Spotter's Required?

[HardScrabble]

On IWC Monday a brief conversation took place regarding the usefulness of spotters during a race.

Michael stated that in close quarter racing the spotters are pretty much of no use. They simply cannot judge the distance between two cars accurately enough nor relay the "clear" call quickly enough. His thought was to have NASCAR spotters located at four or more points around the track on a radio frequency that would communicate to all the drivers. These spotters would alert the drivers to trouble and where it was.

Johnny seemed to think that would be no problem.

All of the great drivers have at one time or another been credited with exceptional "track awareness". Knowing where the cars around you are and when you can move or not.

One drawback to this solution would be that no spotter would be present to alert the driver to a competitor "looking" high or low or whatever before the racing became close. Another would be that "common" spotters would not be able to direct a specific driver high or low in the case of trouble ahead. That trouble tends to move around dependign on when ya get to it.

What do ya think? Would this be a good idea? In a lot of ways I like it.

 

[TexasRaceLady]

I don't know about having NASCAR spotters. If they are all on the same frequency, how would the drivers talk to the crew about changes? It's busy enough inside a race car --- having to change to another frequency to talk to the CC could be confusing.

And what if the driver forgot to change back to NASCAR frequency?

I think having the yellow light on the dash to warn of caution might be a more viable option.

 

[DEIfan]

i dont like that idea......but then again im not the one thats in the race car.

 

[DJFan]

I dont like it at all, with the scanners I have come to realize how important those fellas really are. When a driver that has just taken on tires is coming up it is important for the field to know, he is most likely lapped and there is no reason to try to hold him off.

When the field get so spread out and lapped cars are mixed in spotters play an important role in helping the driver know if he is running that driver for position or not

Spotter and crew chiefs work "deals" throughout the race to give their driver a better chance to work thru lapped or just heavily conjested traffic.

Drivers rely on the spotters input for so many things, most recently if you recall Stewart's spotter was closely watching the race "line" of the leaders and using that to help Stewart pick up some lap speed. A crew chief has too much else to worry about with his own car than what the other cars on the track are doing.

Spotters come into play on pit road as well and as messy as that has been lately can you imagine the mess without them!

Kel