THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Apr. 2, 2015
Volume IX, Edition XLV
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What to Watch: Thursday- Not much is officially scheduled for today. We're still waiting on official word on Kyle Larson's approval to race at Texas. If that comes today, we'll have an article about it at Frontstretch.
Thursday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.
Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff
by the Frontstretch Staff
Brett Moffitt to Continue in No. 55 at Texas
On Wednesday, Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) announced that Brett Moffitt will return to the No. 55 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota for the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. MWR is re-evaluating their lineup on a weekly basis as Brian Vickers continues to deal with health issues. Read more
Texas Motor Speedway Adding Temporary Tire Packs
Texas Motor Speedway Adding Temporary Tire Packs
Texas motor Speedway announced on Wednesday that they will be adding temporary tire barriers on the inside of turns 1 and 4 on the 1.5 mile quad-oval, effective immediately. Read more
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FRONTSTRETCH JOB: WEBMASTER
Frontstretch.com is looking for a talented and motivated individual to fulfill the role of the site's webmaster. The ideal candidate must be highly proficient in WordPress, as the site recently converted from Textpattern to WordPress as its content management system. The webmaster will assist with leftover conversion tasks, work with the management team to implement site enhancements and help troubleshoot problems as they arise. The candidate must also have a working knowledge of search engine optimization strategies to help improve search rankings for the site. Motorsports knowledge is preferred but not required. The candidate should have on average at least 1-2 hours per week to devote to Fronstretch initiatives. If you are interested, please contact our Business Manager, Tony Lumbis at Tony.Lumbis@gmail.com.
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Today's Featured Commentary
Thoughts and Musing on Tire Penalties and St. Petersburg
Potts' Shots
Potts' Shots
by John Potts
OK, the news came down this week that Richard Childress' team No. 31 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has been hit with what the sanctioning body calls a "P5" penalty after the car's tires were inspected following the March 22 race in California.
NASCAR had been confiscating tires for a couple of weeks, according to what I understand, and it's safe to assume they figured some teams were cheating in some fashion.
One of the methods I heard was some type of pinholes being bored into the tire to let air pressure out after it had built up from running. Not sure how accurate that is, but whatever they were doing, NASCAR didn't like it. Usually in a case like this, the taking of the parts for inspection back at their technical center means somebody on another team complained, or somebody who switched teams at one time or another talked about it.
Leading up to this weekend, Roger Penske made it a point to tell his teams not to get involved in whatever was going on with the tires.
Tires and engines are a couple of the areas NASCAR doesn't like teams to mess with.
Specifically, the rule book says the following:
20.16: Wheels and tires
A. Any device, modification, or procedure to the tire or wheel, including the valve stem hardware, that is used to release pressure, beyond normal pressure adjustments, from the tire and/or inner shield, will not be permitted.
20.16.2: Tires
F. Modifications to the tires, by treatment or any other means, will not be permitted.
Section 12.5.3.5.1 lists P5 Penalty Violation examples that could include but are not limited to:
A. Effecting, modifying and/or altering the standard tires in any way, other than through authorized means such as tire pressure adjustments within the recommended range, permitted tire cooling when mounted on the race vehicle; or heat-cycling on the race vehicle on the race track earlier in the event.
12.5.3.5.2: Minimum P5 Penalty Options (includes all four points below):
They lowered the boom on the 31 team. Luke Lambert, the crew chief, has been fined a total of $125,000 and suspended from the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship race plus any non-championship races or special events within that period. He's also on probation through Dec. 31.
The same suspension and probation has been applied to James Bender, the team's tire technical, and Philip Surgen, the team engineer.
In addition, driver Ryan Newman and Childress have each been penalized with the loss of 75 championship driver and owner points.
That's roughly a race and a half, folks.
As I understand it the basic penalty was $75,000 for the crew chief and an additional $50,000 because the infraction was discovered during a post-race inspection. And 50 points for driver and car owner, plus 25 points for the same reason.
