when there is sand bagging because why didn't they run like that in the middle of the race.
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I understand what you are saying, but this, lost in the wilderness. This is the chevy's except larson. puts a hole in your perception

I am a firm believer it is more driver than car in a lot of situations. I think we have a group of drivers that will just not push as hard as is necessary to win or run up front, either because they do not know how or they just do not have the where with all to get in there and fight.
 
Haha I had to suffer through years and years and years of HMS domination the 24 then the 48.....o and sprinkle a 5 car championship in their too. I couldnt be happier to see where the cars are at right now. These things go through cycles.
 
sdj said:
I understand what you are saying, but this, lost in the wilderness. This is the chevy's except larson. puts a hole in your perception

I am a firm believer it is more driver than car in a lot of situations. I think we have a group of drivers that will just not push as hard as is necessary to win or run up front, either because they do not know how or they just do not have the where with all to get in there and fight.
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uhhh what? so your saying a guy like JJ isn't trying or can't? I suppose he doesn't care about 8 titles and etching his name at the very top? I can't disagree more. Martin truex. a guy I like BTW. lets face it, he drove for DEI and MWR when clint bower won 3 races for them in a season. We know who martin is as a driver. he didn't suddenly, decide to just start driving a race car. His history is well known. but the last few years he has looked like the next jimmie johnson. Well if you have a car good enough to run 3/4 of a second faster than anyone else heck maybe even danica might have done something.

I guess what I am saying is I have been watching the sport pretty close since the 2004 season. I can't remember certain teams being faster everywhere than everyone else. usually a certain team would be fast on one track then go to another and not be able to hold the edge over the rest of the field and another team would be fast there.
 
hidesert cowboy said:
I guess what I am saying is I have been watching the sport pretty close since the 2004 season. I can't remember certain teams being faster everywhere than everyone else. usually a certain team would be fast on one track then go to another and not be able to hold the edge over the rest of the field and another team would be fast there.
Click to expand...

Before your time ... Jeff Gordon won 27 races in 3 seasons.

Success in auto racing requires a mix of good people, the willingness to out-work your competitors and mountains of cash. It has always been that way, it’s that way today and it will always be that way.
 
hidesert cowboy said:
uhhh what? so your saying a guy like JJ isn't trying or can't? I suppose he doesn't care about 8 titles and etching his name at the very top? I can't disagree more. Martin truex. a guy I like BTW. lets face it, he drove for DEI and MWR when clint bower won 3 races for them in a season. We know who martin is as a driver. he didn't suddenly, decide to just start driving a race car. His history is well known. but the last few years he has looked like the next jimmie johnson. Well if you have a car good enough to run 3/4 of a second faster than anyone else heck maybe even danica might have done something.

I guess what I am saying is I have been watching the sport pretty close since the 2004 season. I can't remember certain teams being faster everywhere than everyone else. usually a certain team would be fast on one track then go to another and not be able to hold the edge over the rest of the field and another team would be fast there.
Click to expand...


Did you blink and miss the 48s championships and ridiculous number of wins?

Barf
 
Some may overstate the amount of parity present in NASCAR, but it still has more competitive balance than most auto racing series, big or small.

I'm largely supportive of measures to narrow the gap in resources among teams, giving more an opportunity to excel. I'm not for shortcut changes to force parity and randomness into results. I'm not for the 'unpredictably' of plate racing, which is awful. I want to see the teams and drivers who are currently executing the best win. I also love a good underdog victory when the underdog has actually outperformed the favorites that day. That's what sport is about.
 
hidesert cowboy said:
I guess what I am saying is I have been watching the sport pretty close since the 2004 season.
Click to expand...

This does actually better explain your perspective. The early- to mid-'00s is by most measures the peak period in terms of parity in NASCAR. In retrospect it looks like a very healthy time for the sport and its teams, and it almost certainly is true that performance gaps were lesser and more cars had a genuine chance to win or finish in the top 10 each week during that narrow window.

I was born in 1978 and have been watching regularly since the late '80s. Others here have been watching longer. In that context, the dominant performers of today don't look much different.
 
Anybody figure out yet that SHR doesn't have four Chevy's anymore? Think about it. simple addition and subtraction will work.
 
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gnomesayin said:
Some may overstate the amount of parity present in NASCAR, but it still has more competitive balance than most auto racing series, big or small.

I'm largely supportive of measures to narrow the gap in resources among teams, giving more an opportunity to excel. I'm not for shortcut changes to force parity and randomness into results. I'm not for the 'unpredictably' of plate racing, which is awful. I want to see the teams and drivers who are currently executing the best win. I also love a good underdog victory when the underdog has actually outperformed the favorites that day. That's what sport is about.
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Well stated. It is important to distinguish between randomness of results and performance parity. They are very different things. My #1 requirement is that the races be a contest of skill. I believe we have more of that today than most periods of Nascar's history. And yet many fans call out for more randomness. I just don't get it.
 
