my main gripe with nascar is that prior to this weekend's nationwide race, they had never run a points race in the wet. a few drops of water on their windshields and the yellow or red flag flies. now my main gripe is that nascar has strict enough rules that on certain circuits, they HAVE to run a coil-bind setup to go fast turn left in anything approaching a quick manner, at least compared to the other cars in the field. also, on the rare occasion that they prove that they can turn right and left by going to a road course, they run a much less complex version of the course. seriously, the racing would be much more entertaining at laguna seca if they would run the sports car course. as for watkins glen, if I'm right they run what used to be the '60s USGP layout (not sure if they go into the boot or not for nascar), which I really don't have any problem with, since if I'm right about the layout it has been graced by much quicker cars driven by much braver drivers (remember, in the late '60s F1 cars, your seat was a precisely shaped dent in the fuel cell, and you didn't have seatbelts. in most cases, unless you were a midget graced with exceptionally long legs in proportion to the rest of your body, your head was the highest point on the car, so if you flip over your helmet is now the skidplate. drivers who suited up to race F1 back in the day honestly didn't know if they would come back alive. that takes more balls than is required by just about any modern form of racing, imho. most drivers now would have flat-out refused to race '60s F1 cars under those conditions), but that's one circuit. I have heard nascar commercials refer to their drivers as the best in the world, or something to that effect, yet 95% of their season consists of turning left, and the only two road courses they run are dumbed down versions of the layout used by real roadrace cars. they go to daytona twice. well, daytona has one of the most famous roadcourses on the world stage, because the daytona infield road course plays host to the daytona 24h. if they ran on more than just ovals and dumbed down versions of real road courses, they could attract a much larger fan base. they could take some pointers from other forms of motorsport as to how to lower the CG of their cars, keep them safe, and make them more road-course friendly. look at the australian V8 Supercar series. they are rear solid axle, IFS cars that share the bodies of road cars, but not much else other than the body. Australia's version of nascar, if you will. and their cars positively FLY around road courses compared to the latest garden variety stock car, and that's with keeping all 4 wheels on the ground. lifting wheels is for older porsche 911s, off road cars, dirt oval machines, and old Lotus/Ford Cortinas, not "modern" cars in the premier form of racing in one of the largest countries in the world. and fer god sakes let them have more freedom with the setup
) would work in wet weather. How many people wrecked during the race, just out of interest?
