The All-Purpose Motorsports Thread

[MoparOrNoCar]

Harvick seems to be able to adapt his driving to the car and Rodney Childers seems to be able to make adjustments. Harvick always seems to be the best of the Stewart-Haas teams. All of those teams seem to be much better this season but the others seem to lose it at the end of races.

Kyle Larson seems to be the only competitive Chevy.

Seems like Gibbs took the good crew members from Truex's team. Toyota might not be giving Truex the best engines.

Watching interviews with the younger drivers, many of them say they aren't car guys. They don't work on cars, even their own cars. It's gotten to be more and more that way. It used to be that drivers grew up working on their own cars. Now, many have never turned a wrench.

Yeah it's been really cool to see Bowyer and Almirola up there this year but it's like Harvick is a tier ahead. He's battling for wins while the rest of the guys are 5th-10th most weeks. He and his crew chief have had this thing figured out for a few years now.

Chevy seems to be in trouble but I could definitely use a break from Jimmie Johnson winning another championship so I'm ok with it.

The days of guys having to earn it to get to this point are over. Basically some kid's parents have money and put him in a car and if he's good he gets noticed and gets picked up by a Gibbs developmental team and basically has a free ride from there. It's another reason in the long list of reasons why fans are leaving the sport. Can't identify with these kids and there's nothing interesting about their back stories. They weren't sacrificing everything to build the car and get it on the short track by Saturday night to try and make it the way the guys in the past did.

 

[ralphc1]

Even the ones that started racing go carts had parents who hired someone to prepare their carts. I'm watching an article about NASCAR Next on Race Hub where they select young drivers. Many are 16. Very few people get the chance to race before age 18 in anything but a go kart. There are hardly any places to do that anymore. There are some bumper cart tracks but not many real racing tracks where you can race your own cart.

 

[ralphc1]

Indy Practice went pretty well. Many cars on the track and nobody crashed or blew up in the 7 hours. They'll do it again tomorrow.

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

Harvick seems to be able to adapt his driving to the car and Rodney Childers seems to be able to make adjustments. Harvick always seems to be the best of the Stewart-Haas teams. All of those teams seem to be much better this season but the others seem to lose it at the end of races.

Kyle Larson seems to be the only competitive Chevy.

Seems like Gibbs took the good crew members from Truex's team. Toyota might not be giving Truex the best engines.

Watching interviews with the younger drivers, many of them say they aren't car guys. They don't work on cars, even their own cars. It's gotten to be more and more that way. It used to be that drivers grew up working on their own cars. Now, many have never turned a wrench.

Not a recent problem

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

Even the ones that started racing go carts had parents who hired someone to prepare their carts. I'm watching an article about NASCAR Next on Race Hub where they select young drivers. Many are 16. Very few people get the chance to race before age 18 in anything but a go kart. There are hardly any places to do that anymore. There are some bumper cart tracks but not many real racing tracks where you can race your own cart.

I'm pretty involved with the dirt racing scene around Atlanta. None of the guys under 30 work on their own cars. It goes like this:
Daddy owns a construction/wrecker business
Daddy buys the car, hauler and equipment
Daddy finds a guy who's been racing for decades and pays him to setup and fix the car
Son goes to school or fucks off all day at Daddy's company
Son wears a fancy firesuit for instagram
Son touches the car on race night only(maybe on Monday for wash day)
Son's high price equipment covers the fact that he can't really drive

I think that's why NASCAR is really in trouble the next few years. That's the crop of drivers and it's easy to see they're spoiled kids. Who wants to cheer for that?

 

[ralphc1]

Another clean day at Indy. I recall the days off multiple crashes and engine problems in practice. About the only problem was Tony Kanaan had an electronic throttle issue that was quickly resolved. They must have the aerodynamic and engine packages so regulated that the cars are very stable.

 

[ralphc1]

NASCAR changes the tire rule. Teams will no longer have to start the race on the tires they qualified on. I liked the rule the way it was. It gave the lower qualifying cars a little help in the early part of the race.

 

[rearnakedchoke]

Lewis just proves he is probably the greatest driver ever. Has it all. One lap speed for quali. Poise for racing and focus for longevity. He is already the greatest imo.

 

[ralphc1]

One car made light contact with the wall yesterday near the end of practice. The first incident since they started practice for the 500.

 

[ralphc1]

A significant crash for James Davison today in practice.

 

[ralphc1]

Only 23 cars have qualified at Indy so far as rain has interrupted qualifying. The Chevy powered cars are fastest with Bourdais the only Honda in the top 5 so far.

 

[PRIDEWASBETTER]

Harvick wins...again.

 

[ralphc1]

Harvick wins...again.

That team just seems to find a way to win. They were pretty far off at the start. Almirola's car was fast at the start and got slower as the night went on.

