Comments on: How Many “Cookie Cutter Tracks” are There?

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 00:14:01 +0000

Now even though the aero plays a big role in these races, they will always be relatively boring because certain cars will have a better mechanical package, and will be faster. The only thing that would be different without aero is that these faster cars wouldn’t get stuck behind slower cars as they made their way through the field.

By: Rules Changes…Again »

Rules Changes…Again » — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:43:44 +0000

[...] of the problems with passing at 1.5-2 miles tracks are due to aerodynamics. Toward the end of last May, NASCAR revised their rules about the height [...]

By: Sandeep Banerjee

Sandeep Banerjee — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:35:30 +0000

Diana, I have a question. Why doesn’t NASCAR try to mandate suspension geometry rules that would make it impossible to get the splitter/airdam no closer to the ground than say four or five inches? Is it not possible? I ask because In the 80s and 90s, when teams hadn’t yet figured out ways to coilbind and seal off the front end, we saw the cars run Charlotte, Atlanta, etc. with a lot of ground clearance even under maximum cornering load and the racing was much closer, and by closer, I don’t mean statistically closer like they keep claiming today’s racing as being but that cars could actually race much close to each other during a battle.

By: Joan J

Joan J — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:38:38 +0000

Thank you so much for this article. You explained tracks, how all the details effect it & how they wear over time. And the fact they aren’t even identical cookie cutter tracks in reality – so even I got it. Keep up the excellent work!

By: bob emmons

bob emmons — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:15:51 +0000

The person that said “let the air go UNDER the car” has the right idea. Ever since the went to the soft spring-bug bar setups the nose of the car is on the track making it more aero dependent.

By: diandra

diandra — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:47:53 +0000

I agree with you, Mike. My point (which I may not have made straightforwardly enough) is that the racing we see isn’t just because the tracks are the same. It is because all of these tracks share certain characteristics that, coupled with the current car and the current tires, produce the racing we see. While I certainly wouldn’t mind turning some of the 1.5 mile tracks into close cousins of Rockingham and Darlington, that realistically isn’t going to happen. So the question we’re left with is: what can we do with the tracks we have to change the style of racing into something more like what we see at those much-loved (and much-missed) tracks? Every answer I can think of would result in slower speeds; however, the comments I get sound to me like many people would willingly sacrifice a little bit of speed for more competitive racing. Thanks for your comment!

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:52:16 +0000

Nice analysis…but the racing at the cookie cutters is still boring (as is Michigan & California).Real racing can only be seen at Rockingham, North Wilkesboro, & Darlington. All of whom were sacrified for ‘markets’.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:44:45 +0000

Always enjoy your fact-based, scientific reports Diandra. The problem with these tracks is that you end up watching an Aero-push 500. I remember in the 80′s when the cars more resembled stock cars, certain manufacturers would complain to NASCAR that they didn’t have the same downforce as the others. So, NASCAR would let them extend the front air downs another inch or so. And, after a while, another manufacturer would complain about a disadvantage and the front air dams for their cars would grow. And so would the dependency on “clean air”.

I wish NASCAR had gone the opposite direction and took away some of the air dam size from the faster models. They need to get back to more mechanical grip and less aerodynamic downforce. And the sudden building of a bunch of high speed, mile-and-a-half tracks several years ago displacing the smaller, slower tracks on the schedule just made the problem more of a weekly headache for the hapless fan.

Yes, NASCAR now has lots of fast tracks with huge grandstands by big cities but they also killed the racing.

By: Gina

Gina — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:33:46 +0000

Interesting article, Diandra and a great explanation of the “differences” in the tracks. The problem continues to be, however, that regardless of their physical differences, when the race itself isn’t interesting (similar to Sal’s point), it essentially isn’t interesting to watch.

By: diandra

diandra — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:19:38 +0000

Harrison: You are 100% right. That was a key piece of my discussion of this on SiriusXMSpeedway last Friday and I totally forgot to put it in the blog article! Thanks for bringing this up – it is indeed a major difference in the track layout. I was trying to get some data to quantify this, but I’ve not been able to do so yet.