Torrey Galida, president of RCR, commented, "We understand the seriousness of the penalty. In fact, RCR has been one of the most outspoken opponents against 'tire bleeding' since the rumors began to surface last season. Once NASCAR provides us with the specific details of the infraction we will conduct a further internal investigation, and evaluate our options for an appeal."
What's interesting to me are the comments popping up on various message boards following the announcement.
At least one writer said we can expect something like this anytime "…anybody but Hendrick" gets caught. I'm not sure how true that is.
It's also interesting to me that NASCAR didn't clarify exactly what kind of modification was used to control the tire pressure. Far cry from the days when they used to take confiscated parts and display them at the next race. Sort of a "Don't do this," exhibit.
I'm no mechanical genius, and certainly haven't had anything to do with technical inspections beyond some very rudimentary items (measuring tires, etc.), but it never ceases to amaze me how these teams keep coming up with ways to push the envelope.
- - - - - - - -
On the Verizon IndyCar Series front, Juan Pablo Montoya did a masterful job in winning the season opener at St. Petersburg last Sunday, and I personally think he's going to have a good season.
I was going to comment more about that, but I think my colleague Huston Ladner did a great job in his own writing.
Regarding Sunday's race, after a minor slip in the pits on the last stop by Will Power's team gave him a slight advantage, he managed to hold off his teammate. I liked the way he shut the door on Power in a classic short-track move.
That happened in Turn 10, and Power broke his front wing hitting Montoya's left rear corner. They both avoided getting into the wall, and gave Roger Penske a 1-2 finish.
OK, the news came down this week that Richard Childress' team No. 31 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has been hit with what the sanctioning body calls a "P5" penalty after the car's tires were inspected following the March 22 race in California.
NASCAR had been confiscating tires for a couple of weeks, according to what I understand, and it's safe to assume they figured some teams were cheating in some fashion.
One of the methods I heard was some type of pinholes being bored into the tire to let air pressure out after it had built up from running. Not sure how accurate that is, but whatever they were doing, NASCAR didn't like it. Usually in a case like this, the taking of the parts for inspection back at their technical center means somebody on another team complained, or somebody who switched teams at one time or another talked about it.
Leading up to this weekend, Roger Penske made it a point to tell his teams not to get involved in whatever was going on with the tires.
Tires and engines are a couple of the areas NASCAR doesn't like teams to mess with.
Specifically, the rule book says the following:
20.16: Wheels and tires
A. Any device, modification, or procedure to the tire or wheel, including the valve stem hardware, that is used to release pressure, beyond normal pressure adjustments, from the tire and/or inner shield, will not be permitted.
20.16.2: Tires
F. Modifications to the tires, by treatment or any other means, will not be permitted.
Section 12.5.3.5.1 lists P5 Penalty Violation examples that could include but are not limited to:
A. Effecting, modifying and/or altering the standard tires in any way, other than through authorized means such as tire pressure adjustments within the recommended range, permitted tire cooling when mounted on the race vehicle; or heat-cycling on the race vehicle on the race track earlier in the event.
12.5.3.5.2: Minimum P5 Penalty Options (includes all four points below):
They lowered the boom on the 31 team. Luke Lambert, the crew chief, has been fined a total of $125,000 and suspended from the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship race plus any non-championship races or special events within that period. He's also on probation through Dec. 31.
The same suspension and probation has been applied to James Bender, the team's tire technical, and Philip Surgen, the team engineer.
In addition, driver Ryan Newman and Childress have each been penalized with the loss of 75 championship driver and owner points.
That's roughly a race and a half, folks.
As I understand it the basic penalty was $75,000 for the crew chief and an additional $50,000 because the infraction was discovered during a post-race inspection. And 50 points for driver and car owner, plus 25 points for the same reason.
Torrey Galida, president of RCR, commented, "We understand the seriousness of the penalty. In fact, RCR has been one of the most outspoken opponents against 'tire bleeding' since the rumors began to surface last season. Once NASCAR provides us with the specific details of the infraction we will conduct a further internal investigation, and evaluate our options for an appeal."
