The NASCAR Thread

[Mike DC]

 

Your maths is off....a twofold increase in speed, the kinetic energy will increase by a "factor" of four. So in your example of going from 200 to 230 mpg the kinetic energy would INCREASE by around 155% so that car at 230mph  would carry about 255% percent of the kinetic energy the same car would at 200mph. This also partially explains why it takes why it takes so much more energy (and horsepower) to get a car from 200 to 230 than it does to get if from 170 to 200....energy that it carries with it.

Knock it down a decimal place and look at it again.  Going 23 mph is not 2.5x the crash energy of going 20 mph.  KE ramps up faster than the velocity but not that fast.

[alfaitalia]

Ok...I'll admit I'm no expert so in looked up the formula on a few sites and filled in the numbers...and within a few percent they came to much the same. Happy to be proved wrong though. Obviousy the results will be very different at 23 mpg...the figures go up virtually exponentially as the speeds get higher.

[Mike DC]

 
Here's a basic calculator for kinetic energy.  Type in 3700 lbs and the speeds.  The 230 mph result is about 132% of the result for 200 mph.  

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/kinetic.php

[Chargen69]

I thought there was a bunch of know-it-alls on this site...  just didn't know y'all actually knew it all

[Chargen69]

Since you guys know everything, how fast did Bill Elliott go at Talladega before they put plates on?

[odcics2]

212 ??

But remember, plates were first used in August, 1970 at MIS for the first time.
I know. I was there.

[Chargen69]

yep, he did 212, no side skirts, no front splitter.

the cars today have a lot less air under them than when he hit 212, 230 could easily been done on a track designed to keep the fans safe

[Mike DC]

 
Elliot's stupid-fast cars in the 1980s looked visibly too narrow.  They were legal because the inspectors were way behind the ball. 
   

[Ponch ®]

 
Elliot's stupid-fast cars in the 1980s looked visibly too narrow.  They were legal because the inspectors were way behind the ball. 
   

Huh...now that you mention it...I went looking on YouTube and it does seem that way.

[Aero426]

Tim Richmond:   Hold my beer.

[Mike DC]

  
Tim Richmond was quite a force back then.  You wonder what he might have done if he'd lived longer.  

Huh...now that you mention it...I went looking on YouTube and it does seem that way.

Yeah.  I think they may have been short too (height missing from the lower half of the body).  But the cars were definitely narrowed at the nose and maybe narrowed entirely.    

Whatever it was, NASCAR wasn't letting him get away with it on purpose.  They inspected the hell out of his cars constantly.  

In fact Elliot has said that was what finally slowed him down.  The constant scrutiny.  It's a lot of labor to tear down & rebuild the whole car and eventually the team got burned out.      

[Ponch ®]

You wonder what he might have done if he'd lived longer.        

Lots of chicks and lots of coke.   

[Chargen69]

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/report-cole-custer-replace-daniel-185725478.html


no loss

[Dano 1]

Cole's got talent but it sure doesn't hurt when your dad is the president of Stewart-Haas and COO of the haas f1 team.

[Aero426]

Cole's got talent but it sure doesn't hurt when your dad is the president of Stewart-Haas and COO of the haas f1 team.

Ding! Ding!

The #41 is Gene Haas' pet car.    He can fund it with his walking around money when he chooses to.

It remains to be seen how Custer will do at the top level.   It's a big jump.  

[Aero426]

Suarez said SHR gave him a number for funding he had to bring to keep the ride.   He said most of it was in place, but a small portion wouldn't meet the deadline.    So they let him go.   That puts Suarez in a pretty tough spot.   Not the first time SHR has been pretty cut throat at the end of the season.

[odcics2]

 
Elliot's stupid-fast cars in the 1980s looked visibly too narrow.  They were legal because the inspectors were way behind the ball. 
   

Huh...now that you mention it...I went looking on YouTube and it does seem that way.

There was no rule on minimum width, just maximum. Bills guys found a grey area and exploited it.
The car at the Ford Museum looks 7/8ths. scale. 

[Mike DC]

             

There was no rule on minimum width, just maximum. Bills guys found a grey area and exploited it.
The car at the Ford Museum looks 7/8ths. scale.

Didn't they have the chassis legislated enough to pin down the basics by then, like framerail placement & track width?  I would assume Elliot's guys had to shrink the body down around the existing rollcage & tires. 

[odcics2]

             

There was no rule on minimum width, just maximum. Bills guys found a grey area and exploited it.
The car at the Ford Museum looks 7/8ths. scale.

Didn't they have the chassis legislated enough to pin down the basics by then, like framerail placement & track width?  I would assume Elliot's guys had to shrink the body down around the existing rollcage & tires.  

Nope.  Bills boys did what they needed to!!  It would be cool to actually measure the cage, distances between rails, length of control arms, etc. and compare to another vintage T Bird race car.    They had no cage rules, just generic guidelines.

[Mike DC]

     
I thought Smokey Yunick had done enough monkey business with frames & suspension arms back in 1960s to force some baseline measurements of it all.  IIRC he tried offsetting things laterally for cornering gains.  Elliott's crew was building T-birds fully 20 years later. 

[djcarguy]

                  LAST     RACE   TODAY??? this YEAR   is over???   

[JB400]

Good to see the regular points champ win the big cup, even if it is KB.

[A383Wing]

Good to see the regular points champ win the big cup, even if it is KB.

it was a decent race....any one of them could have taken the cup, even Hamlin had a shot at the end

Bryan

[odcics2]

and they wonder why fans are leaving...   

[JB400]

Bad thing about the race was it looked rigged.  Only the final four led laps and got coverage today.