Let’s talk about some of the crazy Aussies and V8 Supercars. I started watching them a couple of years ago off and on, mainly because I became obsessed with Holdens. I used to own a 2005 GTO, which I drag raced a ton. If you ever get bored, and want something to look at on YouTube, just type in DJ Pontiac GTO in the search bar, and it should pull up 4 or so videos. My car is black. But anyways, the GTO was sent over from Australia and rebadged. In Australia, they are a Holden Monaro. Well, the G8 before its demise was a rebadge Holden Commodore. Through me being a fan of NASCAR, around the same time Marcos Ambrose was working his way up the ranks, and his famous commercial with Kevin Harvick’s face coming alive on a t-shirt calling him “Kangaroo Meat” got me looking his way.
Marcos Ambrose from his V8Supercar days at Bathurst.
Photo from V8Supercars.com.au
Marcos Ambrose worked his way up the ranks being born originally in Tasmania, through the V8Supercar series. If you are a motorsports fan of any kind, you need to watch what these guys offer. Their style of racing is more of a short sprint style, and they usually break up their weekend by having two separate races like say a practice, qualifying, and race on Saturday, and do the same thing again on Sunday. Anyways I will talk more about these guys in the future, because they are coming to Austin in 2013, and this guy will be there with three of his friends. I can’t wait, but they have some interesting rules that could be applied to NASCAR to help some of the underfunded be able to compete on a higher level.
Parody helps the product of what the fans see, whether they spend the money to have a seat at the track, or they decide to watch the race at home. The Aussie’s just finished up their Enduro series, which consist of races that range from 600km, to 1000km and each team has their main driver, and they hire a co-driver. They too have a feeder series, so picture it like this. If the Sprint Cup had an endure race, some parings may be Jimmie Johnson – Regan Smith, Dale Jr. – Danica Patrick, Jeff Gordon – Justin Allgaier, and Kasey Kahne – Cole Whitt. I just used these off of affiliation through Hendrick Motorsports, but you get the idea. Well, these teams have practices, and qualifying for each driver of the car, so newbies have a practice, and their own qualifying, and the main drivers have the same. Let’s say that the newbie wrecks the car, then what? If it is America, they would go to a backup car. Perfect example of this is when Denny Hamlin wrecked his primary car in tire testing at Kansas, and pulled his backup car out while another car was on the way to be a backup to his backup. Are you with me still?
The Australian V8 Supercars rules and regulations are posted on their website, so I wanted to find out what they would do in this situation. During the Enduros, a couple of teams wrecked their cars on one day, and frantically thrashed to get it fixed for the next day. I just thought that they all had backup cars until this, why not pull it out? Well in their rulebook, it says, “C3.9 No Replacement Cars – Unless otherwise specified in the supplementary regulations, replacement cars are not permitted, and a Competitor must only use the one (1) car which had been originally entered for the Meeting.”
This amazes me, and is so simple that it could save the teams so much money. Watching the telecast of qualifying from Martinsville, a quarter of the teams built new cars for this race, and we are changing the bodies in four races for next year. Here is what I suggest for NASCAR moving forward. Change the regulations so that the templates require the same thing whether the cars are at Talladega, Atlanta, or Bristol. Change the height of the tire to the same on both sides, so no more stagger allowed. Decrease the allowable amount of camber on the front tires, so that there is less of a chance of blowouts. Don’t allow these teams to cock-eye the car with offsetting the rear end to allow it to turn, make the car track straight. The teams are only allowed to have two cars built at a time, and only take one to the racetrack with them for a race weekend. If a driver wrecks, and needs a ride, then let them do like the old days and buy a lesser ride from an independent to garner their points for that weekend. F1 has an engine rule, and those guys can only use eight engines throughout the year, or face a 10-spot grid penalty. Install a rev-limiter on the cars, keeping the ceiling on a Sprint Cup motor to 9k. Have a meeting with everyone to agree on a number, but let’s say they must use a motor over 3-5 race weekends. The biggest thing I propose and I am just going where NASCAR already went in the Nationwide series, cut down the available spots to race to 36. If the field is cut down, then the racing will get better because only the best cars will be racing, and more money will be distributed to less people. I think James Finch was onto something; hopefully this move would get rid of the dreaded start and parks.
I know this sounds like a lot of rambling and whatnot, but it is just a few thoughts I had going on in my head, that would help someone like Phoenix Racing, and Burger King Racing to compete with the bigger guys, since their checkbooks won’t be stretched so thin anymore. Let us have more moments like Regan Smith winning the Southern 500 last year more often. Leveling the playing field, while taking a lot of the mechanical advantages of the bigger teams with a huge engineering budget away will let this get back to the roots of the sport, where the underdog can jump up on the wheel and go get a win. Also, if the sport didn’t cost as much, then more sponsorship opportunities would present themselves, and may help the sport to new heights. Until next time.
Picture from speedwaymedia.com