Racing has always been about the haves and have-nots. At least as long as I’ve been watching. Lately it seems to redistribute a bit more with all of the changes.
I wish someone would handcuff the NASCAR rule guys for a few years. The constant meddling is boring.
 
Yesterday JJ decided not to make an attempt for round 2 of qualifying. That right there indicates to me that the duo of Chad/JJ are no longer on their game and have decided to let the young ones do the work. The only problem I see at HMS is they refuse to fire Car Chiefs that are not getting the job done and Crew Chiefs that made their names only because of the drivers they had.
I can see Jeff Gordon returning from the booth to take a greater role in management.
 
Remember in Days of thunder. (I know just a movie)
Cole walked up to his crew around the car and asked what’s wrong, we’re a second off the pace, trying to figure out how to get more speed.
Cole said “cars perfect Harry!”

The days of, making speed at the track, driver ability making up the difference
Has been gone for a long time

If the car unloads fast, it’s fast
If it’s not, it’s not
 
28car said:
Remember in Days of thunder. (I know just a movie)
Cole walked up to his crew around the car and asked what’s wrong, we’re a second off the pace, trying to figure out how to get more speed.
Cole said “cars perfect Harry!”

The days of, making speed at the track, driver ability making up the difference
Has been gone for a long time

If the car unloads fast, it’s fast
If it’s not, it’s not
Click to expand...
I believe the Car Chief is responsible for that however if he is taking orders from the CC then his hands are tied.
 
As far as parity is concerned, even in years when JG was winning 30% of the races, there was still a lot more parity from top to bottom. Guys who were 20th in points could still compete for an occasional win, and guys 30th in points were still capable of an occasional top 5. Anyone in the field was capable of qualifying up front on any given Sunday. The final results from race to race were very different from week to week. You almost always had one or two underdogs running in the top 10.

You could hit on a setup and have a good run no matter what team you drove for. As the rules and costs have drastically changed, the "have nots" can rarely even sniff a top 20 now. Who wants to sponsor a car that finishes at the back every single race without any prayer of a decent finish?
 
Look at the results this year. Generally speaking it's one two guys running away with it (Harvick, KyBusch), another ten or so cars on the lead lap, then the rest of the field a lap down or more.

Not gonna cut it for me.
 
Hey...I am going to go with this. 80% car...80% of the remaining 20% is driver...80% of the remaining 4% is being able to communicate and adjust....the .8% left is up to the racing gods.

Did anyone notice how Kenseth started out slow...that the car was bottoming out the splitter from the get go. Took most of the practice to adjust and gain a second. Still was not there. The whole session was a micro-ism of what the Chevy's are going through this year. The question will be, can Kenseth get competitive in a shorter amount of time than the Chevy's...if he does, then Chevy has to go back to the drawing board as there will be a fundamental cause between the Ford and Chevy. I say it is the down force in a kinetic sense...something is affecting the balance, cannot keep the splitter off the ground and still make it through the corner.
 
StandOnIt said:
Anybody figure out yet that SHR doesn't have four Chevy's anymore? Think about it. simple addition and subtraction will work.
Click to expand...
More like eyesight. Anyone can see that SHR is running Fords.
 
the difference as I see it is the have's seem to have speed everywhere. used to be you had some teams that had an advantage on the 1.5 mile tracks. other teams might be decent on the smaller tracks. with the 78 last year and the 4 car this year it seems like they are way faster than everyone everywhere. even when jimmie and won 5 in a row, you still saw different teams coming in the mix at different tracks.
 
hidesert cowboy said:
the difference as I see it is the have's seem to have speed everywhere. used to be you had some teams that had an advantage on the 1.5 mile tracks. other teams might be decent on the smaller tracks. with the 78 last year and the 4 car this year it seems like they are way faster than everyone everywhere. even when jimmie and won 5 in a row, you still saw different teams coming in the mix at different tracks.
Click to expand...

Perception.....because i see that happening now too.
 
28car said:
Remember in Days of thunder. (I know just a movie)
Cole walked up to his crew around the car and asked what’s wrong, we’re a second off the pace, trying to figure out how to get more speed.
Cole said “cars perfect Harry!”

The days of, making speed at the track, driver ability making up the difference
Has been gone for a long time

If the car unloads fast, it’s fast
If it’s not, it’s not
Click to expand...

I think a Mr Rodgers analogy would just as appropriate.
Or like what if I watch Private Ryan and walk away thinking I understand war.

Drivers still have to find a fast line, and save tires. In fact I think the racing is as good as ever this year.
 
28car said:
Remember in Days of thunder. (I know just a movie)
Cole walked up to his crew around the car and asked what’s wrong, we’re a second off the pace, trying to figure out how to get more speed.
Cole said “cars perfect Harry!”

The days of, making speed at the track, driver ability making up the difference
Has been gone for a long time

If the car unloads fast, it’s fast
If it’s not, it’s not
Click to expand...

