Painrace

I made my first trip to Talladega. Man, I have never seen so many campers and so much smoke in the morning. Truck race was a good one and some of my friends qualified up front for the NASCAR race tomorrow.

Jim

Everett Ogilvie

Think I heard it was at or below freezing there this morning? The truck race was interesting - they are starting to run in pairs like the Cup cars now. They interviewed Denny (Hamlin) this morning regarding the Cup race - he would like to see enough more HP so the cars qualify individually about 15 mph more than they are now with the current plate, and he thinks that would then be enough HP to possibly break up the tandems.

drivinhard

NASCAR needs to do something to wake up qualy, a 10 yr old stock C5 would qualify mid pack on these 178 mph snooze fest qualy sessions.

I still say Boris Said had the best idea a few years ago at Daytona about the plate stuff, pulls the plates off and let them run the bus stop on the backstraight to slow them down. See who could get in/out of the bus stop the best.

VetteDrmr

Honestly I *like* the tandems. So what if it's different from normal oval racing? It's certainly a lot better than the packs they used to run in. Takes car management, teamwork, a *lot* of car control, etc.

And know what? At the end of the race you almost always have 2-3 tandems vying for the checkered flag. Restrictor plate racing has always been much more of a chess match than normal, this just makes it more so.

Have a good one,
Mike

parkerracing

If everybody gets the same 15hp nothing changes except a few more mph. They should have restrictor plates of varying sizes. Draw for your plate at Daytona, then hand them out big (last) to little (winner) at the next plate races (hey, it's only as dumb an idea as KERS or push to pass)/:\

Everett Ogilvie

I just clicked on the in-car live coverage on the website, chose the 29 car - you get his live in car camera along with his radio communication - pretty damn cool! The speed is impressive, and the things they have to do in tandem are amazing. These guys are really good.

TLGunman

We just got back...awesome race. The car to car teamwork is amazing. Also, if you think more HP will break up the tandem, you got another thing coming. Two car tandem is an aero advantage, more HP will just make those two cars go faster. The teams with more HP have figured out how to place themselves when making a pass to use the side draft to pull the trailing car of the duo being passed off the lead car, slowing them. The bit of extra HP keeps the passing duo together to complete the pass.

I love racing with the chess match scenario, and with the two car team work aspect to plate racing, it's been a big improvement. Also cuts down on the "big one" to some degree.

sperkins

Nascar is still around?

JoesC5

Watching someone else run around Talladega is cool, but driving around it yourself is really, really cool. I've driven my 09 Z06 at Talladega twice with the vettes4vets.com and have done 160+ down the backstretch. 145+ through the 33 degree banked turns in your Corvette will take your breath away.

SouthernSon

I am surprised that you have not run in competition there in the past. How did you miss that one? I guess I am winding down on track days this year but hope to catch up to you again next year.