NASCAR acknowledged the tandem racing at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway is "different" and "takes awhile to digest," but praised the level of competition in two-car drafts during a news conference with reporters on Thursday.
Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said no matter what the form of racing at Daytona and Talladega, the sanctioning body will always have critics among its drivers.
"I never saw a driver get out of a car after a wreck and compliment how things were going," Pemberton said. "I haven't seen it yet."
Pemberton said it was still "too close" to the end of last week's Coke Zero 400 to make a decision on whether or not to try and change the rules to break up the two-car drafts. But he said NASCAR will "put some folks together and we'll talk about it."
He cited statistics – the number of leaders and lead changes, in particular – as evidence the tandem racing created great competition.
"There's elements of that (racing) that are different; it takes awhile to digest that," he said. "And there's quite a few folks whose opinions have changed over the course of time. It's only been since we started to repave racetracks. And really, it's a backhanded compliment to how smooth the surfaces are at Daytona and Talladega that this type of racing has evolved."
Pemberton said restrictor-plate racing will "continue to evolve" and said NASCAR would "keep an eye on it and see what comes out of it."
In other plate-related news, NASCAR says it is unsure how restrictor-plate racing will be implemented next year when electronic fuel injection is introduced full time into the Sprint Cup Series.
Currently, a metal restrictor plate is placed into the carburetor to restrict air flow – thus reducing the engine's horsepower and speed of the car. But with carburetors being replaced by fuel injection, Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said officials are unsure of what form the plates will take.
Darby said the "easiest and most economical way" to control the amount of horsepower an engine produces is to restrict the amount of air flow that goes into it.
"So we'll continue to do it that way," he said. "Will it be in the form of what we know as today's restrictor plate? Maybe, maybe not. We're looking at some other things."
Those "other things" likely won't include any electronics that would restrict the engine airflow, Darby said. NASCAR prefers to use mechanical methods to restrict the air.
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JMO, but the number of lead changes don’t amount to a hill of beans in RP tracks. As a matter of fact the type of 2×2 dance produces more lead changes. Pemberton…..what a waste of time.
by factfinder on Jul 7, 2011 4:33 PM EDT reply actions
Exactly
Its almost as if they should take away a point if they DONT lead a lap at Daytona or Talladega.
The comment on lead changes as a highlight of the race just shows how far they had to go to find something positive.
by Bobbie1231 on Jul 7, 2011 8:53 PM EDT reply actions
Good Grief ...
Would it make everyone happy if we just never went to Daytona or Talladega again? Of course not; y’all would bitch about that, too, just like y’all bitch about everything else NASCAR-related.
Look … NASCAR is never going to take the plates off, because it doesn’t want these guys barreling into the turns at 230+ side-by-side. You think Carl Edwards’ flip at Talladega was bad? Spin-outs and wrecks at unrestricted speeds would be even worse.
Y’all bitched when we had the big packs and the 30-car pileups. Now that we’ve got this “2-Pac” racing, y’all are still bitching. Even when we have battles for the lead, even when we come to the line at Talladega three-wide at the finish. Even when we still wad up more than half the field.
Guess what? Once the pavement at Daytona wears, handling will become important again and cars won’t be able to hook up as much. Once 2013 rolls around and we get the new Cup car, the bumpers might not line up quite as well. I don’t think these tandems are a permanent thing — and they’re not the death of the sport, either.
No matter how much some of you seem to want it to be…
by Jeff Cunningham on Jul 7, 2011 9:24 PM EDT reply actions
Couldn’t agree more with you more. I personally think this tandem racing is cool. I like it. I liked it the old way too.
I wish people weren’t so closed minded, thinking everything should be the way they want it. People should evolve with the sport, not be pissed off and act like a child saying “If I don’t get it MY way, I’m not watching anymore.”
by WhitePhoenix48 on Jul 7, 2011 11:03 PM EDT up reply actions
I thought
they were going to be using (and i may have the name wrong) something like a throttle body fuel injection that would remove the electronics from it so there would be no computer controlling anything. I could be wrong, and I still don’t know how they would work the restrictor plates that way.
by alan8385 on Jul 8, 2011 8:24 AM EDT reply actions
I read something to that effect back in February; Nate Ryan of USA Today wrote a piece about that very subject.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/nascar/2011-02-11-nascar-fuel-injection_N.htm
by Jeff Cunningham on Jul 8, 2011 10:55 AM EDT up reply actions
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