Why is the 4 team so much better than the other Stewart-Haas teams who have the same equipment? Is Rodney Childers that much better at making adjustments? Does Kevin Harvick give better feedback? Is Kevin just able to find a way to drive the car to get the most out of it?

 

[PRIDEWASBETTER]

That team just seems to find a way to win. They were pretty far off at the start. Almirola's car was fast at the start and got slower as the night went on.

Why is the 4 team so much better than the other Stewart-Haas teams who have the same equipment? Is Rodney Childers that much better at making adjustments? Does Kevin Harvick give better feedback? Is Kevin just able to find a way to drive the car to get the most out of it?

I think it's the Harvick/Childers combo. Kevin's been the closer for years. Guy just knows how to finish a race.

 

[ralphc1]

The run for the pole at Indy should be interesting today. Danica was able to qualify in the top 9 who will vie for the pole today. 7 of the 9 are Chevy powered.

In the interview with Danica, she admitted that she isn't very comfortable with using the adjustments in the car as she doesn't know much about them. That might be true of many of the drivers who aren't involved in the mechanics of the cars.

 

[ralphc1]

I think it's the Harvick/Childers combo. Kevin's been the closer for years. Guy just knows how to finish a race.

Johnny Sauter in the truck series seems to do much the same thing. Both Harvick and Sauter were involved in working on their own cars early in their careers. That could be the difference in their success. They learned to be cautious early to save their tires and equipment. Sauter has earned points in almost every stage of the races and has three wins after winning a championship without any wins last season. That could be due to the rule changes that allow fewer races to be run by Cup series drivers.

 

[Foppa21]

Some odd strategies going on in the Spanish Gran Prix today. Ferrari pitted Vettel out of second place early to go from the soft to the medium tires. Mercedes brought Bottas in a few laps later. The stop was 3.9 seconds but they still almost got out ahead of Vettel. There was a threat of rain so it seemed prudent to stay out as long as possible. Hamilton stayed out much longer before changing to mediums. Then a virtual safety car came out when Ocon's car died on track and Vettel came in. I thought they would go to soft tires but they put another set of mediums because they didn't have any softs. That put Vettel behind two more cars as he had to wait for another car coming into the pit.

The rain never came. Vettel finished 4th and Raikkonen had a DNF due to engine failure.

I miss the old days when they had a post race press conference for the top 3.
They continued doing the driver interviews on pit lane after the race instead of on the podium as they did for the last two years.

A bit late but from what I've read and heard from various podcasts Ferrari had issues nailing down windows for their tyres. They were so rubbish at it that they figured to be safe they had to run 2 stops. Oh and having rubbish pit stops don't help

 

[Foppa21]

He had to slow to keep from hitting the car in front, then he was along for the ride. It might be the best thing if he got out of that piece of shit they call a car.

It was a very strange weekend. It appeared that the Ferraris had more pace on long runs in practice but they lost balance fairly early into a run in the race. I thought Mercedes screwed up and brought Bottas in a couple of laps too early. He was still running fast laps and the medium tires that Vettel changed to took longer to come in. Then the slow stop allowed Vettel to be ahead of him.

Hamilton was running fast laps and they never mentioned fuel saving. Bottas and Vettel were running slower and fuel was a concern. Hamilton must be smoother on the power.

It's often seen in NASCAR and Indy that a driver is told to save fuel so they get off the gas sooner and and back on it later and improve their lap times.

I thought his car has been half decent.. When they screw the wing nuts in tight enough.

Come on, his spinning into a wall on the pretty much the longest (if not the longest) straight in F1 under safety car is going to give us lols for years. It's like the butt fumble of F1.

The best thing about Roman this year is he's a lot less whiny that he was last year.

 

[ralphc1]

A bit late but from what I've read and heard from various podcasts Ferrari had issues nailing down windows for their tyres. They were so rubbish at it that they figured to be safe they had to run 2 stops. Oh and having rubbish pit stops don't help

It was strange to see Ferrari in so much confusion. In practice, they were making long runs and keeping pace better than Mercedes but didn't manage tires well in the race. Maybe Vettel was too hard on those tires at the start. The slow pit stop was a result of another car coming in behind them at just the wrong time for Ferrari.

 

[Foppa21]

It was strange to see Ferrari in so much confusion. In practice, they were making long runs and keeping pace better than Mercedes but didn't manage tires well in the race. Maybe Vettel was too hard on those tires at the start. The slow pit stop was a result of another car coming in behind them at just the wrong time for Ferrari.

Fair enough on the pit stop. It happens. But it was still pretty mud.

While everything on paper looked good in the FPs, I think there were rumblings that they were having a hard time with tyres. Ferrari are always the first of the major teams that seem to implode when something doesn't go to plan or they don't get their way.