First, the restrictor plate openings will be slightly larger (1/64th of an inch). This will yield from 7-10 more horsepower. I'm not sure how this translates to miles per hour or fuel mileage but I'm sure the former will go up and the latter will go down. How much of an effect this has remains to be seen, but it became obvious that the cars and driver skills were capable of safely running at increased speed as two car tandem racing speeds were up to 10 MPH greater than were single car qualifying speeds. I'm thinking the two car tango was actually much more dangerous than normal single car racing just based on the fact that the driver in the push car couldn't see what was happening up front. I know they tried to have radio communication between the two drivers hooked up, and it helped, but we all know how fast bad things can happen and we witnessed some accidents that normally wouldn't have happened.
Second, and the change most likely to break up the drafting, the cooling system's pop-off valve will be set to release water vapor at a lower temperature than before. In other words, the car doing the pushing won't be able to maintain a long-term draft like before. We've seen the two car hook-ups last as much as ten laps (in cool weather) before the trailing car had to get fresh air through it's radiator. The new valve will go off at 8 pounds per square inch less pressure than the old one and according to David Reutimann's crew chief Rodney Childers that change will drop the tandem run's durations down to 1 lap at the most.
A crew chief's nightmare?
We all know the drivers aren't going to give up a procedure that gives them more speed and because of this the rule changes will result in more pusher / pushee switching which, in terms of safety, may not be such a good thing either.
I would not expect 220 MPH. NASCAR would quickly change plate openings to slow them back down.
ReplyDeleteI think cars will switch back and forth every few laps (Childers is probably exaggerating)and that may cause some wrecks.
Every time NASCAR slows them down, the teams find ways to get the speed back.
remind me why they didn't sort this out the day after the preseason testing at Daytona instead of 3/4 the way through the season again?
ReplyDeleteGene... I know there were cars running at over 200 MPH under racing conditions with the tandem draft. If I remember correctly NASCAR narrowed the resrictor plate opening size when they were approaching 207-210 MPH while running in tandem during practice at either Daytona or Talladega... So now the restrictor plate will go back to the previous size and the draft duration, due to lower optimum operating temperature will have to diminish to 1 lap or less or they'll have overheating problems (blown engines?)... If they try to hook-up for anything over a lap there's a hell of a risk, right? Why would NASCAR go back to that same restrictor plate that allowed well over 200 MPH if they didn't already know the lower radiator pressure release valve would have that type of effect? There will be more news about this as other teams wade in...
ReplyDeleteTez, the wheels of logic turn very slowly when it comes to NASCAR. Wonder why this is so?
ReplyDeleteWitness all the hoopla (WE"RE GOING GREEN!!!!) about using 15% ethanol fuel while they continued to use poor fuel milage carburators. So now they're going to switch to fuel injection but as I understand it, the injection system they're going to use is old technology while there already is a better system in currently available personal vehicles... Does that make sense?
There's more...
Thanks guys for responding... I guess it doesn't make much sense to continue posting on here...
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