Plate racing needs to go!

That I could go for as long as they leave the tracks alone.
Huh. We're coming at this from completely opposite approaches. I'd rather they leave the engines the same at all tracks, as much as possible, and modify the tracks to fit the cars. Unless you support changing the engines across the board?
 
Posting this so that the people who believe spacers are radically different than plates can rip on Kyle Busch rather than other posters.



My position is that the spacers are a refinement and incremental improvement on plates.


Or nascar is trying to run onto something like they did in the early 2000's. That's like trying to win the lotto.
 
I made this thread aware that there was gonna be some controversy. I'm not that sensitive, I understand the tradition behind restrictor plate racing. That said, COT was the death of restrictor plate racing imo. There's no way we will witness another enoyable restrictor plate race for the forseeable future.

As a matter of fact, restrictor plate racing use to be my fave type of racing growing up. I was in my mid teens though, so I mostly watched for the three wide racing & the flips. Kyle Buch's flip in 2007 was pretty violent. Jamie Mac flipped last year & now he's no longer racing.

Jeff Gordon flipped in 2012 & retired a few years later. It was later revealed that he was planning to retire about three years before he actually did. That crash might've had something to do with it.
 
Eh I saw this post and the first thing I thought was to change the Plate needs to go to Indy when that race came around. Save bandwidth and excess clutter.
 
My biggest issue with plate racing, is the fact you cannot actually race without help. Try and make a pass without someone hanging on your tail, and you go to the back. It doesn't matter if you have the fastest car or not. So we end up with boring freight trains lap after lap after lap.
 
My biggest issue with plate racing, is the fact you cannot actually race without help. Try and make a pass without someone hanging on your tail, and you go to the back. It doesn't matter if you have the fastest car or not. So we end up with boring freight trains lap after lap after lap.
and then you don't, that part is what people watch. If all ya saw is single line freight train..that is declared by the racing experts that there should be a law made to ban it. On the other hand if they go three wide on the closing laps and make it to the end, heads usually explode.
 
I'm not posting this to bash nascar. I love the sport. I will be watching the race online as usual. If I had Fox Sports I'd watch the whole race.

I watched the Coke Zero 400 last year & it was pretty decent.

I'm just throwing an idea out there. We fans are constantly looking for solutions to help the sport. That's what I'm trying to accomplish with this thread.

I enjoy every type of track, especially half milers. Michigan, California Speedway, Chicagoland, Atlanta, Texas & even Homestead are fantastic races.
 
and then you don't, that part is what people watch. If all ya saw is single line freight train..that is declared by the racing experts that there should be a law made to ban it. On the other hand if they go three wide on the closing laps and make it to the end, heads usually explode.

This head only explodes when 3/4's of the field gets wiped out because of retarded rules that dictate pack racing.
 
My biggest issue with plate racing, is the fact you cannot actually race without help. Try and make a pass without someone hanging on your tail, and you go to the back. It doesn't matter if you have the fastest car or not. So we end up with boring freight trains lap after lap after lap.

Tony Stewart lost the 2008 Daytona 500 because of this very same thing. His then teammate Kyle Busch was supposed to push Tony to victory but instead elected to lift the gas and try to go for the win himself, leaving Stewart out to try while Newman & Kurt worked together & got Roger Penske a 1-2 finish in the 500.

No wonder Stewart left to form his own team.:confused:
 
That imagery is too graphic, please consult your sensitivity thesaurus and adjust.
thanks man. Fans get too upset when there is a close fender banging finish with cars wrecking in the background. I was ignorant of that fact. I'm learning, it takes awhile for my brain to become mushy and pliable.
 
Tony Stewart lost the 2008 Daytona 500 because of this very same thing. His then teammate Kyle Busch was supposed to push Tony to victory but instead elected to lift the gas and try to go for the win himself, leaving Stewart out to try while Newman & Kurt worked together & got Roger Penske a 1-2 finish in the 500.

No wonder Stewart left to form his own team.:confused:
that's part of the treachery involved in plate racing..fans are reminded a thousand times that there are no team mates on the last lap. Hell Kez left Joey out to dry on like lap 25 at the Clash. Nobody picked up KDB when he pulled out. and of course poor little Danni, some are still wounded mortally (not really) because they all left her on the bottom all alone. Hey it's plate racing like one of the many night time soap operas that people watch.
 
