Door-To-Door

Published on Fri Mar 30, 2007
<p>Since the advent of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow concept, many crew chiefs and owners have complained to me that the ingenuity that defined legends like Smokey Yunick and Ray Fox and Junior Johnson, and in turn helped define the sport, is virtually extinct.</p><p>Door-To-Door with Marty SmithDo you have a question for ESPN NASCAR analyst Marty Smith? You've come to the right place. Go to Smith's SportsNation page to submit your question or comment for Marty and check back for his weekly column, where he will provide the answers! Story</p><p>At the turn of the century, Cup cars had to fit roughly 10 templates during inspection to be cleared for competition. Jack Roush said there are now more than 100, prompting him to liken COT competition to IROC racing -- the theory being placing drivers in virtually identical cars and letting them determine supremacy on the racetrack. </p><p>That's a dagger to NASCAR's heart. It does not want to be compared to IROC, and probably shouldn't be. Ray Evernham told me the COT might even open up more opportunity for innovation given its penchant for offering more mechanical grip than the old car.</p><p>But Roush isn't the only person making the IROC comparison. </p><p>Greg Zipadelli: "Right now the box seems really small, because you're overwhelmed at all the things [NASCAR is] controlling. Once you get over that, and learn the areas you can work in, that box will open up a little bit. But it'll never be like it used to be. It's pretty small."</p><p>Alan Gustafson: "We all know we have to have rules, but some of the artwork -- I call it artwork -- that our body hangers do, and some of the development we do in the wind tunnel -- to be able to gain five counts or 10 counts -- that's my job. That's what they pay me for. The drivers are a big part of this sport. I know that's why we all do this. But we can't discount what the body hangers do and the crew chiefs do and the engineers do. They're a big part of what makes this sport good, too."</p><p>Evernham: "They want the sport to be about the drivers, and it should be. The sport has been about the drivers for a long time. But the sport, through history, has also been about great mechanics and great race teams. As you take the mechanical things and ingenuity away it does take a little bit of the personality away."</p><p>Roush Fenway Racing president Geoff Smith: "[With] the Car of Tomorrow, the theory is if there's less competition in the hardware there's more competition on the racetrack because the cars will be close all the time. It'll be really hard for an engineer's brain to be the difference between first and 20th. It's just going to be drivers. NASCAR's trying to manage the quality of the product for everybody's benefit. If you turn every car into exactly the same, you have IROC. And in theory what ends up happening is the car becomes nothing more than a tennis racket. The best player always wins the tennis tournament. So it could drive it that the same person wins every time. When you have all these ancillary intellectual contributions that go into a car -- which we still do today -- then that guy's contribution helps temper the driving quality. Suddenly the competition product on the racetrack is a true combination of the car guy and the engine guy and the driver. Suddenly a guy that's 15th place every week becomes a winner."</p><p>Zipadelli, though, made a stark admission to me, one I was somewhat taken aback by: It's not NASCAR's job to keep competitors happy.</p><p>"Look, the sport's [very] healthy, and they've been doing this for 50 years. You can't argue that," Zipadelli said. "Me? I'm very selfish. I don't want them taking something away that I've worked to learn. But that's what I get paid for. </p><p>"They don't care about me. They care about keeping this sport healthy for everybody. They've done a great job of that, even though a lot of us don't agree with the avenues we've went down. Because that's not our vision. Our vision is winning races. NASCAR's vision is keeping everybody in [the industry], and new teams coming in, healthy."</p><p>That's why they've implemented this car, figuratively and literally. It's safer. But Gustafson says that's not the only reason for its institution. </p><p>"The chassis stuff, I'm okay with," he said. "That's for safety. But the body stuff, that's definitely not a safety issue. That's just to try to level the field out."</p><p>Evernham hopes to keep some semblance of adjustability in the cars. Otherwise separation from the pack is made extremely difficult. </p><p>"We're limited on rear springs here, there's shock rules there, there's weight rules here," Evernham explained. "There's a lot of rules that have taken away what you can do to adjust the car and we'd like to have a little of that back.</p><p>"Even though a lot of the [equipment is] the same, you have enough adjustment to use the piece better than somebody else. I don't want to see them keep taking the adjustments away."</p><p>Smith summed it up well. </p><p>"Clearly, Brian France and Mike Helton are committed to trying to make sure that the product on the racetrack is the very best for the fans to see, and for television to see," Smith said. "There's a bit of a gamble, in my mind, about whether or not reducing the ingenuity opportunities to make your hardware superior is the way to do that. </p><p>"In the end we'll all benefit if the product on the racetrack is exciting and fun for people to watch. It's really that simple. It's not our teams' job to determine which way that's the best. That's NASCAR's issue completely. </p><p>"Naturally, there are a lot of people in the garage whose jobs and income level are based upon these intellectual contributions they're making. If we can stamp out bodies and cut cost, and the product is still great, then that's what this forces you to do. That's why you have this undercurrent in the garage."</p><p>Asked his thoughts on the lack of room for ingenuity these days, NASCAR legend Junior Johnson scoffed at the notion.</p><p>"I don't think this car has brought that [box] down as small you think it is," Johnson said. "You have a big window right now you can work in. Some of the old-timers could take that [COT] and really burn your ass with it."</p><p>Classic.</p>