Stock Bodies

[Zerkfitting]

Some NASCAR purists would like to go back to stock bodies. To the purists, the CoT is an abomination.

Chrysler took the stock body to an extreme with the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird. It is my opinion that the ’83 Tbird started the road to the CoT with its jellybean body.

During the 80’s and 90’s there was a constant whining by the teams about the nose of the different manufacturer’s cars. When one manufacturer started to win more often, the other teams complained. NASCAR started to allow deviations to the stock body. It became a cycle of winning, whining, and NASCAR allowing more changes. With aerodynamics a significant factor, NASCAR had to level the playing field and the Car of Tomorrow was born (I call the CoT a NAScar).

The purpose of this thread is to remember how teams, manufacturers, and NASCAR changed the stock bodies.

 

[SST55]

Jack Roush, nuff said

 

[VaDirt]

yup. Hard to say who the biggest whiner has been over the years, but I would put Jack Roush at or near the top.

 

[Zerkfitting]

Most sedans had a fairly flat back window. The Plymouth Road Runner had an unusual curve in the back window. If you looked through the rear view mirror in one of those cars the view was greatly distorted. The reason for it was an aerodynamic advantage in stock car racing.

The picture of the lower trim of the rear window shows how radical the curve of the rear window was.

 

[Greg]

It would probably be impossible to say who started whining first. It was going on in the 60s, I remember the arguments that I was to young to understand in those days. It probably started before then, and sombody older might have some insight to add.

Ford and Chrysler had their engine wars, that escalated to aerodynamic wars in the late 60's. It is like asking a pro Northerner or pro Southerner to explain the Civil war, you may get two different accounts strictly aligned with the sympathies of the reporter.
When I hear some describe the Ford/Chrysler wars of the 60s the bias is the only sure thing.

aero warriors The 68 and 69 Ford had their Torino/ Mercury Cyclone and Mopar had the Dodge Daytona, 70 Superbird, some explanations provided in this link

I would like them to run stock sheet metal at least they would look stock, and I think the Australian V8s look better. But Nascar has to much invested to make big changes. If it ever happens it will take some generations of devolution to get there, just as we have evolved to the current contraction they call a stock car.

 

[Thegroundpounder99]

I love our sport and our history because that's how we got here. But with that said, I don't want to go back. What would be next? Stock frame rails or unibodies? I don't want to see NASCAR running a bunch of street stocks. I don't want telemetry and I can't say I'm totally fond of the carbon fiber hood and deck lids of the new car but it looks really good. It's close enough to stock for me.Personally, I loved the old bodies before the COT. Common templates took a lot of innovation out.

 

[ozz]

. Common templates took a lot of innovation out.

This is what I have trouble with.You take a brilliant engineer, lets use Darian Grubb for an example,
under the old terminology ,if he found a little bit of an advantage he was a hero,and it was legal.
Now, just about every modification that can possibly give an advantage is illegal.
It seems to have illeviated the brilliance of these guys to a degree.

 

[ted@economy]

I agree that the stock bodies look nicer , but I for one , don't want to see my driver and crew chief put at a permanent disadvantage just because of a manufacturer's design. Taking it to the extreme , all the drivers would be lobbying the owners to switch to the fastest brand . What would be the point of all of the cars being the same brand?
The new arrangement seems to force all manufacturers to meet a specified drag number or Nascar will keep changing their spoiler until they do.

 

[robbybee]

This is what I have trouble with.You take a brilliant engineer, lets use Darian Grubb for an example,
under the old terminology ,if he found a little bit of an advantage he was a hero,and it was legal.
Now, just about every modification that can possibly give an advantage is illegal.
It seems to have illeviated the brilliance of these guys to a degree.

I hated the "Twisted Sister" cars that were prevelant prior to the introduction of the COT. The biggest issue with those cars is that the teams with the most money had access to the best engineers and the most wind tunnel time. That gave them an unfair advantage. (And the cars looked frigging STOOPID too.)

The goal of the COT was mainly to level the field - which it did to some degree. Better (read: More Expensive) engineers were still able to massage the bodies and the suspensions to gain advantages over lesser-funded teams, but the past several years have provided NA$$CAR CUP Fans with what may be the most competitive racing series on the planet.

I hope the G6 car continues that level of competition.

 

[buckaroo]

Oh the memories. There has been teams that used different cars for different tracks. The problem really comes down to money. Of course, everything comes down to that, but the further we go, the more money it takes and then we have to be "fair". The sport wasn't built on being fair, it was built on ingenuity, but as has been said here, one team or another will whine when their team isn't winning. When fielding a team was cheap enough that back yard mechanics would build a car, put it on a trailer, buy some tires and some tools and travel to the track could get a good shot at making the race, we had many different makes of cars that were competitive. It was more about power and ability than aerodynamics. But as the sport grew, so did everything else to where we now have to have top engineers design the cars, top mechanics build the engines and have the most exotic materials available. And no team wants to be left behind or else they will have to be the dreaded "start and park" cars. BTW, those cars now are far superior to most cars built only a few years ago.