Racerati

Numbers Game

by Ken on June 19, 2011

The 43. The 3. The mere mention of those numbers give me the chills. Two icons of the sport, one retired, the other gone to his reward far too soon. There’s been occasional conversations to the effect that NASCAR should retire those numbers. Richard Petty famously claimed that there was no reason to retire the 43; after all, he said, “It’s just a number..” Richard Childress has kept the 3 in his stable of numbers, but doesn’t use it in Cup any more. I suppose the day will come when we’ll see the 3 in a Cup race again, when the timing is right.

I was under the assumption that NASCAR never retired numbers; turns out I was wrong. On RaceDay on Speed, they had a feature on Richie Evans, one of this year’s NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees. Richie drove Modifieds, one NASCAR series that suffers some serious underexposure these days. The Mods are exciting, when you can catch them on the tube; cars that are nearly all engine with fat racing tires going around a half-mile track kicks racing excitement up a notch. Anyhow, Richie Evans drove the #61 car to 478 wins in the modified series; he was killed in a racing accident at Martinsville Speedway in 1985. After his death, NASCAR retired the #61 in the Modifieds; to date, that is the only number to be retired in any NASCAR series.

-k-

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Father’s Day NASCAR Trivia

"Steak, beer, chair, remote..."

by Scott on June 19, 2011

This was part of a trivia contest at the local yesterday…I’m sad to report that I got one part of one name and effed it up. I fined myself 10 points in the Championship standings, and $10,000. That’s what that there beera will do.

What father out-raced his son to win the Daytona 500, by one car length, in 1988?

Here’s a photographic hint:

~~Answer posted later today…~~

That’s Bobby Allison, and his boy, Davey. Davey, unfortunately, perished in a chopper crash in 1993.

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Absurd But Cool Chronicles, 1

by Scott on June 17, 2011

“Can you build a lawnmower that’ll go a hundred? … Well, go ahead and do it.” He didn’t quite, but…

Turbocharged snowmobile, because it’s hotter than the hinges of Hell here in South Texas, and my AC can’t keep up:

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17-19JUN11: If You Can’t Be There

Your Guide to (LaZ)Boy Racing

by Scott on June 17, 2011

ALL TIMES ARE TEXAS TIME — ADJUST YOUR CHRONOMETER ACCORDINGLY

FRIDAY
11:30am-1pm: NASCAR Sprint Cup Practice, Michigan, SpeedTV
2:30-4pm: NASCAR Sprint Cup Final Practice, Michigan, SpeedTV

SATURDAY
12noon-2pm: NASCAR Sprint Cup Qualifying, Michigan, SpeedTV
2:30-5pm: NASCAR Nationwide Alliance Truck Parts 250, Michigan, ABC
6-8pm: NHRA Qualifying, Thunder Valley Nationals, Bristol, ESPN2

SUNDAY
12noon-3:15pm: NASCAR Sprint Cup, Helluva Good Sour Cream Dips 400, Michigan, TNT
2:30-5pm: IndyCar Milwaukee 225, ABC
3:30-6pm: NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals, Bristol (TN), ESPN2

OFF-CAMBER PICK OF THE WEEK: 3-4pm on Saturday, Targa Newfoundland 10th Anniversary, SpeedTV:

We offer a 2200 kilometre course with scenery & competition we know you won’t find anywhere else – enjoy the paved, open roads of eastern & central Newfoundland and the many wonders of natural beauty. Our competitor’s only complaint may be that their speed is so fast and focus so good, they have little time to enjoy the smell of Ocean or the up close and personal views of the Atlantic Ocean.

‘Targa’ (or competitive) sections are held on roads closed to the general public and comprise 20% of the total course. A world class support staff and volunteer crew will be ready and awaiting to meet your needs as you complete each stage. In creating a world-class event, we’ve created a first-class team of people (problem solvers of the finest kind) who really want to help you do your best.

ALL TIMES ARE TEXAS TIME — ADJUST YOUR CHRONOMETER ACCORDINGLY

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Presenting myself for Inspection

by Ken on June 14, 2011

Hello, Racerati readers. I’m Ken, and I’ll be dropping by from time to time to chip in my tuppence on racin’, which is one of the greatest things ever to grace the planet.

As my bio states, I’m an old-schooler. I’ve been a race fan for years; growing up in Northwest Kansas, I never missed a race on my hometown fairgrounds half-mile dirt track. I saw bomber stocks, modified stocks, rails, “big cars”(Indy-like, in those days), AMA motorcycles; practically any motorized contraption that could turn left. I loved them all, in spite of coming home from the track looking like a miner and sneezing from all the dirt that got kicked up.

