how can tires overcome clean air?

IMO they can't unless the aero issues are eliminated. I think the biggest aero problem is being able to race side to side with out any ill effects, at high speed tracks. I'm talking tight racing, not the 3 groove stuff, like at Michigan or California. There will always be some kind of aero issue no matter what, but improving that problem IMO, is the key to better racing in Nascar.
 
4 New tires can, and sometimes do, over come the clean air advantage. The problem is that the tires don't fall off as much as they used to, so not as many cars pit for tires at the end and you loose too much track position. At Indy, Gordon had taken 2 and used them up pretty good catching Menard. Keselowski took 4, but didn't have enough time to get back to the front.

I say they should get rid of the splitter and change the front suspension rules. Then the car out front won't have such a big advantage.
 
In the 70's the cars were more of a box, and while some will disagree, I think chassis improvements possibly have made aero capabilities a greater factor or the limit.


Unlike the chassis development of the 70's and 80s, now a gazillion different models can be simulated first on a computer.


Things like shocks are so much more technical now. I saw a picture of Richards Pettys 79 championship car in a stock car racing magazine during the time frame. It had Eight Gabriel, or Monroe (sp? And 30 plus years ago = rusty memory) shocks, two per wheel.


I was blown away seeing the set up. I am sure they were rebuilt and massaged to the max, but they still were built off of a common platform that was available to the masses. Stone age compared to today's development.


At about the same time Laughlin and others was bringing high tech chassis development to higher production.


After a certain level, being hooked up, less limitation in the corners, means the straightways on the same size track just got longer.


Now add in wider and better tires than the 60's to multiply the handling gains.


All of the better stuff, made the Aero development a much bigger item to develop. And the stuff ain't gong away, it is an industry, a partner, it is past the point of no return.


Disclaimer: At best my knowledge is shade tree, and I concentrate on the female chassis more, than any race car chassis. Never have built race cars for a living either.


If a more educated sounding idea is posted, you best listen to them, this is just my .02 cents.
 
Front aero used to be a valance, and that didn't give a big enough 't be overcome by a faster car running behind it. When NASCAR went to the CoT, which is 800lbs heavier, they should have gone to an even wider tire. They planned too, but put it off and went with the cheaper aero downforce to increase the grip level of the smaller tire.

Now we're in the 'aero-push' era, where a slower car in front has a HUGE down force advantage while the car behind acts like the splitter fell off. It's often too big a gap to negate with a better setup or newer tires. We see the faster car catch up, loose grip and fall back. Rinse and repeat.

I'm sick of the aero crap. I would rather see all the cars going 5mph slower while racing side by side.
 
If NASCAR did away with the splitter and the spoiler altogether, the positive effects of downforce would be eliminated. That's not likely to happen. I do agree with FB regarding new front suspension design. Every car is riding around on the bump stops which means no suspension, basically.

Greg mentioned the earlier cars like the Buicks and the Oldsmobiles being more boxy. It wasn't until FORD introduced the T-Bird (1987?) that we saw front end downforce become such an important factor.

The bastard cars that CUP drivers were piloting prior to the COT were so highly developed that they were totally dependent on clean air in order to perform. Drivers hated the Aero Push - and so did many race fans! It's still a significant issue but it's not quite as severe as it used to be.
 
robbybee said:
The bastard cars that CUP drivers were piloting prior to the COT were so highly developed that they were totally dependent on clean air in order to perform. Drivers hated the Aero Push - and so did many race fans! It's still a significant issue but it's not quite as severe as it used to be.
Click to expand...

HUH? My memory is completely different. I can't imagine Jeff Gordon having trouble passing Menard in a pre-CoT car when Jeff's right side tires have 20 fewer laps.
 
Yeah, that's prolly true. But aero-tight seemed to be brought up quite regularly by a driver who finished a close second.
 
I remember plenty of clean air and aero push problems with the twisted sister cars.

I think it got progressively worse in the 90's, and I hoped the COT would better counter the problem.
But I don't think it made the existing problem much worse.


Another problem is the common, generic, or universal nature of the cars. The distance or the band between positions 1-30 is tighter.
That makes passing tougher, track position more critical. The tire performance that can outlive a gas run also keeps and limits the band difference.
I know a tight competition point seems counter intuitive but I do think that's a factor.


I am not saying the COT is innocent, just that the AERO problems didn't originate with it, or even get worse with them.
But I think the passing issues and discontent is a combination of AERO and several other factors.


If I could just have one band aid, I would like to see tire performance deteriorate while not puncturing or blowing out. Just enough to add a real performance cycles.


The idea of appreciating a driver conservation of tires will not appeal to many attention spans, and it also needs less phantom cautions to materialize.


We are also conditioned by the TV age, there were snoozers back in the day. But less cars to worry about, charging through the pack was easier with less quality cars.


I agree AERO is the problem, but just a smaller nugget, not the whole iworld ssue.
 
Greg, all that seems to run counter to all the drivers, CC's, media, etc saying that the CoT punches a much larger hole in the air than the old car.
 
^ I realize they punch a big hole, but the mid 70's cars did as well. Look at the Mercury that Pearson won the Daytona 500 with, it was probably as bad as racing a boxed van.


But you couldn't torture those cars like they do today. A simplistic example but still those cars has more limitations than the current cars do, with or without considering the COTs impact.


Hence you had more stages in those races, a gas man like Buddy Baker seemed invincible in the first 375 miles. But then a Petty or Pearson seemed to gain some closing magic speed while Bakers type usually faded. The durability dynamic had a built in suspense, that is harder to replicate now.
Bad mismatched tires sets were more common too, netting more variability.



Also remember I don't like all the current Aero consequences either, but it's not the only bland technical factor.



Drivers also don't like the added difficulty of the COT as a whole, I an not surprised to see them critique the car.
Slamming the Aero should be expected, when you know longer can wind tunnel, and then English wheel a customized bastard of the 90's.


Even with COTs problems, I don't long to see the twisted sister cars return. I even wished wind tunnels were banned.
 
FenderBumper said:
Greg, all that seems to run counter to all the drivers, CC's, media, etc saying that the CoT punches a much larger hole in the air than the old car.
Click to expand...

Their referring to the "Twisted Sister cars" in comparison to the COT's. Gregs talking about the older cars 70s/80s and into the 90s. The aero started coming into play when the mid 80s Thunderbird came onto the scene, Chevy responded with the slopped nose/fastback Monte Carlo Pontiac had its GP 2+2. Buick and Olds went with the front drive street cars Regal and Cutlass. The Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth boys where out to lunch.
The bodys stayed relatively close to stock templates until the early 2000's when things started getting tweaked, twisted and relocated. Finaly the Gibbs team brought a car that NASCAR finaly had to draw the line on even though it fit their templates.
 
^^ That's my take on it too.^^

But then, I must admit, I don't know shee-it! ;)
 
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