What's interesting to me are the comments popping up on various message boards following the announcement.
At least one writer said we can expect something like this anytime "…anybody but Hendrick" gets caught. I'm not sure how true that is.
It's also interesting to me that NASCAR didn't clarify exactly what kind of modification was used to control the tire pressure. Far cry from the days when they used to take confiscated parts and display them at the next race. Sort of a "Don't do this," exhibit.
I'm no mechanical genius, and certainly haven't had anything to do with technical inspections beyond some very rudimentary items (measuring tires, etc.), but it never ceases to amaze me how these teams keep coming up with ways to push the envelope.
- - - - - - - -
On the Verizon IndyCar Series front, Juan Pablo Montoya did a masterful job in winning the season opener at St. Petersburg last Sunday, and I personally think he's going to have a good season.
I was going to comment more about that, but I think my colleague Huston Ladner did a great job in his own writing.
Regarding Sunday's race, after a minor slip in the pits on the last stop by Will Power's team gave him a slight advantage, he managed to hold off his teammate. I liked the way he shut the door on Power in a classic short-track move.
That happened in Turn 10, and Power broke his front wing hitting Montoya's left rear corner. They both avoided getting into the wall, and gave Roger Penske a 1-2 finish.
"It was a good battle," Power said later. "We rubbed a little, but yeah, got to put on a bit of a show for the fans, right?"
Another good quote came from Tony Kanaan, who said of Montoya, "It took him a year to figure it out, but he's tough."
About that broken wing – those things cost about $20,000 each, and there were a lot of pieces being strewn around the course on Sunday. The new aero kits make the racing more interesting, but this is going to be an expensive proposition.
Not to mention dangerous. One fan was injured by flying debris, and it's safe to say that situation is getting IndyCar's full attention.
I like the fact that the cars don't all look the same, but I think we can safely presume that as soon as somebody figures out the right package for a speedway or an oval course for either a Chevrolet or Honda, everybody with that particular powerplant will probably look pretty much alike.
I remember a story about a short track late model team several years ago who had trouble getting dirt in their right front spring. They took a big tin can and some duct tape, and covered up the spring. After they won a couple of weeks in a row, everybody show up with a can over their right front spring.
Monkey see, monkey do.
John Potts is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at john.potts@frontstretch.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Critic's Annex: Firestone Indy Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
by Phil Allaway
This past weekend, the Verizon IndyCar Series held their season opener on the streets (and airport runways) of St. Petersburg. ESPN debuted a couple of changes during the telecast. Did they work out positively for the network? Let's see.
Pre-race coverage was spent discussing the the various changes to the teams and the race cars for the 2015. The highlight of the show was ESPN re-hire Jon Beekhuis describing the new aero kits for Chevrolet and Honda in a fair amount of detail, showing how the two manufacturers make their new packages work. It's a very convoluted system, especially in Honda's case.
The race was marked by near constant debris. Unlike Sprint Cup races, this debris was rather large and stood out. ESPN did a good job showing viewers where the debris was on the track (which seemed to be everywhere) and how these pieces caused debris cautions.
The only aspect I'm unclear on is when the fan ended up getting injured. Based on this RACER.com article, it appears that the debris flew over the grandstands near turn 10 and hit the woman as she was walking behind the grandstands. As opposed to instances like pucks coming off the ice and into the stands in an arena, she would have never known what hit her and could not have known what was coming. News of the incident didn't really break until Tuesday, so ESPN couldn't have covered it during the race. My best guess as to when it happened was when Marco Andretti had contact exiting turn 10 and screwed up his front wing a third of the way through the race.
During the race itself, ESPN took time to show battles up and down the order instead of focusing on the very front, which used to happen quite a bit with their NASCAR coverage. Doing that put ESPN in position to have proper footage of a lot of the contact on-track. Having ten different cars (out of 24 starters) with in-car cameras doesn't hurt either.