Time marches on, and I now enjoy NASCAR in all its divisions, the IRL, and NHRA. I’ve been to quite a few Cup races, and follow on teevee other times. Been a teevee race watcher since before the ’79 Daytona rumble.

So, I’ll be here from time to time, reporting, opining, and walking down memory lane, as the Muse and the Bud move me. Happy to be here, and I appreciate the invite.

-k-

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Twin 275’s at Texas Motor Speedway.

by Devota on June 13, 2011

It was a long afternoon waiting for race time on Saturday night. I was avoiding the heat of the day and waiting to head over to the track. It was a double bill and the pre race activities didn’t start until 6 and the races were at 7:45 and 9:45. I checked out the midway the day before when it wasn’t so crowded. I headed to my seat and got a treat when the ultimate drifting exhibition. It was just like the movies and the video games. The only thing was I wish I was on the other side of the tire smoke: I had to clean the grit off me and my eye glasses.

The format for the twin races was good: It was the traditional qualifying for the first race. It was 114 laps on the 1.5 mile oval track. The finish had Dario Franchitte taking the checkers, followed by Scott Dixon and Will Power. There was only one caution in that race when 83 of Charlie Kimball and the 99 of Wade Cunningham tangle at the back of the pack. The speeds on the track had picked up from practice the prior afternoon. I did hear a lot on the radio about grip and under steer from the drivers. The track had changed a lot from the heat of the afternoon to the shade of the evening race.

I was wondering how the drivers and the cars would perform with only an hour break between races. The second race had a different qualifying format: the driver all came up to the stage and had to pick their places for the next race. There were rows of tires when turned around had numbers on them. They started from the back of the pack to the winners to select. It created an interesting start, with the cars all jumbled up on the track. I was expecting that to cause a few extra caution laps, but the second race ended up with no cautions for the race: it was all done on pit strategy and driver performance. It was difficult for some of the points leaders to get through the pack of cars, but they picked them off one by one. Will Power, Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe and my favorite Heilo Castroneves led the pack to the end.

The format for the twin races worked out well from a fan perspective: there was a nice break in the action between the races. Having two races in one night held my interest and the cars and drivers seemed to manage fine with the format. I think this might be back again, I didn’t see a down side to it.

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Controversial ending.

IRL Practice in the heat with an exciting NASCAR truck race thrown in the mix.

by Devota on June 11, 2011

I headed up to Texas Motor Speedway yesterday morning and arrive just in time for the IRL afternoon practice. I was way up in the stands to stay out of the heat: it was around 95 degrees and the sun was blazing. I was wondering to myself why they would schedule practice in the middle of a hot day when the twin races will both be in the evening. I don’t see that the set up will translate well into the evening races. The speeds were quick, 214.981 MPH around the 1.5 mile track. Later on in the evening the qualifying speeds hit 215.192 so as the sun went down, the track got faster. With Alex Tagliani will be leading the pack for start of the races tonight.

The highlight of the evening was the Camping World Truck race: There were a few cautions, a few drivers that were having a bad night. At one point in the race, there were two Brazilian’s leading the race on lap 83; Miguel Paludo and Joey Coulter with their pit strategy. On lap 88 Austin Dillon was having a rough night and it got worse, Crafton stayed on the track to express his disappointment with Dillon’s actions on the track after a crash.

Trucks were flying all over the front straightaway all night: the grounds keepers will have a big job to get it looking good for tonight’s races.

The night boiled down to a green/white/checkered finish. I seemed like it was going to be a fuel race, but that’s racing, everything is subject to change even down to the last lap. Johnny Sauter and Ron Hornaday were heading for the finish when the controversy happened: the rule says no passing before the start finish line and to keep your lane. The black flag fell on Sauter after his tires spun and he moved his line up. When Hornaday crossed the finish line, all hell broke loose broke loose behind him. There were trucks flying, sparks flying and parts flying everywhere and the caution lights came on.

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Fuel Mileage Races, Love ‘em or Hate ‘em

"Hygroscopic (hi-grow-skop-ick)"

by Scott on June 11, 2011

I personally tend to be right down the middle, which basically means I can’t make up my mind. Races that end with cars making a fuel stop with two laps to go can make for a two things in the same race: dullness and excitement. Wow, that’s deep, huh? I understand folks who get fed up with watching the race leaders, who’ve driven to the front over the course of four hundred or five hundred miles of hard racing, have to peel off and hand over their position and points to back markers. On the other hand, being an unlettered nerd at heart, I find the science and engineering that starts at the finish of the last race, and goes to the finish of this race, to be just absolutely fascinating. If all you desire from life as a race fan is a strong run by Jr., and lots of beer, then you probably detest them, and I won’t mock you, because I’ve been on that side of the fence, too.