I watch most practices..post em here for easy viewing. Practice times are all over the place. That is why they have practice, to try things to make the car better. Yeah sometimes a car unloads fast that is the goal BTW...they spend hours and look at years of past data at that track if they have it.
 
Truex_rox said:
More like eyesight. Anyone can see that SHR is running Fords.
Click to expand...
losing four Chevy's, hundreds of engines, data input from team engineers and tests on the track and in the wind tunnel, all trying to make the car go faster, is more than eyesight. ;)
 
2 Sweet said:
It's been this way for about a decade or so. You generally know who is going to run up front, who will run in the middle of the pack, and who will bring up the rear before the races even start. It hasn't always been this way
Click to expand...

Oh how naive. Come on it’s always been like this. Hell the mid to late 90s were insert (Martin, Labonte, Gordon, Earnhardt, Wallace, Jarrett) here in Victory Lane. Then it became insert (Johnson, Gordon, Stewart, Edwards, Busch’s) here
 
2 Sweet said:
As far as parity is concerned, even in years when JG was winning 30% of the races, there was still a lot more parity from top to bottom. Guys who were 20th in points could still compete for an occasional win, and guys 30th in points were still capable of an occasional top 5. Anyone in the field was capable of qualifying up front on any given Sunday. The final results from race to race were very different from week to week. You almost always had one or two underdogs running in the top 10.

You could hit on a setup and have a good run no matter what team you drove for. As the rules and costs have drastically changed, the "have nots" can rarely even sniff a top 20 now. Who wants to sponsor a car that finishes at the back every single race without any prayer of a decent finish?
Click to expand...
Ummm...no, the back markers were never capable of a top 5 because they started and parked it.
 
Mispeedway15 said:
Oh how naive. Come on it’s always been like this. Hell the mid to late 90s were insert (Martin, Labonte, Gordon, Earnhardt, Wallace, Jarrett) here in Victory Lane. Then it became insert (Johnson, Gordon, Stewart, Edwards, Busch’s) here
Click to expand...

Tell that to Kyle Petty, Ward Burton, Geoff Bodine, Bobby Hamilton, John Andretti, Jeremy Mayfield, Joe Nemechek, Steve Park, Jerry Nadeau, Elliott Sadler, Ricky Craven, Robby Gordon, Johnny Benson, and all the other drivers that were a ways down in the points standings yet still managed to win. Plus, I'm not just talking about winners, I'm talking about the whole field. You didn't have the Reed Sorensens and Jeffrey Earnhardts and Timmy Hills of the world that were destined to be several laps down every week. The backmarkers used to have good runs sometimes. Pick any year from the mid '90s to the mid '00s and look at the points standings, look at the guys down in the 30's and look at their top 5's and top 10's compared to the guys in the 30's today. Look at some of the guys who were winning poles back then.

Mopardh9 said:
Ummm...no, the back markers were never capable of a top 5 because they started and parked it.
Click to expand...

Wrong. How long have you been watching NASCAR? See above. My point is that backmarkers didn't even exist back then, because you rarely had the same cars bringing up the rear every week. The guy who was 30th in points didn't finish in the 30's every single race like today.
 
Look at Loudon, 1999.....

http://racing-reference.info/race/1999_Dura_Lube_Kmart_300/W

Joe Nemechek won the race (30th in points) in the Sabco 42 car, Rick Mast finished 9th (32nd in points) in the Yarborough 98 car, and Hut Stricklin (43rd in points) finished 16th in the 58 car owned by Scott Barbour, whoever the hell that is. That is the equivalent of David Ragan winning, Matt Dibenedetto finishing 9th, and Cody Ware finishing 16th.....all in the same race.

That kind of stuff happened all the time, it wasn't just this one race. Gordon and Martin and Jarrett and Wallace and those guys won a lot because they were the best drivers in the best cars, and that's how it should be. But there was so much more parity across the board and so much more opportunity for the "have nots" to compete. If you don't believe me, look it up, pick any random race from 1994ish to 2003ish and see for yourself. The results from first to last were wayyyy more of a mixed bag week in and week out, which I believe was healthy for the sport.
 
Last night's race was another indicator that Nascar currently is doing it right.
The late race pass was fun. But a good race has solid drama all the way through.

And Ryan Blaney as flawed as he was demonstrated that the driver's do push it to win, and even take it over the edge. Harvick got up on the wheel late in the race too.

I am not trying to be rude but last night demonstrates some disconnect with reality in this thread.
And Nascar is showing enough faith to trust the merit's without debris cautions.
I hope they don't give in to some discontented fans.
And if we wanna talk history we should all know there will be some races that are not as good as others, past, present and future.
This is real drama and racing mimicks life. Respect a few lean ones and celebrate the good times. And I want enjoy the improvements.

And if the racing ain't working this year for you , maybe you are just kidding yourself and need a new hobby.
 
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