Soldato
In a reaction to the whinging, whining and general bull-**** going on at the moment about the Red Bull floor, I'm going to talk about something else. Another car that some race fans will swear blind was completely illegal despite passing tech inspection. So here goes for a quick stroll down memory lane, back to one Saturday night in May of 1997 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
Well, actually it all began a bit earlier than that. A few seasons into his time as a car owner in NASCAR's Cup series, Rick Hendrick decided that he wanted his team to build their cars from the ground up. To that end, he set up a research and development programme and hired some of the brightest and best talent in the stock car world. By the mid '90s, his cars were winning championships. In January of 1996, Hendrick hired Rex Stump to run the R&D operation and vowed to leave him to it by taking a hands-off approach. Stump had one mission in mind.
The rulebook was studied. The engineers came back. 60 or so minds with many ideas about where improvements in race car design could be made that fit perfectly into the rules as laid out. If the rule was a bit fuzzy, push it. If a rule wasn't specifically in place, go wild.
Ray Evernham, crew chief for the #24 Hendrick car of Jeff Gordon, was a long-time champion of the R&D effort and expressed an interest in using what they came up with. Rick Hendrick, seeing the car built for the first time, figured that they had next to no chance of being allowed to ever run the car in anger but went ahead and invited the NASCAR tech inspectors to see it before taking it to a track. Gary Nelson was the chief tech inspector and series director at the time.
Not much detail has ever been given away about what exactly this car had that made it so special. Rex Stump never wanted to let go of all his team's secrets! But in virtually every respect it was a clean-sheet rework of the NASCAR stock car. Thicker, stronger frame rails that were more resistant to twisting. The rear springs and shock absorbers were mounted differently. The floor pan was raised inside the car. The door bars were raised.
The car was tested at Texas Motor Speedway. It was fast out of the box, and only got faster as the team and driver got a handle on how to set it up. And one more modification was needed:
It was done, and it was so.
In 1997, Jeff Gordon and the DuPont #24 car were at the top of their game. Stump opined that you could have built a shopping trolley and Gordon would take it to Victory Lane that year. So why build this new car? Simple, really.
May rolled around, and with it the race then called The Winston. The All Star race in the NASCAR Cup season, it doesn't pay points (i.e doesn't count towards the championship) but instead a big cash prize for winning. Teams often change to a special paintscheme for the race, and the #24 car was no exception. As part of a deal to promote the second Jurassic Park film, the team painted a large Tyrannosaurus Rex on the bonnet. With that, and the hand that Rex Stump had in creating the car, the nickname was obvious.
T-Rex was born.
The car was unloaded at the track, and it became readily apparent to the trained eyes in the garage area that this car was something new. At rest, the front valance sat a couple of inches higher than on the other cars. On the track, it was a different story. It would 'land' in the middle of the turns, nose just kissing the ground and the tail staying up. The aerodynamics of the car and its attitude in the corners were creating negative pressure underneath, sucking it onto the track - ground effect.
Following a small mistake in qualifying, Jeff Gordon started the first segment of the Saturday night race in 19th. After 30 laps, he was 3rd. The field was then reversed for the second segment and he started 16th. He finished that segment 4th.
The final 10 lap segment started. Less than a lap and a half later, Gordon was in the lead. And no-one could catch him. The game had been changed.
Or had it?
While NASCAR hadn't been a "stock" car series for decades, they did like to keep a lid on costs. And what Rex Stump and his engineers had done was create a situation where everyone would have to throw away all their cars and start over. There was no way that Gary Nelson and his team could let that just happen. But the car wasn't illegal, per se. The rulebook would have to be altered.
Gary Nelson used the story of the Indianapolis 500 going to rear-engined cars to explain why they had to nip what the Hendrick organisation in the bud.
In post-race inspection for The Winston, T-Rex passed. It couldn't not pass - nothing in the rules at that time prohibited it. So, Jeff Gordon won The Winston. And the team were told never to bring that car back to a race. Between The Winston and the next race on the calendar, the Coca-Cola 600 held at Charlotte the next weekend, Hendrick invited NASCAR to come look at T-Rex and tell him exactly why he couldn't continue to race it. By doing that, by letting NASCAR work out exactly where the rulebook had gone wrong in allowing this monster onto the track, Evernham believes that they saved the remainder of their fleet of cars from having to be scrapped.
T-Rex did return, in much modified form, later in the year. It was no longer the all-conquering speed demon from that night in North Carolina though. While a few races and one win in a non-points race seems like a poor return from all that R&D effort, the team never saw it that way.
