Ok I don't know just flame me! Camaro for NASCAR?

[DGthe3]

It would have been cool to watch Mustangs, Challengers, and Camaros compete on a track every week. Too bad Toyota and the rule book eliminated any possible fun we could have had watching it.

Originally Posted by SandiCandi

Problem is NASCAR very strictly decides exactly to the milimeter what the dimensions will be. About the only thing that comes close to the "manufacturers" car is the grill opening, and the head and taillight stickers.
Everything is measured by templates so they are exactly alike from car to car, down to the angle of the front "splitter" and the rear spoiler.
Engines are put together by manufactures such as Hendrik, Roush, etc.
So they are GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota in name, grill opening and engine block only. There are absolutely no "stock car" parts on a NASCAR car, not a panel, fender, frame, etc.
PLUS the technology allowed by Nascar is a joke. Do you realize they don't allow fuel injection, it has to be carburators!!!
Nascar racing doesn't improve the actual manufactures cars in any way, nada, none.

That is not true at all. The single biggest area of overlap between stock cars and production cars is safety. GM and Chrysler do gain a bit from engine development on their pushrod engines. But IRL and F1 don't do much for production cars either because of their technical limitations. Fuel injection is banned for secondary reasons, like anti-lock brakes. Computers are not allowed to control anything because it would be too difficult to do any sort of regulation with that.

And while carbs may be oldschool, those engines still have a brake mean effective pressure that is roughly equal to that of an F1 car, by using technology that is effectivly 50 years old.

Originally Posted by lil_chef

most importantly... doesnt GM have to pull out of nascar? making it impossible for them to run the camaro

that was an April Fools day joke ...

[SandiCandi]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

It would have been cool to watch Mustangs, Challengers, and Camaros compete on a track every week. Too bad Toyota and the rule book eliminated any possible fun we could have had watching it.


That is not true at all. The single biggest area of overlap between stock cars and production cars is safety. GM and Chrysler do gain a bit from engine development on their pushrod engines. But IRL and F1 don't do much for production cars either because of their technical limitations. Fuel injection is banned for secondary reasons, like anti-lock brakes. Computers are not allowed to control anything because it would be too difficult to do any sort of regulation with that.

And while carbs may be oldschool, those engines still have a brake mean effective pressure that is roughly equal to that of an F1 car, by using technology that is effectivly 50 years old.


that was an April Fools day joke ...

Going to disagree with you. There is nothing gained by the manufacturers by NASCAR racing. NASCAR determines what specs the Nationwide, Sprint, CampingWorld and local/regional series cars have from the roof flaps down to the tires. The cars you and I buy from GM, Chrysler, Ford and Toyota are different in most every way from each other using advance technology from their R&D, safety and engineering and styling divisions. Again, my original comments and these, refer to NASCAR.

Safety for "production cars" for example is determined by the IIHS and NHTSB as well as the manufacturers safety divisions. NASCAR decides what type of 5 point safety harnesses, fuel tank fuel cells, roll bars, HANS devices, etc. their race cars will have. - its exactly the same from racing team to racing team. The safety devices in NASCAR are not in production cars. The safety concerns and technology are different in production and NASCAR - surviving a side impact at 35 mph vs hitting a wall or a roll over at 190 mph at the track.

Fuel injection, antilock brakes, traction control - none of these have ever been on a NASCAR car, but they were perfected by other racing series such as F1, Indy, etc. They helped improve the breed, NASCAR didn't.
Not sure what the comment about "brake mean effective pressure that is roughly equal to that of an F1 car, by using technology that is effectivly 50 years old." Fact is carbs are inefficient, no manufacturer has used one in at least 15 years and no one is gaining anything by NASCAR using carbs.

Racing should be entertaining, AND where the manufacturer gets something it can learn and use in production cars. NASCAR doesn't do that.They run "cookie cutter" cars with old school technology that does not get into production cars that you and I buy. Maybe 20+ years ago there was benefits from NASCAR racing for the cars you and I would have bought, but not today. The saying, "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" isn't even heard anymore.

I'd be interested in seeing close to production (with necessary 180mph+ safety devices) Camaros, mustangs and challengers race, but if they are just smaller versions of what NASCAR is racing today, with old school technology, count me out.
And I doubt GM and the rest given their financial situation could back such as series.

Toyota did nothing to make the NASCAR series any worse, if anything having competition made for better pit strategies and better drivers. Remember in their first year at NASCAR, Toyota's were pretty much a joke...

[ShnOmac]

Originally Posted by nonsensez9

check out American LeMans GT1 or GT2 series for stock (well.... close to stock) cars

[SandiCandi]

Originally Posted by shnomac77

Mmmmmm...thought the thread was about Camaro and NASCAR....

[Rallysport]

Originally Posted by ProchargedSS

They did actually consider using the camaro, mustang, and challanger for the nationwide series cars. Toyota nixed that idea stating they didn't have a rear drive pony car to compete. You can check out jayski.com for more info on that. Do a search in the nationwide series pages.

Yep, toyota nixed the idea cuz they didnt have a ponycar. Why would nascar cancel this idea because toyota cried? Well, I guess we know who is in Brian "money-grubbing" France's back pocket. I watched nascar for over 20 years...this is just one of the reasons I stopped supporting nascar...among many others. Screw nascar and toyota. What f***king farce.

