nascar or road racing

[lou m]

I wonder why we don't see more ex-cup cars on track days? They seem very capable,durable and inexpensive to own and maintain. With Nascar changing the rules so often,there must be lots of obsolete cars sitting in garages. I wouldn't mind having an 80's T bird (...nice red Coors/Melling #9) to wrastle around the track in.

Wine and cheese? More like caviar and champagne

Guess I'll settle for two buck chuck,brauts and Triscuits

I worked with a guy a couple years ago that ran an ex-cup car. It was anything but cheap. He was running vintage races, and getting the motor torn down every four race weekends for about 10k a pop. I really couldn't believe the cost. Of course he had the same shops rebuilding his motor as the pro teams use. I forgot the name.

He went from PCA, racing a prepared 911, to a stock car.

David Foote ran a Taurus with COM awhile back. He still holds the track record at the Glen. He also cited cost as a restriction to running the car.
Maybe one of the Footes could chime in.

Of course Mark would be turning his own wrenches, so it may not be that bad. Heck, get a chevy crate motor and toss it in....

[chaos4NH]

I guess the only true all round racer has been Mario Andretti, having won in just about every type of racing there is, closely followed by AJ Foyt.

Don't forget Dan Gurney, Mark Donohue, and many others too. Actually, back in the 60's it was common for drivers to race in whatever series happened to be running on a given weekend. Remember when the Indy 500 was a points race in the F1 championship? Jim Clark and Graham Hill did pretty well going around in circles, and I don't think they looked down their noses at it either. Emmerson Fittipaldi was another guy who could drive the wheels off pretty much anything.

Racers race, and it's too bad that these days due to sponsorships and insurance the paths available to racers are narrower than they were decades ago.

Yep, shouldn't forget those guys either!! Thanks Dave!

[962porsche]

a person into motor sports will tell you that any form of racing takes a certain talent to do that particular tipe of racing . some one who is good on supper speed ways might not be good on short tracks or road corses . a road racer might not make a good drag racer . this we all know ! i stopped watching nascar back in 1984 we would go to dover 2 times every year . and we did this for years . at that time and prior to that the race car looked like the street car . you know , race in sunday sell on monday . so is this still true with nascar fans . i have 3 nascar fans in my shop and not one of them drive the make or model car there driver does . now for the 4 road racers in the shop we all drive or own at least the make of car of our favorite team or driver . why is that ? and all the road racing fans race too . i raced cars 25 plus years ago then off road bikes GNCC an NETRA untill 2 years ago now im back to cars . not one of the nascar guys race and only one of then did the petty thing 2 years ago .and he still talks like he know what its like to race in nascar becouse of it . so what i'm getting at is i was talked into watching the nascar race this past week end for the first time in 25 plus years and it was worse than ever . were is all this passing and good racing i keep hearing about ? now on saterday imsa ran . the audi came from the back and took the win and there was a good fight in gt 2 also 62 risi ferrari did good . i'm sorry but nascar lost me as a fan years ago . and if nascar keeps going down the road there going we will keep seeing more and more hondas with the # 24 on the back windows. who don't know what nascar stands for . and less and less true nascar fans who do know what nascar stands for . this was the reason i did this post .

[Dave_G]

This discussion made me remember this cool old video from a 1965 NASCAR race at Riverside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMt0LhpJGlE

A bunch of part-time NASCAR drivers (Dan Gurney, A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones) were in there mixing it up with regulars Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, etc. Those were the days when Indy Car drivers (and F1 drivers in the case of Gurney) could jump into a stock car for a few races in a season when it fit their schedule, and nobody made a big fuss over it.

I just love watching those guys flog those '65 Fords and Mercurys around Riverside. Look at those insane slip angles!

[962porsche]

now that is what i'm talking about . that vid was mint . then a good drvier and team would finish up in the front . if you wanted to finish up front you had to step up your game . now nascar wants cookie cutter cars and draft untill thers a big reck . clean it up to do it all over . i could watch old clips like that all day . now between commercials is to much nextell for me . so please dont get me wrong i'm not bashing circle track racing ! i love to watch the world of out law cars run . and the modified stocks , hell we work on one of my customers modified stocks all the time . so is putting an other driver in the car just for road races that big of a gain in points . for the team championship to justify the drivers badly need seat time on a road course . witch brings me to the point . if you drive more in deferent forms of racing don't you be come a better driver ? and then you and your team would get better . no ? witch would make for better racing and racers . right ? so why is nascar the only series doing it ? paying road racers to drive that is . IRL they dont do it . look at how USA drivers do in F1 and A1GP . man we stink ! so when the most populer form of racing in the USA has peaple only going left . look at the pool of drivers we have left to pick from that can go right too .