Well, actually it all began a bit earlier than that. A few seasons into his time as a car owner in NASCAR's Cup series, Rick Hendrick decided that he wanted his team to build their cars from the ground up. To that end, he set up a research and development programme and hired some of the brightest and best talent in the stock car world. By the mid '90s, his cars were winning championships. In January of 1996, Hendrick hired Rex Stump to run the R&D operation and vowed to leave him to it by taking a hands-off approach. Stump had one mission in mind.
Rex Stump said:
The rulebook was studied. The engineers came back. 60 or so minds with many ideas about where improvements in race car design could be made that fit perfectly into the rules as laid out. If the rule was a bit fuzzy, push it. If a rule wasn't specifically in place, go wild.
Ray Evernham, crew chief for the #24 Hendrick car of Jeff Gordon, was a long-time champion of the R&D effort and expressed an interest in using what they came up with. Rick Hendrick, seeing the car built for the first time, figured that they had next to no chance of being allowed to ever run the car in anger but went ahead and invited the NASCAR tech inspectors to see it before taking it to a track. Gary Nelson was the chief tech inspector and series director at the time.
Gary Nelson said:
Not much detail has ever been given away about what exactly this car had that made it so special. Rex Stump never wanted to let go of all his team's secrets! But in virtually every respect it was a clean-sheet rework of the NASCAR stock car. Thicker, stronger frame rails that were more resistant to twisting. The rear springs and shock absorbers were mounted differently. The floor pan was raised inside the car. The door bars were raised.
The car was tested at Texas Motor Speedway. It was fast out of the box, and only got faster as the team and driver got a handle on how to set it up. And one more modification was needed:
Jeff Gordon said:
It was done, and it was so.
In 1997, Jeff Gordon and the DuPont #24 car were at the top of their game. Stump opined that you could have built a shopping trolley and Gordon would take it to Victory Lane that year. So why build this new car? Simple, really.
Rex Stump said:
May rolled around, and with it the race then called The Winston. The All Star race in the NASCAR Cup season, it doesn't pay points (i.e doesn't count towards the championship) but instead a big cash prize for winning. Teams often change to a special paintscheme for the race, and the #24 car was no exception. As part of a deal to promote the second Jurassic Park film, the team painted a large Tyrannosaurus Rex on the bonnet. With that, and the hand that Rex Stump had in creating the car, the nickname was obvious.
T-Rex was born.
The car was unloaded at the track, and it became readily apparent to the trained eyes in the garage area that this car was something new. At rest, the front valance sat a couple of inches higher than on the other cars. On the track, it was a different story. It would 'land' in the middle of the turns, nose just kissing the ground and the tail staying up. The aerodynamics of the car and its attitude in the corners were creating negative pressure underneath, sucking it onto the track - ground effect.
Following a small mistake in qualifying, Jeff Gordon started the first segment of the Saturday night race in 19th. After 30 laps, he was 3rd. The field was then reversed for the second segment and he started 16th. He finished that segment 4th.
Jeff Gordon said:
The final 10 lap segment started. Less than a lap and a half later, Gordon was in the lead. And no-one could catch him. The game had been changed.
Or had it?
Ray Evernham said:
While NASCAR hadn't been a "stock" car series for decades, they did like to keep a lid on costs. And what Rex Stump and his engineers had done was create a situation where everyone would have to throw away all their cars and start over. There was no way that Gary Nelson and his team could let that just happen. But the car wasn't illegal, per se. The rulebook would have to be altered.
Gary Nelson used the story of the Indianapolis 500 going to rear-engined cars to explain why they had to nip what the Hendrick organisation in the bud.
Gary Nelson said:
In post-race inspection for The Winston, T-Rex passed. It couldn't not pass - nothing in the rules at that time prohibited it. So, Jeff Gordon won The Winston. And the team were told never to bring that car back to a race. Between The Winston and the next race on the calendar, the Coca-Cola 600 held at Charlotte the next weekend, Hendrick invited NASCAR to come look at T-Rex and tell him exactly why he couldn't continue to race it. By doing that, by letting NASCAR work out exactly where the rulebook had gone wrong in allowing this monster onto the track, Evernham believes that they saved the remainder of their fleet of cars from having to be scrapped.
Ray Evernham said:
T-Rex did return, in much modified form, later in the year. It was no longer the all-conquering speed demon from that night in North Carolina though. While a few races and one win in a non-points race seems like a poor return from all that R&D effort, the team never saw it that way.
Rick Hendrick said:
