NASCAR 2013 Sprint Cup season (other series discussion welcome!)

Indy500 · 24 Feb 2013 at 21:25

Janesy B said:
Err doesn't even look like they're moving in that picture.

It was taken just before the big crash at Talladega last year.

Edit: moving on, only a handful of laps to go at the Daytona 500 - Johnson, Keselowski, Hamlin, Biffle, Bowyer, Patrick, Logano, Earnhardt Jr, Gordon and Martin are the top 10.

El_Watcher · 24 Feb 2013 at 21:46

180 laps of stale driving followed by 20 laps of close excitement. What have they done to the cars to cause this? The Nationwide race was more closely fought than that.

JRS · 25 Feb 2013 at 00:02

It's a new car. Going to take a while before they get it all figured out. And we need to see how it works at somewhere other than a plate track before condemning it.

I'm quite glad that the NASCAR.com comments sections are down right now, because I suspect they'd be lit up with all manner of abuse. JJ, beating Junior to the win at Daytona? That'd bring down all kinds of hell in previous years

Aaaaaaaaanyway, congrats to Danica on another entry in the history books. And a top ten finish as well, not a bad result at all. And a special word if I may for Carl "Braindead Moron™" Edwards, who finished Speedweeks in the manner that he ran most of it by crashing. Get wrecked once, it's bad luck. Twice, it's really bad luck. But just how many times did he wreck a car over the course of the Daytona meeting? Four, five? At some point, you have to wonder if it's bad luck or....maybe not bad driving per se, but putting your car in harm's way and then being surprised at the outcome is not a way to build a championship challenge. And in a Roush car, you should be challenging for the championship. I'm trying to work out if he's actually set a record for the number of cars torn to bits in Speedweeks. If he hasn't, he's got to be close.

Indy500 · 25 Feb 2013 at 00:11

JRS said:
I'm quite glad that the NASCAR.com comments sections are down right now, because I suspect they'd be lit up with all manner of abuse. JJ, beating Junior to the win at Daytona? That'd bring down all kinds of hell in previous years

Seems to be more people getting ****ed about Danica Patrick's presence in Sprint Cup. Or the single file racing for most of the 200 laps.

The race seemed pretty boring by all accounts, until the end. Wonder what happened to Stenhouse, was expecting him to be much higher up here. Biffle was up there until the last lap so it wasn't an RFR thing...

JRS said:
Aaaaaaaaanyway, congrats to Danica on another entry in the history books. And a top ten finish as well, not a bad result at all.

Yeah, although once people started making the moves at the end she was caught out of line and fell back from 3rd to 8th. Though she did better than the other ex open-wheel drivers. Phoenix should be interesting, as she did pretty well there last year.

Ceryndrion · 25 Feb 2013 at 05:13

El_Watcher said:
180 laps of stale driving followed by 20 laps of close excitement. What have they done to the cars to cause this? The Nationwide race was more closely fought than that.

Most of the 'problem', is due to the move towards more stock designs, which has resulted in the front end being much more curved than before, that prevents the tandam racing that was seen in the Nationwide race. Add to that the usual issues associated with new car designs and you are pretty limited in what will happen in the race.

alexthecheese · 25 Feb 2013 at 14:05

What's European Nascar like? There's an American weekend at Brands Hatch on the 8th/9th June that I might check out.

Skeeter · 25 Feb 2013 at 14:17

Utter tosh.

Indy500 · 25 Feb 2013 at 21:56

The Canadian Tire Series is alright.

JRS · 26 Feb 2013 at 07:54

Entry list for the Cup race at Phoenix this weekend. Only going to be one non-qualifier. Nationwide gang are also running - just 40 cars, and a lot of 'TBA' in the sponsors column :/

No Trucks this weekend, they won't race again until Martinsville in early April.

Skeeter · 26 Feb 2013 at 08:10

JRS said:
Nationwide gang are also running - just 40 cars, and a lot of 'TBA' in the sponsors column :/

Holding back waiting for any outcomes of the crash, maybe?

Indy500 · 26 Feb 2013 at 08:48

..and half of those 40 cars will probably be start\park or put on used tyres after the first stop with 3-man pit crews

bliss · 26 Feb 2013 at 14:26

Looks like watching the races on Youtube is over. Everything getting taken down.

Skeeter · 26 Feb 2013 at 14:34

I managed to watch a Rewind show of the 500 yesterday.

They did take down a lot of footage of the NNS crash while the severity of fans injuries wasn't fully known, which is understandable.

Indy500 · 28 Feb 2013 at 11:42

A piece of oval racing history:

2008-Bentley-Brooklands-Brooklands-Racetrack-1280x960.jpg

(yes, that is an early oval track in England

)

Skeeter · 28 Feb 2013 at 11:48

First purpose built race track in the world, Brooklands. Shame most of it has gone and been replaced by a housing estate and Mercedes Benz World. Some chunks of the banking are still there though.

I will give an internet cookie to anyone who can tell me what was the UK's second purpose built race track (as a clue, it is relevant to this thread).

JRS · 28 Feb 2013 at 11:56

Michael McDowell's team has withdrawn their entry (they simply don't have enough Gen-6 cars built and ready to race), so the Cup race will see 43 cars trying to qualify for 43 starting spots. Hey ho. AJ Allmendinger is in the #51 Phoenix Racing car, making his return to Sprint Cup following suspension for a positive drug test while racing for Penske last year.

In Nationwide news, Jeremy Clements has been a naughty boy. And we're up to 41 cars in the entry list now! Still a lot of sponsors to be announced, but things are getting better. Slowly.

Side note - how much does the new NASCAR.com site suck? Slow to load, massively over-complicated, harder to navigate and find what you want....maybe it'd be easier to work with if I had a faster internet connection, but on a 2Mb line it just doesn't work.

Indy500 · 28 Feb 2013 at 11:59

JRS said:
AJ Allmendinger is in the #51 Phoenix Racing car, making his return to Sprint Cup following suspension for a positive drug test while racing for Penske last year.

Hmm, one of his races conflicts with the proposed Indycar schedule, did he decide to give up on that idea?

JRS said:
In Nationwide news, Jeremy Clements has been a naughty boy.

Wonder what was so bad about it that they didn't just fine him instead?

JRS said:
Side note - how much does the new NASCAR.com site suck? Slow to load, massively over-complicated, harder to navigate and find what you want....maybe it'd be easier to work with if I had a faster internet connection, but on a 2Mb line it just doesn't work.

Yeah, it's definitely a downgrade. Mainly because the race results are buried behind a semi-functional stats page.

JRS · 28 Feb 2013 at 12:04

Skeeter said:
I will give an internet cookie to anyone who can tell me what was the UK's second purpose built race track (as a clue, it is relevant to this thread).

So, no airfields turned into racetracks, or street tracks, no parks so that's Crystal Palace out, no test tracks that got re-purposed....

Rockingham?

Skeeter · 28 Feb 2013 at 12:14

Yep, Rockingham.

Everything else evolved from something else. Its quite bizarre to think that the only 2 purpose built race tracks in the UK are ovals.

Do they actually use the oval at Rockingham any more?

Indy500 · 28 Feb 2013 at 13:12

Skeeter said:
Do they actually use the oval at Rockingham any more?

Not sure, though the CART\Indycar events weren't particularly successful there (Dario Franchitti won the last one in 2002). I guess people on this side of the pond don't "get" oval racing because of F1's relative market dominance.