Huh. We're coming at this from completely opposite approaches. I'd rather they leave the engines the same at all tracks, as much as possible, and modify the tracks to fit the cars. Unless you support changing the engines across the board?
I'm all for a couple SX style double jumps on the straights. That would also eliminate the low ride height crap too as they would HAVE to use springs that actually "suspend" the car. Maybe a whoops section on pit lane?
 
My biggest issue with plate racing, is the fact you cannot actually race without help. Try and make a pass without someone hanging on your tail, and you go to the back. It doesn't matter if you have the fastest car or not. So we end up with boring freight trains lap after lap after lap.

Plate racing use to be so much different than its current form. There were the big ones from time to time and the "draft" train was often seen but there was an organic base that gave it purity. Strategy, horsepower, talent etc all mattered. DW won the 1989 500 by 7.64 seconds by taking an unbelievable gamble as the race played out. Very few people remember that Earnhardt had a 20+ second lead in the 1990 500 before a late caution set up the no infamous finish. He came back and won the Pepsi 400 by a 1.5 second which is still a decent margin. During the Winston 500 that year he and Greg Sacks had a memorable duel with no one else in sight. Earlier plate races usually consisted of a small group of cars that played their cards right. Sometimes it was 2 or 3 cars, sometimes 9 or 10. But there was always a level of decorum and respect that existed. When it didn't you had Ernie Irvan issuing a public apology in the drivers meeting. How about Rusty's speech before the 1994 Daytona 500?

As I said before I believe organic distance racing in the modern TV era is impossible. Fans nowadays simply can't find the simplicity and execution it takes to win a 500 mile race that naturally plays out. As it is, the plate races cater to what TV can sell in the 2010's; close finishes, big wrecks and controversy.

Rusty's Speech....when **** was real...

 
good story..but the competition then was way lopsided, not no more. You are talking 40 50 years ago.
 
I'm all for a couple SX style double jumps on the straights. That would also eliminate the low ride height crap too as they would HAVE to use springs that actually "suspend" the car. Maybe a whoops section on pit lane?
SX? Whoops? :blink:
 
SX? Whoops? :blink:

You're so sheltered. ;)

SharpNegativeAdamsstaghornedbeetle-max-1mb.gif
 
Yeah, I don't know squat about motorized two-wheelers.

So what am I seeing here, an SX jump? What does 'SX' stand for? Googling it didn't yield anything relevant. I assume 'Whoops' is what the driver (rider?) said when he ate dirt, or something to that effect.
 
Yeah, I don't know squat about motorized two-wheelers.

So what am I seeing here, an SX jump? What does 'SX' stand for? Googling it didn't yield anything relevant. I assume 'Whoops' is what the driver (rider?) said when he ate dirt, or something to that effect.

SX='s Supercross. "X" in anything usually means "cross". All those oval "XC" or "LAX" stickers people have on their vehicles mean Cross Country and Lacrosse.
 
:XXROFL:good one. I'm not much of a motorcycle fan, with the SX in front of the whoops, I just ignored the post, same with all of these write a book stick n ball comparisons..so thanks Charlie I now know what SX is.
 
Yeah, I don't know squat about motorized two-wheelers.

So what am I seeing here, an SX jump? What does 'SX' stand for? Googling it didn't yield anything relevant. I assume 'Whoops' is what the driver (rider?) said when he ate dirt, or something to that effect.

Motocross = MX
Supercross = SX

Supercross is basically to Motocross what the Roval is to road course racing, meaning tricked up motocross held in stadiums.

Whoops explanation: https://speedsport.com/featured/magazine-what-exactly-are-whoops/
 
Last edited:
Huh. We're coming at this from completely opposite approaches. I'd rather they leave the engines the same at all tracks, as much as possible, and modify the tracks to fit the cars. Unless you support changing the engines across the board?
They build different cars for certain track so why not engines?
 
Since NASCAR has no interest in eliminating the plates, then nothing will change.[/QUOTE] and so this will be the last race for the plate. You have been heard. :D
 
They build different cars for certain track so why not engines?
Correct me if I'm wrong (again), but aren't those different cars all within the same set of rules?

Another of my gripes with Daytona and Talladega is that the rules regarding most aspects of the racing there are very different from the rules at the other 32 races. Couldn't a car configured for Bristol be legally run at Watkins Glen? It would be dumb as heck, but wouldn't it still pass inspection? The same can't be said of taking a 1.5-mile car to a plate race now, or vice versa.

A different set of engine specs would be just another log on the fire, I guess.
 
The last time that I recall good plate racing was when they had the wing. I remember paying attention to Jr and Montoya who teamed up and were able to move through the field several times. There was a lot more passing with that configuration and I thought the wing allowed the cars to recover from getting out of shape better than the spoiler, I saw cars getting sideways and recover where they will crash today in the same situation. They removed the wing because it lifted the car when going backwards (Michael Waltrip said that could be fixed by hinging the wing like the roof flaps) and a lot of fans didn't like the look of the wing. At 200 mph the cars require a specific shape because they are flying on the ground. A line from a movie - "It flies like a brick".
 
Everything is great on plate tracks until somebody gets really hurt or dies. Nascar walks a tight rope.
 
But there was always a level of decorum and respect that existed. When it didn't you had Ernie Irvan issuing a public apology in the drivers meeting. How about Rusty's speech before the 1994 Daytona 500?

As I said before I believe organic distance racing in the modern TV era is impossible. Fans nowadays simply can't find the simplicity and execution it takes to win a 500 mile race that naturally plays out. As it is, the plate races cater to what TV can sell in the 2010's; close finishes, big wrecks and controversy.

I think the fear of death or serious injury has been so removed from auto racing that drivers just don't respect one another anymore. It is a sport-wide thing. Verstappen in F1 drives with no respect for anyone. Wickens' crash at Pocono last year, he went for a hole that wasn't there. Go back 20 years and he would've been smart enough to not do that move. It's absolutely true in NASCAR, where the sanctioning body responded to Dale Earnhardt's death by making the cars undriveable tanks, so they could continue wrecking one another at will while destroying the racing. I think when I mostly gave up on Daytona and Talladega was when Keselowski flipped over Edwards at the finish and NASCAR's response was "that was fine, he didn't go underneath the double yellow line". How is it impossibly preferred that we send a guy airborne toward the catch fence to a guy taking an evasive maneuver onto PAVEMENT! The drivers meanwhile think it's all stupid but mostly keep their mouths shut, although Stenhouse had to do the Ernie Irvan speech last year.

Look at what the Daytona 500 is now, it's been won by Trevor Bayne who has been kicked out of a 40-car Cup grid because he wasn't good enough, and Austin Dillon, who won because he created a multi-car accident. What value is there?
 
I think the fear of death or serious injury has been so removed from auto racing that drivers just don't respect one another anymore. It is a sport-wide thing. Verstappen in F1 drives with no respect for anyone. Wickens' crash at Pocono last year, he went for a hole that wasn't there. Go back 20 years and he would've been smart enough to not do that move. It's absolutely true in NASCAR, where the sanctioning body responded to Dale Earnhardt's death by making the cars undriveable tanks, so they could continue wrecking one another at will while destroying the racing. I think when I mostly gave up on Daytona and Talladega was when Keselowski flipped over Edwards at the finish and NASCAR's response was "that was fine, he didn't go underneath the door yellow line". How is it impossibly preferred that we send a guy airborne toward the catch fence to a guy taking an evasive maneuver onto PAVEMENT!

Look at what the Daytona 500 is now, it's been won by Trevor Bayne who has been kicked out of a 40-car Cup grid because he wasn't good enough, and Austin Dillon, who won because he spun out Ricky Stenhouse. What value is there?

Probably ought to look no farther than the local commute. They have made vehicles so much safer to drive, with air bags, belts and 4 wheel disc brakes, that many over drive their abilities while yapping on a cell phone. Nothing is close to what it was 20 years ago, and no telling what the next 20 will bring.
 
I probably worded it wrong, although to a lesser extent it's true. I can climb one of those cars & go full throttle around that race track in my first attempt. As a matter of fact, I can get into the race & run in the back of the pack all day, avoid the wrecks & probably sneak in late & win the race.

Have you ever watched the in-car from a plate race? You'd lose control and put it in the wall before you finish your first lap. It's not just leisurely putting your foot down and going fast, those cars are still a beast to handle.
 
Back
Top Bottom