NASCAR mandates changes to slow Daytona field

NASCAR mandates changes to slow Daytona field


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Concerned with lap speeds in excess of 206 mph and prolonged two-car hookups in Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout, NASCAR informed crew chiefs of two major competition changes on Sunday afternoon.
The sanctioning body is requiring pressure relief or “pop-off” valves on each car that reduce the maximum water temperature the engine can tolerate before it starts to throw off water.
Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said reducing water temperatures from the 275-degree range (which some cars ran in the Shootout) to 235-240 degrees will prevent one car from pushing another lap after lap, as was the case Saturday night.
Jamie McMurray, for example, pushed Shootout winner Kurt Busch for the final 14 laps. With a sustained push from Kyle Busch, Michael Waltrip ran the fastest lap of the race—206.068 mph—on Lap 10.
“We feel like 206 mph is probably a little too fast,” Darby said.
NASCAR also is requiring teams to reduce the maximum grille openings of the cars to 50 square inches, another move that will elevate engine temperatures more quickly and force the pushing car to separate sooner in search of airflow to the engine compartment.
“We came to these changes, because, when you look at where we’ve been in the past, this is more of a norm, as far as the openings and the inlets and the water temperatures,” NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said. “And even though we have seen the push start to be perfected in the last four or five races at Talladega, now, here, with this (new) pavement (at Daytona) being so much better than anything we’ve ever been on, it enables the teams to further work on that.
“So we felt like, to try and help the teams and make it more even for everybody, it was easy to go back and regulate duct work and air inlets and things like that. These changes right here will probably hinder your opportunity to get that big 206-mile-an-hour, because it did take three or four or five laps of being hooked up to do that, because the goal is to not be able to be hooked up for a lengthy period of time.”
So how does a driver know when a pressure relief valve is about to pop off?
“They all have water temperature gauges on their cars, and when it says, ‘Oh, my God …’ ” Darby deadpanned.
Darby and Pemberton said reducing the size of the restrictor-plate openings on the carburetors of the Cup cars is still an option.
“If drivers never pushed each other, we’d be putting bigger plates on the cars,” Darby said. “That’s part of what we want to watch is how the cooling system changes and what the reaction is to it—and we may not have to change the plate. That’s what we’ve got to watch on Wednesday (during practice). If we were to change the plate, it wouldn’t be a huge difference. And at the end of it, that’s the simplest change we could make.”
Kevin Manion, crew chief for 2010 Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray, said the changes will have the desired effect.
“Earnhardt Ganassi (which fields cars for McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya) already has the watering system in place,” Manion said. “The regulation on the PRV valve (is) what we currently run, and the amount of square inches on the grille is close to what we would normally run. I’m not concerned with overheating, but what you saw the other night (Saturday)--hooking up for six, 10 or 12 laps--will not be able to happen.”
If the new regulations help break up the two-car drafts, Daytona 500 pole winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t complain.
“I particularly like 40 cars trying to race each other and me being in control of my destiny,” Earnhardt said. “I don't really want to have to make this commitment with another driver to run together for 25 laps and push him in the lead, swap back and forth. I don't want to do that.
“I want to race my car, pass everybody, take the lead myself, worry about my own self. It's difficult enough doing it for yourself without working with another guy, having to look out for him, too. It's a different style of racing, but as you saw, it (the Shootout) was still a good race. I thought the finish was really good.”
By Reid Spencer

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(February 13, 2011)