The coverage of the start was a little iffy, though. As is ESPN's custom, the booth stayed silent for the first lap to let fans feel the fury of the two dozen chariots blasting through the concrete canyons. That's fine and all, but there were no on-screen overlays until well after the caution came out part way through the second lap. When the yellow flew (naturally, for debris), the only mention that there was a caution was an unnamed crewmember mentioning that there was one. The booth went on with their normal discussion like nothing was happening. Not the best show right there.
Since the race went over the scheduled timeslot, post-race coverage was somewhat limited. Viewers saw interviews with the top two finishers (Montoya and Power), along with the winning car owner (Penske). Otherwise, there as a quick recap of the unofficial results and parting words for the booth before ESPN left air to get to the news.
Overall, the coverage was not all that bad. I still feel that Cheever really doesn't bring all that much to the broadcast booth, despite (according to Bestwick) being in his ninth year with ESPN. Perhaps ESPN's IndyCar booth would work better with just Bestwick and Goodyear, who does bring some insights.
That's all for this week. Tune in next week when we'll take a look at the K&N Pro Series West opener, the NAPA Auto Parts 150 from Kern County Raceway near Bakersfield.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~Frontstretch Line of the Week
From Beyond the Cockpit with Leah Pritchett"I feel there might be a little extra pressure. Not necessarily from the media but from a general fan standpoint. I think what people don't quite recognize is that all of the females that are now here, that seem like we just appeared, have been saturated in this sport for years. Our roots are here; we've grown and made it to a level where we are very visual. I don't feel pressure to do well. I just feel the pressure of wanting to be the best no matter who I'm racing." - Leah Pritchett, on whether she feels the pressure to perform because she's a woman.
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TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:
by Beth Lunkenheimer
by P. Huston Ladner
by Toni Montgomery
as told to Mike Neff
~~~~~~~~~~FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: In 1994, the sluggish European economy led to the highest number of drivers earning race seats in recent years. How many drivers competed for one of the 14 teams that season?
Check back Friday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Wednesday's Answer:
Wednesday's Answer:
Q: For much of the late 1970's and early 1980's, Northeast-style Modifieds resembled compact street cars of the era, such as the AMC Gremlin. However, off-and-on Cup Series driver Gary Balough changed all that with a revolutionary race car in 1980. What was this car known as, and what was it supposed to resemble, if only slightly?
A: In 1980, Balough brought a car to Super Dirt Week in Syracuse known as "the Batmobile." It was supposed to be a Lincoln Continental of all things, but didn't really look much like it. The car had ground effects and skirts that kept it nailed to the track. In qualifying, Balough won the pole with a lap just under 113 mph for an average, amazing speed for the time.
Rather than just ban the car outright, DIRT decided to let Balough race. As a result, a number of teams attempted to modify their race cars during the weekend tin order to be competitive with Balough. It didn't work as Balough simply toyed with the field during the 200-kilometer race, winning easily. Here's a clip from prior to the start of the 200-kilometer classic where Larry Nuber talks to the top 6 qualifiers. The Batmobile shows up at 2:50.
Ground effects were banned for 1981 and still remain banned in the DIRTCar rule book to this day. While the Batmobile was never seen again on track (but can be seen in a DIRTCar-owned museum), the modfiications made by some of the other teams ended up being early versions of the type of purposed built race cars now seen on Northeastern dirt tracks.
Ground effects were banned for 1981 and still remain banned in the DIRTCar rule book to this day. While the Batmobile was never seen again on track (but can be seen in a DIRTCar-owned museum), the modfiications made by some of the other teams ended up being early versions of the type of purposed built race cars now seen on Northeastern dirt tracks.
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COMING TOMORROW
COMING TOMORROW
In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have a recap of Thursday's breaking news for you.
On Frontstretch.com:
We'll have some commentary articles to tide you over as the teams make good use of the off-week.-----------------------------
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