[chaos4NH]

now that is what i'm talking about . that vid was mint . then a good drvier and team would finish up in the front . if you wanted to finish up front you had to step up your game . now nascar wants cookie cutter cars and draft untill thers a big reck . clean it up to do it all over . i could watch old clips like that all day . now between commercials is to much nextell for me . so please dont get me wrong i'm not bashing circle track racing ! i love to watch the world of out law cars run . and the modified stocks , hell we work on one of my customers modified stocks all the time . so is putting an other driver in the car just for road races that big of a gain in points . for the team championship to justify the drivers badly need seat time on a road course . witch brings me to the point . if you drive more in deferent forms of racing don't you be come a better driver ? and then you and your team would get better . no ? witch would make for better racing and racers . right ? so why is nascar the only series doing it ? paying road racers to drive that is . IRL they dont do it . look at how USA drivers do in F1 and A1GP . man we stink ! so when the most populer form of racing in the USA has peaple only going left . look at the pool of drivers we have left to pick from that can go right too .

Let's all repeat it again: MONEY!!! It's the money! NASCAR sponsors have the MONEY! and
Lest you forget, there are as many as 1 dozen or more NASCAR types sharpening their road racing skills at the Daytona 24 hr. Why? Cause the MONEY is there! Which brings us to the question (again), with all that sponsorship money in NASCAR, if those road racers, IRL (Seems Paul Tracy was a BIG flop in NASCAR), CART, F1, etc drivers are out there, and the money is out there, why don't more of them rise to the top in NASCAR? Hhhhhm, could it be that those NASCAR drivers have some skill after all?
So, lets get off the back of NASCAR, it is the most successful form of motor racing in the US of A, period.

[breakaway500]

During the 90's,when so many good drivers were getting killed in the Winston cup cars,as they were achieving speeds beyond their safety equipment and intended designs,and the fans around me in the stands were just loving it, I stopped going to Nascar races . When DE died in 2001,it broke me.I would not even watch a race for years. Only since the COT have I started to follow the series again. The rivalries on track and the behind the scene action is what makes the series real for me.

The cars haven't been production based since GM started to use the Lumina,so it doesn't bother me what they use.

It is a well run series and the tracks are very different,with small bull rings,road courses and superspeedways all thrown into the schedule.

Lots of money,tons of rules,but everyone has to play the same game.

Right...


It's a good down to earth,good ole boy racing venue.

[962porsche]

ya i know money money . as world drivars we suck !!! nascar is big in the USA but in the world of motor sports its a small pease of the pie . and as for money kimi gets over 100 K every day he sits in a car . money ? in like in the other reply . i stopped watching when so many peaple liked watching recks and less watching the race .

[jlwhorf]

The cars haven't been production based since GM started to use the Lumina,so it doesn't bother me what they use.

Actually the Lumina was the first one to break from the full stock body configuration, because thats when composite nose and tail bumper covers were introduced.

Up until the COT, stock car bodies were built with OEM stamped hoods, roofs, trunk lids, window frames, and upper quarter panels.

Chassis' started deviating from stock in 1965 with the introduction of the Holman Moody front clip, and by the mid 70s, they became full tube cars.

Oval racing dose have a strong grass roots following. It is the easiest form of closed curcuit racing to get into. In short, a person can build a car, tow it to a local race track, enter it for the price of a pit pass, and get money for doing it.

The money earned by top NASCAR drivers (prize money %, merchandising, etc) closely rival that of F1.


Jonathan

[breakaway500]

The Lumina was the first car in Nascar that you could not buy on Monday.

There were no V8 rwd Luminas.

Granted,Nascars have not really been "stock" cars since the 40's,but at least you could pop down to your local Chevy dealer and buy a V8 Monte or a Ford T-bird.

Now,it's all fwd platforms on tube chassis.

But,I digress...

[jlwhorf]

The Lumina was the first car in Nascar that you could not buy on Monday.

There were no V8 rwd Luminas.

Granted,Nascars have not really been "stock" cars since the 40's,but at least you could pop down to your local Chevy dealer and buy a V8 Monte or a Ford T-bird.

Now,it's all fwd platforms on tube chassis.

But,I digress...

I agree, the Lumina was the first can't buy on monday car, but at least you could buy a 2 door one. The Taurus changed that.

You can still by a rwd Dodge Charger. They look to be a popular platform for police cruisers too.

[horizenjob]

Circle tracks are hard to drive. Once COM drove the oval at the old Bryar track. It was pretty exciting. I think we got to warm up the stock car race that nite, so it was under lites. Anyone in the club who wanted to could run.

I also drove Thompson once. It's hard work, Formula Ford can pull pretty good G's on that banking. After awhile, you just can't believe how much your neck starts to hurt, and those turns come pretty often with laps maybe 20? seconds or something like that.

We also had a COM driver run a Trans-Am with the big boys at the old Bryar track. In the rain, I think. I remember someone in the front trying to lap our guy between 9 and 10. He pulled even on the inside, hit a puddle and lost it. During the spin he managed to wrap around the front of our (COM) guys car and total his on the wall without actually hitting Kenny's car. Missed it by maybe a foot - you can't see any space on the film.

There should be videos of this stuff somewhere, they were showing these films at a big COM retrospective years ago. Also a film from a movie camera on my FF going up Mt. Ascutney, that I haven't seen in many years.

This club must be coming up on fifty years...