How much change in a year?

H

HardScrabble

Guest
Many questions about why some teams fall off so much in performance then come back and others do the same.

Interesting quote from Jimmie Johnson on car setups:

For his first Winston Cup race at Kansas Speedway, Jimmie Johnson examined the setup employed by teammate Jeff Gordon to win last year's inaugural event. Johnson qualified second for tomorrow's Protection One 400, but it wasn't because of his research.

"We looked at his notes and setups, and we can't believe that he won here with that," Johnson said. "He'd run 35th with those setups now."
 
I still think JJ is running Jeffy Boy setups and thats why he is doing so well.

He may not use every set up Jeff had but for the most part without those Jeffy Boy cars Jimmy would be running mid pack!
 
Not unless both teams have been misleading us all year.

From the start of the season many references have been made to much more aggressive setups that Johnson has been using compared to Jeff's. From what i understand the opposite has been more the case as Jeff has been borrowing some of the setup info from the #48 as the "older" setups the #24 was using were proving not as fast.

Since about the one third pole of season the #48 has used pretty much all new cars which never saw life as anything to do with Gordon.

Chad Knauss is probably a little brighter than many give him credit for and JJ may be as good a driver as he is showing. I wouldn't discount the teams performance on its own merits.
 
We hear all this talk about JJ and Gordon working together with setups, but do we hear anything about the setups Newman is running? He has 13 top 5s, if he isn't getting help from someone like Wallace then how does he pull all these top 5s off?
 
I think Jimmie Johnson hit the nail right on the head. What worked last year for some of these top teams at some of these tracks does not work this year. B/c they did well or won last year, they try the same set-ups this year and end up running like crap. Meanwhile, newer teams like Jimmie Johnson or Ryan Newman have the choice to use their teammates notes or try something else, and seem more inept to change.

Jeff Gordon once said this year that he rarely uses Jimmie Johnson's set-ups b/c that team uses more "daring" set-ups, while his team uses their tried-and-true set-ups. But the tires and perhaps the aerodynamics have changed what used to work, so by running his more conservative set-ups, Jeff Gordon is falling behind. He's done better than others like Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte, who I'm sure do the same things.
 
"but do we hear anything about the setups Newman is running? He has 13 top 5s, if he isn't getting help from someone like Wallace then how does he pull all these top 5s off?"

Just my opinion, but I think he understands the mechanics of the machine, the dynamics of the tracks and can put it into words for his crew chief...AND he's a pretty good racer (so is JJ and CK is a pretty smart mechanic too).

Windsor
 
I think that there is always something to be learned from the rookies. Maybe, as rpmallen says, Jeff is running set ups that are conservative. Maybe too conservative. JJ and Chad are thinking outside the box. Maybe Jeff and Robbie should try it. They only have 8 races to go. They need to move - and fast.
 
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