With all that verbiage out of the way, here are two good recent articles about fuel mileage. First up is Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelec, who is now blogging at Building Speed (she wrote a book, too): The Math of Fuel Mileage:

Before each pit stop, the team weighs each one of the gas cans. Let’s say one of them weighs 96 lbs. The car comes in to pit, they add fuel and then weigh each gas can again. Let’s say that the can weighs 36 lbs after a stop. The change in weight is 96 lbs – 36 lbs = 60 lbs. At 6 lbs per gallon, you can infer that the can is missing 10 gallons.

Note that I very carefully said ‘the gas can is missing 10 gallons’ because we have no assurance that all 10 gallons went into the car. You’ve seen gasoline spill out everywhere when the gasman pulls the dry break away from the fuel cell inlet. That happens even more with the new dry breaks because they are a little trickier to put in place and pull out than the old gas cans were.

The crew chief looks down and makes a mental estimate of how much fuel is spilled, converts the masses from the cans into gallons and comes up with a number for how much fuel he thinks is in the car. From that, he estimates how many laps they can run. If you want to see a frustrated crew chief, look for the gas man with the raised eyebrows and the shrugging shoulders. He thinks he got it full… but he’s not sure. That’s actually sometimes worse than the one who knows he didn’t get it full. Sometimes it’s better to know the answer, even if it’s bad, than to be unsure. The scales in the pits have at least one decimal place, and my friend Josh (a member of the ex-Elliott crew chief club) suggests that the better teams have almost certainly moved to scales with two decimal places.

Next up is NASCAR Insiders’ Fuel Mileage, Fuel Mileage, Fuel Mileage:

Love it or hate it, fuel strategy is going to continue being the name of the game over the next few weeks. The last two Cup races and the most recent Nationwide Series race were all decided on late race fuel gambles, and the next three Cup races are all at tracks conducive to fuel mileage races.

If this weekend’s race turns into a fuel-mileage race, at least you’ve now got a little bit of information with which to impress your bar-stool pit crew. Use it with caution, my friends.

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2011 OKC Nationals

Long way to go for an 8 second ride

by Scott on June 11, 2011

This is the first weekend of the Southern Drag Boat Association season, and it’s up in Oklahoma City. All other things being equal, this is where I wish I was spending my weekend. Through sheer good fortune, I happened to meet the two guys who make a boat season happen for one of the owners…all hail the power of beer! It’s an absolutely fascinating sport, and it’s true grass-roots racing, a lot like Devota’s bunch she details down-blog. A couple of summers ago, I was able to go to almost every race they went to, and it was a real eye-opener.

If you’re in or around OKC, I recommend it for both days. Saturdays are qualifying, Sundays are elimination. The pits are wide-open, and you can look at pretty much any kind of boat and engine what blows your skirt up. The teams are super-friendly, too, and will answer just about any question you have.

Of course, there will be food vendors, selling you just about anything you might want fried or on a stick or wrapped in a warm tortilla.

The next race is in San Angelo, June 25-26. I’m hoping I can make that one. I have to be in Colorado the prior week, and since I’m driving, it’ll be a good place to stop and rest up a little bit, and get a good alky-fueled flat-bottom rooster-tail fix.

Ronnie Hodge in Ripsaw:

This is not how you want to end your day:

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Le Weekend Arriveth

Mixed language affectations work, no?

by Scott on June 11, 2011

Devota is up in Cowtown at that TMS for the Firestone Twin 275 races. It’s an interesting format, announced back in August:

The new format – formerly the Firestone 550k – will consist of two full-field 275-kilometer races (171 miles/114 laps each) with two race winners being recognized by the sanctioning body. Half points will be awarded in both races.

Since no one’s seen it or raced this way, not at this level, it should be pretty compelling, if only to see what bugs crawl out of the woodwork. Figuring out the team strategies will be fun, too. Not to mention TMS generates some pretty decent big speed.

Hopefully, we can string together the technology (baling wire and tin cans, mostly) and post some of her pictures from there over the weekend. If that doesn’t work, I bet she’ll have something for us to look at next week (no pressure, huh?).