I get Nascar's stance on this. Let's be honest what valuable input are drivers going to give about design when it comes to safety? Besides Neuman no drivers have a degree in engineering and are likely not capable of doing finite element analysis and structural design. IMO leave the design to the experts and when you have hard data from the crash tests share that with the drivers. At this point drivers really have no more input than "we want a safe car". I think this is one of those deals that nascar really can't win. If they release preliminary stuff they'll get beat up for something that isn't even the finished product because in so many cases minor tweaks to design make huge differences when things fail. If they don't release anything they get accused of being uncooperative and hiding something. Let's remember 99% of the time the sanctioning body has to be the voice of reason when it comes to safety because teams will almost always choose speed over safety.
Now the argument could be made that some of the head designers, engineers and safety guys from the teams should be involved in this as they likely have some valuable input. But didn't that already happen to a degree when RCR built the first couple of cars at their shop?
(Long post warning but I am not goofing around with this one).
I agree with a lot of what you say. For example I dont like restictor plates and there are a countless number of drivers who have said the same thing. In the same vein I miss things like they were in the 60s through the 80s at the Indianapolis 500 too, with new innovations and beastly cars that made every May or year seemingly different from the previous one. The same can be said with the Cup and F1 cars from the same time frame.
But I am willingly to give all that up to prevent or at least limit any the Dale Earnhardt, Gordon Smiley and the countless other fatalities that occurred as a result.
More importantly racing promoters can never allow another Lemans 1955 type horror show to ever happen again again, it would be a criminal offense and it should be.
The whole idea of running races is enough to question a promoters sanity when one considers the liability and complaints they endure. There is a track within an hour of my house that didn't run this past Saturday night due to an out control car that lost steering the week before and crashed into the infeild. It killed one adult, seriously injured a child and at least one other person. The track also is being investigated by local officials as well, and regardless of the outcome a heartbroken driver and promoter will remain as a part of the greater tragedy.
To a lesser degree a promoters job is also thankless one on many other levels. Drivers are almost always pissed off at them and they usually have a long list of grievances about being wronged if you ever get them started.
I truly respect the drivers, they are living and doing the dream that was my passion. But you just have to accept that they have a lot of complaints, and they would tell you about the conspiracy theory against them if given the time. The corporate pressure is the only thing that muffles the bitterness, that's the way it has always been and always will be.
Fans snarking them isn't new either, and it didn't start with the internet. I remember the complaints in 1970s and it was a common or routine thing.
Every adult I knew that followed racing seemed to have a but Nascar should have done it some other way set of comments, plus complaints about favoritism. The complaining was also rampant at my local track (GPS) too along with all of the tracks I have followed. There was also some back then in 70s that told me they used to follow Nascar but they didn't anymore for reasons, so that one isn't new either.
I am not a Nascar lackie and I don't agree with everything they do. I really wish Nascar was all about high horsepower with bias ply tires that rewarded more tire management along with the raw speed. I would even be willing to accept chicanes or whatever to limit the speeds at the 1.5 mile or bigger tracks when needed to accommodate the extra HP.
I also wish that the current cars looked more unique or less generic than they do with most all the current major sanctioning bodies. There should be more than just paint schemes to differentiate the cars, it is just not obvious enough imo.
But I know what I want isn't realistic, there is no way a sanctioning body could ever develop a set of rules to accommodate and manage all the innovations and everyone's unique wish list. We would also be several generations beyond a twisted sister car without some common templates.
Racing is a lot like life, it would be great if compromises were not needed. But it is an impossible dream just try to enjoy the good stuff while you can almost nothing stays the same.
