re: 2022 NASCAR Season Thread - 2022-23 Offseason

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You know they moved to the road course and it's been a pretty competitive race. Like last year when Briscoe and Hamlin were going at it and Dinger got the win?!

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No oval at all any more? I just don't follow the day in and out any more like I used to. Try to at least watch the race though.

I think the message is being delivered as forcefully as it can be delivered: The days of creative engineering and mechanical ingenuity are over where the bodies are concerned, everybody gets what they get, in the configuration and with the specs and with the aerondynamics they get, leave the damn things alone, period, or you're going to get popped.

Remember when these were STOCK cars that were modified (subject to certain rules)?

Making everyone drive essentially the same fricking car is horseshite.

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But at the same time it’s the reality of what they’re doing and no fussing from old school fans will change that. Because it ought to be obvious now that they wish all of the old school fans would go away so they can come up with a product that will appeal to people 15 to 45 in a broad demographic range.

That’s what all pro sports are chasing now, and it only tangentially has to do with any “wokeness,” the analysts and prognosticators trying to protect their phony baloney jobs think that’s where the money of the future is, that the demographics that have supported them long term are dying out and they are afraid of dying with them if they continue catering to them, and all they care about is money.

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As far as young people goes, NASCAR has a problem in that the sport isn't accessible. Look at kids playing any of the big 3 sports right now. Kids are jacking up threes because they want to be Curry. They wear their hair like their favorite players. Bat flipping like Tatis and Acuna.

Even if you get a kid that wants to be Chase Elliot, more likely than not their parents can't afford to put them on that path. Even Sim racing isn't affordable to get into if you want a rig that is anywhere close to what drivers use on iRacing at home, and they are really only using that to work on muscle memory and braking zones for each track, being good at iRacing isn't going to get you in Cup.

I guess they can be super boring and hypocritical and at least be partially like Chase though

There also will be electric vehicle demonstrations at six Cup tracks during 2023.

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Also, and I don’t see that this was mentioned here, Fox person from Charlotte on Twitter last week shared copies he’d obtained of emails from NASCAR to drivers indicating they were going to be demonstrating electric cars at next year’s Clash in LA with an eye toward possibly making the switch in 2025.

Thoughts?

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If none of you listen to Door Bumper Clear, you should.

But I like what they had to say about it:

Manufacturers want to showcase their vehicles on the track. Truck series covers trucks. Cup covers the cars. Xfinity is kind of overlapping cup because it is also cars. So if they want to go electric, have Xfinity be an all electric series.

If they want to have all the series electric, then that idea doesn't stick. But I don't believe they've fully committed to anything yet.

They also thought the idea of no noise from the cars and having to change out batteries instead of re-fueling was dumb/silly, and I agree with the first point. On the second point, I don't think changing the mechanism of power itself is that big of a deal. I don't care whether it comes from fueling a tank, replacing a battery, replacing a canister of gas/LNG, or whatever else.

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Why dock McDowell playoff points and not Hamlin and Busch?

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Good question....

Sundays race was the largest Pocono crowd since 2010.

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Also, and I don’t see that this was mentioned here, Fox person from Charlotte on Twitter last week shared copies he’d obtained of emails from NASCAR to drivers indicating they were going to be demonstrating electric cars at next year’s Clash in LA with an eye toward possibly making the switch in 2025.

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One of the articles I read said that there would be some exhibition events, and that the Gen-7 cars can be turned into hybrid cars (IndyCar is doing that in a couple of years, mating an 800 HP V6 ICE to an electric that would boost overall HP to 900), but that there is also the possibility of a new series apart from Truck/Xfinity/Cup that would be all electric, and may allow SUVs.

These all electric races would be much shorter, not allow recharging, possibly no pit stops at all.

Playing devil’s advocate here, the STP turbine car at Indy didn’t make any sound and was one of the coolest freaking race cars ever constructed by a human being.