706 replies to this topic

[Massa]

Military sponsorships have been eliminated. This includes Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in NASCAR and J.R. Hildebrand in IndyCar. I hate to see teams lose funding, but politically, I completely agree that funding racing teams isn't what we need to be doing right now. Anyway, I don't want to make it political in here, just wanted to share:

http://www.usatoday....hips/55040336/1

It makes more sense now that Tony Stewart told Newman he was free to look around, and that Newman is being linked to this new Dodge team, Andretti or otherwise, with Kurt Busch.

[HandyNZL]

Massa, on 17 May 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

Leaked: Chevrolet testing their 2013 car. It's an SS, which is a Holden Commodore. So that's what the new Commodore looks like: a bloated Chevy Malibu. Which looks vaguely like it was influenced by a capybara. Nice one, GM.

http://www.autoblog....er-camouflaged/

We've seen the Ford and the Dodge, if you remember, and the Toyota will be unveiled either this week or next. I hope the new cars do something for the racing because I just can't seem to care about it this year.

Holden from 2001/02 maybe....



Holden of 2011...

[Massa]

It's the Holden of 2014. It's getting restyled. We haven't seen the 2014 Commodore road car yet, but it's then being translated into a 2014 Chevrolet SS which will probably not look too similar because Chevy have a very uniform fascia, which is then being translated into a 2013 Cup car.

[HandyNZL]

I was trying to find the article on a local newspaper site that had the "spy photo's" of the 2013/14/15 Holden, but then I couldn't find it because their archive system sucks, so you had to make do with the current HSV model.

So there.

Nur Nur.

[Massa]

I saw one of the renders. It looked like a Chevy Volt. I was displeased.

[HandyNZL]

And so you should be...a Volt gets like 40miles to a charge....on what planet is that of any use?

[Massa]

I'd make it one-way to college. Never get home again.

You could power the thing with dreams and I still would never pay $45,000 for a Chevrolet. I don't think I'd own a Chevrolet if I were getting paid $45,000 to drive it. Wouldn't look outside Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai, or Kia as far as cars sold in the U.S. go, and the last four are all in a tier slightly below (Toyota didn't used to be until their company got bloated here...a lot of things get bloated here...). I only spend about $1,080 per year on gas (only drive 5,400 miles per year or so; 20 mpg highway, which is what I do mostly, in my SUV...waaah waaah waaah I'm a horrible killer of maritime bears. That and it snows a lot here and I'm too unskilled to drive a normal person's car in snow and above all, I get carsick in anything that is too low to the ground because I'm so used to SUVs now that I will never change my ways or else I'll puke so ).

Certainly not worth sacrificing convenience to be part of some terrible experiment for me. I always trust that whatever Chevrolet's idea about the future of automobiles is, that's what the future of automobiles won't be.

[Massa]

Bobby Santos won the USAC Silver Crown season opener in Clermont, IN last night. Absolutely dominated. Here's his battle with Kody Swanson for the lead and eventual win, he ducked inside on a restart, and fought him off:





That 17 car is significant. Santos will drive it in all the pavement races. At the wheel for the dirt races? Bryan Clauson, Indianapolis 500 rookie with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing this year. The 17's sponsors, Rotondo Weirich and CURB/Agajanian are also sponsors of Clauson at Indy.

Santos is a great guy; he's a local guy to me, too (like extremely local), so I may be biased, but the general consensus on this guy is that he's one of the best pavement short-track racers in the country and has been for years. He's won in Silver Crown, Midgets, Sprint Cars, NASCAR Whelen Modifieds (won the 2010 championship), IMSA Supermodifieds, NEMA winged midgets, and would have won a stock car race in ARCA had a lapped car not ended his dominant performance (he did win a few poles and finished as high as third in that series). Santos will be running in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona this July, driving for Tommy Baldwin, who fields Cup cars for Dave Blaney and David Reutimann (as well as a part-time Nationwide entry for Santos, Ryan Blaney, and Ryan Truex). Everyone who has worked with this guy on his team absolutely loves him, even after he's gone from the team and that says a lot. Nice guy, soft-spoken, incredible talent. I saw him come from dead last to first in a 25-lap race midget race on a 1/3 mile track. That's...that's just not possible...and he did it...we all thought "his car must be illegal," but nope, he passed tech, car was perfectly legal. Driver was just too damn good for the field. Ryan Newman called him the "next A.J. Foyt," Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards are both really high on his talent, but he's never had much money or been really great at getting sponsors.

