More Toyota news

[JohnMickish]

Lmit, if you had to choose one builder to put in your cars for all 36 races, who's would you use? Hendrick, RCR, Gibbs or DEI? If wins don't tell the story of whose engines are best what does? I will agree that all four builders engines don't blow up that often.

[LMITOUT]

I believe that chassis setups win more races than engines these days. You hardly, if ever, hear of somebody saying they had more power which made all the difference in the world to win a race....it's the handling that dictates how successful a driver/team is on the majority of the tracks on the NASCAR circuit.

Back to talking about Toilet-Odor....

[harvey lee]

Chassis,chassis,chassis and driver, driver,driver.I truly believe that if you have a car set up right and the driver can adjust for a little bit of bad chassis,you will win alot of races.Yes,you do need a strong motor,but with a bad chassis you are going no where.I would list it this way.

1-Chassis-50%

2-Driver-25%

3-Power-25%

[JohnMickish]

I agree, engines don't win many races but they do lose races. So, if you had to choose a chevy engine, who's would you take? If they do do it I'm sure it will be a consortium of engine builders, not just one head guy.

[harvey lee]

My choice of Chevy engine builders would be

1-DEI

2-Hendrick

The only reason for putting DEI ahead of Hendrick is that I think there teams are better than Hendrick.I would possibly think there is not enough difference in motors from either of those 2 shops.

[LMITOUT]

I think we're missing the idea of consolidating engine programs. I don't believe that they would take one team's engine and run with it. It would be a mixture of the best ideas and components of all companys involved. That's the only way it would work or the plan wouldn't have the intended results it meant to have from the beginning.

It's obvious engines lose races but given the number of engine failures these teams have, which isn't that many, it's really a moot point when talking about what WINS races. I think we all agree it's chassis first.

[lawdog]

Just remember though that a chassis has NOTHING to do with a manufacturer. The only thing a manufacturer really influences is the powerplant and the sheet metal. Teams change makes and they just cut the body off from brand X and mount brand Y's on that same chassis. Its not like they are running a stock GM metric chassis that used to be on the street like most all of us who chase the dirt do!!!

[JohnMickish]

This came from Jayski's today and it could really shake things up, for EVERYBODY. At least we would find out who is paying who.

Martin and Yates? hearing Mark Martin, driver of the #6 AAA Ford for Roush Racing may buy or buy into Robert Yates Racing in some form, would it be a Roush satellite operation? Would it get around NASCAR's new ownership rules? Martin is already listed as the owner of the #17 Roush Racing Ford that Matt Kenseth drives and has been quoted that he has no interest in owing a Cup team.(6-5-2006)

New Rules to limit owners? In a little-known codicil [supplement or appendix] to the 2006 rules book, NASCAR executives are trying to limit car owners to four teams by precisely pinning down business relationships between various stock-car teams - like the joint engine operation run by Robert Yates and Jack Roush, the engine-and-engineering support provided by Rick Hendrick to MB2 Motorsports and Haas Racing, the engine-and-engineering support provided by Joe Gibbs to new team owners Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach. The sport's Daytona bosses are also trying to pin down the roles that carmakers - GM, Ford, Dodge and Toyota - are allowed, in advance of Toyota's step up to Nextel Cup next season. And it appears that NASCAR may want to demand access to tax records to pin down just who owns what and who pays whom how much. The surprising new rules - apparently out since February but not in wide distribution until this week - are generating a lot of head-scratching among the few who are familiar with them. A number of key figures expressed astonishment yesterday when asked about the rules

[SkeeterMark]

The chassis is the definitely the most important. How many times have you seen drivers that you KNOW are good suck, soley on the fact that their chassis setup is wrong? Engine is fine, Driver is fine, but he'll do poorly because of the chassis setup.

Now, there is something to be said for driver comfort with any given setup. Such is the case with "coil binding". This is the practice of setting the car up so the front coil springs bottom out, thus producing a solid suspension with no travel remaining. A similar effect was produced using bumper stops to stop the chassis suspension and cause it to bottom out, but are now illegal in NASCAR. In coil binding, the car needs to bottom out at exactly the right point, and also still pass inspection. While NASCAR rules state the car cannot be setup to make the frame bottom out to itself to limit travel, the current inspection process is not precise enough to know if the car will coil bind since the effect only occurs under the load of racing through corners. The coil binding skirts this rule by using the spring itself to limit travel. Seems like they could get a handle on this, but choose not to.

The problem with setting up the car to have a virtually solid front end is that some drivers absolutely hate driving it this way. Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, and some of the other "older" guys have not taken well to it, while some, like Mark Martin, have. This is why a lot of these young guys are jumping right in and being competitive - because this is what they are used to, and it is generally agreed among the crew chiefs that if you are not coil binding nowadays, you really can't be competitive for a win.

According to Chris Carrier, crew cheif for the #4, the springs used for coil binding can cost 10 times that of springs for a conventional setup, and it is an extremely tight window to hit it right. Another large expense for smaller teams, and another advantage of being able to test multiple cars, like the big teams. He also said that a team is pretty much forced to do it to be competitive. He compared it to holding a wolf by the fur....you don't want to hold it, but you can't let go.

Rumor is it may be outlawed, or outlawed in conjunction with the COT. Until then, you can count on the winning edge being the chassis setup, and specifically, successful coil binding.

[JohnMickish]

They said it won't be outlawed because everybody is doing it so there is no advantage to running a coil bind car.