[Rallysport]

Originally Posted by lil_chef

most importantly... doesnt GM have to pull out of nascar? making it impossible for them to run the camaro

That was an April Fool's joke by those "comedians" at Car and Driver magazine. Har har real hilarious.

[cyberbro]

Sounds to me NASCAR did all that they could to make the race about the driver and not about the car.

I will check out some of the other races talked about in this thread.


Does Cole Trickle still race?
Kidding!

[lil_chef]

OK i was fooled.....and still fooled 13 days later....well this is embarrassing

[DGthe3]

SandiCandi, I had quoted your post but it made things waaaaaay too long

I will start off by saying that I do not like the fact that Nascar is becoming a spec racing league. Now, on with my points.

While there are differences in the restraint systems and such, the actual design and structure of the cars have an overlap of required knowledge when it comes to safety. Essentially, if you understand how to make a car structurally withstand an impact at 190 mph and not deliver killer g-loads to the driver, it helps an awful lot when your designing side impact beams for a passenger car.

Carbs may not yeild the best fuel economy, but in Nascar power is more important than getting 2 more laps out of a tank of gas. And when you can't use EFI, fuel injection is awful. Side note, I heard a few years back that the open teams head to Nascar country in order to learn more about improving the efficiency of their engines. Carborated engines are still used quite in other forms of 'redneck racing' where teams have a choice.

Brake mean effective pressure is measure of an engines ability to produce torque divided by its displacement, multiplied by some conversion constant. So, a $100 000 carburated pushrod Nascar engine makes about as much torque per cubic inch as a $500 000 F1 fuel injected engine with its pneumatically actuated valves and all its other fancy bits.
I disagree with the standardization that Nascar is implementing. But every racing series has lots of rules that restrict what can and can't be done to engines and the rest of the car. Nascar's rule book is a bit more dated, but most racing series ban forced induction and limit displacemnt to less than what were getting in the SS.

Toyota racing still is. They bought a decent Chevy team and now they run decently. BMW or Kia could have done the exact same thing. How could they have done anything to change pit strategies? There's still a field of 43 cars, no matter what manufacture's logo is on the nose. Did the drivers suddenly become worse when Pontiac bowed out? Or better when Dodge came back? No. What Toyota did do was step in and said that they didn't have a car to compete with the 3 pony cars from Detriot, so Nascar canceled the plans to run them in the Nationwide series.

The most interesting thing about all of this, is that of the most popular racing leages in the world, Nascar is one of the few where the cars on the track share basic characteristics with street cars. There is no Honda with a tiny mid mounted V8. But there are a few Dodges with 5.7L V8s powering the rear wheels. The intake manifolds for Richard Childress Racing will almost bolt up in place of the stock manifold on the LS3. Toro Rosso and Ferarri can't say that.

I will close with this: if Nascar didn't restrict technology one way, they'd have to do it another way. So let them use fuel injection, but they'd have to use a smaller engine. So what is actually gained?

[greenrail]

As far as I am concerned when they went to Templates and the COT, they (NASCAR) lost their relationship to what the Manufacturers put on the street.

SandiCandi, is so right on. There is one aspect that the Manufacturers do use out of this when they assign engineers to any of the NASCAR Teams.That is Regimented Discipline when approaching engineering functions within the given teams.

Other than that, not much else of ther than strengthes of new materials when and where permitted.

[SandiCandi]

DGhte3 - I love a spirited discussion! (especially when its done with respect - so thanks).
I know we'll never agree, so lets agree to disagree. You make some valid points but I (and I assume you) would sincerely like to see a series, regardless of who runs it, where the "pony cars" could acutally compete is a relatively "stock" fashion. Maybe someday.
But if not on the track then maybe on the .........

[greenrail]

It would be somewhat more attractive (at least to me) if these cars looked like a vehicle you could or would buy.

I guess I am way too old school when it comes to NASCAR. I grew up following it during the wild and wooly sixties.

Big Block FE's, Rat Motors, Elephant Motors, aero tricks and what ever else the racers could get away with.

Not to diminish safety, which really is an important factor, but geez, they lost touch with the fans in so many respects.

[SandiCandi]

Originally Posted by greenrail

It would be somewhat more attractive (at least to me) if these cars looked like a vehicle you could or would buy.

I guess I am way too old school when it comes to NASCAR. I grew up following it during the wild and wooly sixties.

Big Block FE's, Rat Motors, Elephant Motors, aero tricks and what ever else the racers could get away with.

Not to diminish safety, which really is an important factor, but geez, they lost touch with the fans in so many respects.

Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, Ned Jarett, yup, they were REAL DRIVERS!
Loved the Dodge Daytonas, Plymouth Superbirds,Mercury Cyclones, Chevy Impalas of the day. They were REAL CARS!

[cyberbro]

Originally Posted by SandiCandi

Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, Ned Jarett, yup, they were REAL DRIVERS!
Loved the Dodge Daytonas, Plymouth Superbirds,Mercury Cyclones, Chevy Impalas of the day. They were REAL CARS!

Are you sure you are in Manhattan? I never talked to any female in NYC that even knew much about cars, maybe the Yankees or Mets but not NASCAR.

No way you grow up in the city?