He was a few seconds/lap quicker in go-karts than I was, too.

Anyway, that's more than you'll ever care to read but USAC is awesome and the drivers are awesome and I hope to see a lot of guys, not just Santos, in NASCAR and Indy 500 fields in years to come because there is so much talent in USAC.

[Massa]

Justin Lofton won his first ever Camping World Truck Series race Friday night. It's significant because:

[Massa]

I'm pretty sure this is a 2013 Cup car. Whoa.

[Massa]

2013 Toyota Camry Cup car...






It looks like a Toyota Camry. Which isn't too thrilling, but what it should look like. Joe Gibbs Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing, and JTG-Daugherty Racing have all committed long-term to Toyota.

Compare to:

2013 Ford Fusion Cup car
2013 Dodge Charger Cup car

[JHS18]

Think the Ford is the best of a bad bunch. Don't think any of them are particularly inspiring, but hey, I'm sure there's a good reason why they're doing this...I just don't know what it is.

[Massa]

The problem isn't with NASCAR, for once.

NASCAR is doing the right thing: they are making their cars look like actual road cars rather than uniform bricks.

The problem is that the four cars competing in NASCAR are all very ugly or boring road cars, and therefore, they can't be made into anything other than ugly or boring racing cars.

[JHS18]

Just a quick question - is there anything other than the looks that are changing to the cars then? Is this a COT version two? Are new parts becoming standardised to cut costs?

Otherwise, I really can't see the point of what it is. If it is just a case of new bodies and nothing else...surely that is a bit of a waste of money? I guess it is increasingly important to make their car stand out from rival manufacturers, but surely that could be done in better ways?

As I say, I know next to nothing on this, so you'll probably convince me it is a good decision eventually...

[Massa]

New bodies. Everything else is the same. Teams replace the bodies all the time anyway; having a new body style barely adds any cost in the long-run.

The cars will chassis and engines will continue to be entirely different by team and make (though not all makes are the same; different teams build their own chassis and engines, just like F1. As I've pointed out, a few of the NASCAR shops are bigger than F1 factories...I think Earnhardt-Ganassi's is three times the size of Red Bull's F1 digs).

The body styles are in response to both the fans and the automakers wanting differentiation. The fans are tired of seeing the current car, where only decals give the body any real identity. The automakers want the cars to look like road cars to help fans associate the racing car with an actual product they can by. It does nothing to say "Toyota Camry wins Daytona 500!" when anyone watching would look and say "yeah, but that's not a Toyota Camry at all." Now, the astute person will still say "yeah, it's still not a Toyota Camry" but people who don't follow this stuff can now say "hmm, I guess that is based off of a real Camry, sure looks like one, how cool, Toyota is a (adjective) company that I associate with (image) because of it."

It also helps NASCAR amongst fans of other racing series. Right now, if you just look at the cars, you would say "NASCAR, that must be a spec series, how boring." It isn't obvious that the teams build their own chassis and engines (some purchase them from other teams, of course) and that this is so far from a spec series that even one Ford Fusion is entirely different from the next. But that takes explanation, and no one wants to hear explanation. They see two identical cars, must be identical, how boring, no thanks. Now you see the cars look different and someone might say "hmm, that's interesting" and be more inclined to watch.

Then you go to the competition stand-point and the theory is that cars with different but equalized aerodynamic characteristics will make for a more compelling race in that different strengths and weaknesses will generate more passing, and that the cars won't just take off in clean air and dominate a race. I can't say whether or not I think this will work in practice.

Plus, looks are subjective. I think they look pretty cool, given the cars they are based on aren't exactly that great.

Cost-wise, since you bring it up, this probably saves teams money at some point. In theory, if they don't go to these new bodies, the automakers may start to cut their funding and support in NASCAR as they don't get much return out of near-spec bodies, and if they cut funding, then teams have to fill that void with their own money, which is a lot more costly than switching over to a new body style on the same chassis for 2013 which won't be very expensive at all and will keep the automakers and what NASCAR believes to be a majority of fans happy.

SparkNotes: It may seem unnecessary, but there were motives, and it's not like it's going to hurt anything even if you don't see the merit.

[HandyNZL]

Show me a good looking sedan and I'll, well, not believe you

[Massa]

Yes, sedans are horrid. Meanwhile, my car, which looks a lot like this, is beautiful.



They should race it in NASCAR...