[SkeeterMark]

Not everyone is doing it, and not everyone can afford to do it, so it is a disticnt advantage for well funded teams. Also, NASCAR does not allow rules to go unchanged just because "everyone is doing it" or there'd be no rules. Coil binding is in fact the same as using a bump stop, except that it is a lot harsher because it's metal to metal contact instead of having rubber to absorb the bottoming of the suspension, so it should be illegal for whatever the reason was when they outlawed bump stops. It took 2-3 years to illegalize those, so it may be a while until you see a change. At least bump stops were affordable for all teams.

The reason the springs are so costly is that NASCAR has defined rules on the length and diameter of the springs, and there is extensive engineering involved to get the spring to collapse within .050". The cost of the engineering and getting springs manufactured to comply is many times the cost of buying standard springs like non coil binding setups use. It also takes extensive testing, another luxury of the well funded multi car teams.

The rule against the bump stops states nothing can stop the travel of the suspension before the chassis bottoms out on the track surface except for the increasing force of the coil spring. In other words, the spring is supposed to be strong enough to keep the car from bottoming out. What they do instead is use a very soft spring and make sure it allows the car to bottom out on the track surface, but just barely. Basically they want the spring to become solid at the exact point the front bottoms out on the track. Too much, and you will be screwed in your handling, not enough, and your car fails inspection. This fine balance is also what drives the drivers nuts, and why good drivers look bad on certain weeks....they just don't have it quite right, while some just don't like the feel of car that drives this way and need to step up the learning curve. If you remember when Rusty was talking about having to learn to drive some of these new setups the young guys were using, this is exactly what he was talking about.

According to Felix Sabates (Ganassi Racing, owner of #40), about 10 teams have it dialed in nearly every week, 10 teams are hit and miss, and the rest are struggling to catch up or can't afford to catch up. He says Ganassi is in the middle group, and basically why they are struggling for consistency.

Obviously, Roush hit upon this first and was kicking everyone's butt, and you can just about look at the standings and see who else has it down. Personally, I'd rather see it outlawed and put back a little more of the driver skill into the equation.

[NAPAFISH]

Very well written Skeet

I think this only applies most of the time to the boring tracks ie cookie cutters. It seems a good driver can make up for a bad setup a t places like Bristol or Martinsville. You usually dont hear drivers complain about missing the setups at places like this or at ANY plate track. The plates seem more about engines

[SkeeterMark]

Good point NAPA, and one I forgot to mention. You're absolutely right, coil binding is predominant on the cookie cutter tracks, but you'll see it on this weekends race at Pocono (the roaval) too. It's mainly an aero thing, to get the nose down and tail up, so it's much less of a factor for short tracks and of course road courses, and the restrictor plate races are a whole other matter. On those they need the tail down, too, to get the spoiler as much out of the way as possible.

[JohnMickish]

It dosen't matter what the rules are, the same teams will win. Outlaw this and outlaw that, Roush and Hendrick have shown over the last ten years they will win. DEI, Gibbs and a few other teams will pick up the scraps. These two teams don't win because they are 5 and 4 car teams, (it helps but it's not the big reason), they win because they have the best, most competitive, and brightest people on their payroll. Put whatever body you want with whatever rules package you want on whatever track you want to and the same teams will win, at least until their brightest people get purchased away.

[NAPAFISH]

Quote:

---

at least until their brightest people get purchased away.

---

Hello Toyota

Again I think this only true at the cookies and a few flats. As long as Tony Stewart is around Gibbs will be getting a little more than scraps. But on the plates it seems it is not always the big teams, but more of a crapshoot, road courses seem to be different too, these road ringers like Ron Fellows or Boris Said seem to run real well, yet they usually arent asscociated w/ the big two

[JohnMickish]

Yes, Stewart gets more than scraps but look at the percentages of the races that Gibbs has won over the last (you pick the number) of years and it fails in comparison to the other two teams. I didn't put Stewart into the same catagory as the other two teams because as a whole, the Gibbs team dosen't dominate. Gibbs does win the war now and then but does not win many of the battles.

Take a look at the results of the plate tracks and road coarses over the last (again, you pick the number) of years and other than an RCR win here and there, it's all either Stewart, Hendrick and Roush.

[LMITOUT]

I'm surprised this hasn't been said yet, but Vickers has been signed to run one of the Red Bull Toilet-odors in 2007.

[harvey lee]

One thing for certain and thats that Gm is a little concerned.The top 4 Chevy shops are working on a new motor for GM.They will have what it takes to compete with that other car.

[NAPAFISH]

Not concerned Nervous!!!

[LMITOUT]

From Jayski....UPS moving with Jarrett to Toyota. To be officially announced this weekend.

[JohnMickish]

I saw that, whats everybodys opinion on this and does it even matter?

[OUTDOORNUT]

UPS will also feel the blowback that Jarrett will be feeling. I listen to Nascar on XM a lot and I'd say on average 9 out of 10 Jarrett fans that call in have booted him to the curb already. I understand UPS involvement with D.J., but he is only slated to run two more years, then they are going to have to redo their entire marketing campaign again anyway. UPS will not win a race for a long long time!

Just added UPS to my list of boycotted compaines.

NAPA

UPS

Buger King (don't eat fast food anyway)

[jbell1981]

Quote:

---

Just added UPS to my list of boycotted compaines.

NAPA

UPS

Buger King (don't eat fast food anyway)

---

You forgot red bull!

[OUTDOORNUT]

What the he11 is Red Bull??? Is that the same stuff as Sobe-No Fear??

I think I had some once, it was in a glass surounding a shot of Jag

[jbell1981]

I really don't know what it is. I never had it and never plan to.