Nascar Blog

Nascar is apparently taking advice from the fans and from the drivers early this year with some much needed rule changes. The biggest rule change as of now, they are going to allow bump drafting again at Talladega and Daytona.

Thank You!

Last years racing at Talladega was some of the worst racing there ever, and allowing bump drafting again will put lots of action back into Nascar, I hope. I’m sure we’ll have those guys in the back riding around until the end, but now they will be taking a bigger chance of being collected in the big one if they do. Let’s hope so anyway, that should motivate them to race harder the whole race.

Other rule changes:
Increasing the size of the restrictor plate at Daytona. Let’s hope this really boosts the speed at which they can race there. AS safe as these cars are now, let’s have some wrecks!

They also plan to replace the rear wing on the Sprint Cup cars with a spoiler. I think everyone in Nascar, at least that I have heard, will certainly like this one. This will give them more of the old stock car look and surely affect the handling of the race car. They plan on testing the spoiler in March at Charlotte and will make a decision then of when to implement it. Check out some pics here.

They plan on limiting the number of crew members on Nationwide Series teams. This is probably one of those rules to make it cheaper to run the Nationwide series.

Reducing number of races Nationwide Series teams can run without using a sealed engine

Implementing double-file restarts in the Camping World Truck Series

This is already a good start to the season and we haven’t even started racing yet. Now I’m getting a little excited!

“When I heard NASCAR talk about losing the wing and going back to the traditional spoiler that we’ve all looked at for 50 years, I was thrilled,” said three-time Cup champion Darrell Waltrip, a NASCAR on FOX analyst. “Losing the wing will give cars that conventional stock car look. And a bigger restrictor plate will make racing better and drivers happier. It’s a change that a fan won’t see or feel, but the driver will. It will give them so much more throttle response. It’s like swapping a four cylinder engine for a V8.” From Fox Sports

A couple more changes have been announced at California and Phoenix; the California race that is in the Chase will change from a 500 mile race to a 400 mile race, they say it will help make it an even better race than last years. They are also changing the distance at Phoenix, but this one is going up, from 312 miles to 375, changing the whole complexion of that race.

Here are some of the uploaded videos from the spring running of the Aarons 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.

As I said on Twitter yesterday, you either have a good day or a bad day at Talladega, and Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and others were involved in a big early wreck Sunday, bringing an early end to many drivers day. Check out the video:

This, of course, is one of the reasons that there are many first time winners at Talladega, and Brad Keselowski has joined that list. When the big one happens, there are always drivers who are favorites to win the race that get put out, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick and others, allowing the drivers who don’t win as much, a shot at the title. The very first race at Talladega, Richard Petty and other didn’t think the tires could take the track and wanted to skip that race and Nascar let them allowing Richard Brickhouse to get the win.

Here is a shot of the other big one from Talladega Sunday.

Of course we can’t forget the big finish in which Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski drove past Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to take first and second. Brad tried to go high, Carl blocked, he went low and got the position on him and he tried to block him again, spinning Edwards, who then flipped over the hood of Ryan Newman sending him flying into the safety fence where 7 or 8 fans were injured. I really hate the fact that anyone got hurt, but it was one heck of a finish. Carl Edwards climbed out of his car and jogged across the finish line ala Talladega Nights.

Nascar is thinking about passing out penalties for aggressive driving and blocking after Sunday’s events, saying, “We might have to start making some judgment calls of our own and issue penalties for drivers who blatantly block and abuse the bump drafting. We’re going to take whatever measures we need to in order to ensure the races are as safe as possible for everyone.” I wouldn’t mind seeing them try to do something about the blocking, but, aggressive driving is an exciting part of Nascar.

Just when you think Nascar is getting boring and predictable, you get an exciting race such as this one.
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Here’s the video from the Matt Kenseth crash in the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Super speedway.

And here’s a video that was uploaded of some of the best crashes and wrecks at Talladega motor speedway.