Ouch! Jr's cheating carries BIG penalties.

[Steve]

Jr's cheating at Darlington comes with a 100 point penalty and his crew chief has been suspended for 6 races. :eek: How much worse can this year get for him?

[89minitruck]

FIRST his SOB step mom hoses him out of his Dad's company.... now this...

Should be a REAL interesting rest of the season for him.

[scottycards]

100 points and a hundred grand! YIKES! IMO this is an excessive penalty.

I understand the brackets were modified, but they didn't say how much it altered the wing. I think they can run between 0-16* of wing and still be within the rules.

If he's running too much wing, isn't the car just going to push?

[Jake_Blues]

If he's running too much wing, isn't the car just going to push?

Not if he tunes the rest of the car to suit.

-E

[Steve]

I understand the brackets were modified, but they didn't say how much it altered the wing. I think they can run between 0-16* of wing and still be within the rules.

According to the article in USA Today this morning it had 18* when they checked it, and the brackets were way against the rules. It wasn't an oops, it was a calculated gamble at cheating - and they lost.

[starbreaker666]

With his announcment this season is a wash anyways. Might as well push the limit on the CoT to see what the techs will pick up or miss.

[_CJ]

Is it possible he did it just to cause problems for Theresa because she wouldn't give him controlling interest in the company?

On another note....is he giving up his ownership in DEI, or just leaving to drive for somebody else? I can't imagine he would give up his share of the company. With Jr. and Sr. gone, I wouldn't expect her to hang on to the company for more than five or ten years.

[Oscar]

I read on NASCAR I think that brackets would have hurt the perfomance of the car and JR. said NASCAR did them a favor pointing it out. I don't think they would be that stupid to puposely mess with it unless like metioned it is to kick step mommy in the guts. NASCAR is watching the COT to close for anybody with half a brain to try something

[starbreaker666]

Is it possible he did it just to cause problems for Theresa because she wouldn't give him controlling interest in the company?

On another note....is he giving up his ownership in DEI, or just leaving to drive for somebody else? I can't imagine he would give up his share of the company. With Jr. and Sr. gone, I wouldn't expect her to hang on to the company for more than five or ten years.


Jr. had 0% controlling interest and that was the rub of the whole contract thing. He wants 51%. Well she offered it for 51mill. Jr thinks(rightfully so) that it was his fathers company and therfor his legacy that Jr have it.

[Steve]

Jr. had 0% controlling interest and that was the rub of the whole contract thing. He wants 51%. Well she offered it for 51mill. Jr thinks(rightfully so) that it was his fathers company and therfor his legacy that Jr have it.

I have no idea what DEI is worth, but I do find Jr's demand to own 51% of the company without paying anything for it to be pretty absurd. :shrug:

If Sr. really thought it was Jr's legacy to own the company he should have taken care of the paperwork to make that happen; he didn't.

[starbreaker666]

I agree, but I think he should get it though...

[scottycards]

Not if he tunes the rest of the car to suit.

-E

I'm just wondering how this would work- a bunch of rear wing will make the ass end squat, and put a bunch of weight on the back tires. People generally add wing to the rear to reduce oversteer. It lightens up the front, makes the rear heavier.

I don't know the aero characteristics of the COT, but with the narrower front profile, I can't imagine that the front clip produces that much downforce that 18* of wing would be beneficial (as Oscar said). The real wide, flat front ends that they run on the road courses are the ones that produce all that downforce on the front end. For the faster tracks, they run a much narrower front fender profile to get higher speeds.

As far as tuning the car to suit with that much wing on it, what else could they do? Most of the other changes you can make- wedge, stagger, etc., are mostly "side to side" changes, while the wing is more of a "front to rear" change. I guess for this race, there was braking for the turns, so maybe it would have had an effect, reducing the dive of the nose, maybe, and allowing the car to carry more speed into the turns.

Just thinking out loud.............aerodynamics on cars is a subject I find fascinating.

We took the side mirrors off the Camaro we ran at the Silver State- just the stock ones, and picked up about 6 MPH on our top end. Then we took the stock rear spoiler off- it's the pretty low profile one that's integrated into the rear hatchback- and picked up about another 10-15MPH. The car was ridiculously fast, but man did that back end wag around everytime we hit a bump at speed.

Our front air dam was made of a hard plastic, and we would fit it to the car before each race so that under deceleration or even the slightest braking, it would scrape the ground. Keeping air out from under the car was the single biggest factor for us as far as keeping speed and handling. We even ended up taping the seams on the factory t-tops to reduce drag, as well as fabricating small "filler panels" between the hood and the winshield.

That aero stuff is just super interesting.

[Steve]

That aero stuff is just super interesting.

Very true, especially, as you found, when you get above 150 mph. Go above 200 mph and it's much more so.

[scottycards]

Very true, especially, as you found, when you get above 150 mph. Go above 200 mph and it's much more so.

Oh yeah. We did 220 in the Camaro for brief periods, and sustained at 215-217.

It always amuses me- the perception people have of speed. I had the same impression till I went there- that the difference from 150-170 was 20MPH, as was the difference from 190-210. Yeah, right.

I found that the curve gets extremely steep above 180 or so. From 180-190, it's a big jump- both in terms of how friggin' hairy it is, as well as in terms of the power required and how hard it is on the motor and driveline and tires. From 190-200, another jump, this time by about a factor of 10. Then from 200 on up, the curve is damn near vertical.

If you can run 190 all day and want to get to 200, you're looking at around another 150HP or so.............at least from what I've seen with a car with fairly normal aerodynamics (not an Indy car or something like that...)

It just gets flat out ridiculous at/above 200- if any little thing goes wrong, you're done. And you probably won't walk away. Crash at 170, and you might need a trip to the ER, but you'll be home in a few days. Crash at 205, and it's very likely lights out. That whole energy dissipation thing, and how it's a function of the square of the velocity............

A dear friend of mine lost a tire doing about 208 a few years ago. He kept it on the road for about 5 seconds, then veered off, and went end over end probably 5 times before coming to rest. From the first black mark on the road to where he stopped, it was probably close to a mile. He died from internal injuries due to the g-forces of deceleration- it tore the aorta (sp?) off of his heart. Scary thing was that I was supposed to be his navigator that day, but things didn't work out due to a freak occurance of events.

[starbreaker666]

I am sure R.J. Gotlieb can tall you all about high speed crashes when he dumped the big red machine.

[scottycards]

Fortunately, there have only been a few over the years. Gottlieb, Richard Hille at about 180, Kelly Sievers at about 195, Lem Tolliver (180 or so- right in front of us!!!), Carl Young (200) and Charlie Friend (170). They all lived. Sievers never raced again, nor did Carl- he was in ICU for 3 weeks.

Three did not- my friend Bud Ridenour, and one guy down at Big Bend, and one at the Silver State- it was the Ferrari where the navigator unbuckled to reset the video camera, and bumped the driver's arm, and that was it.

Here's an article from when Sievers crashed. That's my buddy Mike standing there in the white t-shirt in the photo:
http://www.ws6.com/povmag.htm

[Steve]

If you can run 190 all day and want to get to 200, you're looking at around another 150HP or so...

Yeah, I think the same thing applies to our motorhome - except it takes that extra 150 hp to get from 70 mph to 80 mph. :silly: