Saturday, February 25, 2012

One more day.....

....before the Daytona 500, and things are already getting interesting.

On the Sprint Cup side, Danica got wrecked out in the first Duel Thursday, on the last lap. After winning the pole in the Nationwide Series, she got wrecked on lap 49 by her teammate (whoops).

Both the Truck and Nationwide races ended with relative unknowns winning after late accidents mixed up the running orders. It sets quite a stage for tomorrow's feature.

Some random thoughts while I'm procrastinating....

1) While it's merely bemusing now, Danica's probably going to have to tone down the frustration and attitude on the radio... Her language was colorful even to me, and they can only redact so much. Her reputation had taken a hit in IndyCar for her temper, but if it continues along that vein in NASCAR, eventually she'll be viewed more like the Busch brothers than like her bosses, Junior and Tony.

She can't be fined for what she says over the radio (at least not for profanity-laced rants), but NASCAR's social structure can be a bit sensitive. Also, because she is such a popular subject for the media, any judgment by the masses may have a major impact on her future marketability.

Maybe I'm over-analyzing it (after all, that's more or less my job), but there is a tendency for women to be held to higher standards than men... want references for that?

2) Although it's unlikely, I have to wonder if I'm partly to blame for the wreck-fests this weekend. A distracted driving researcher (me) in conversations with NASCAR's director of safety MIGHT have had an impact on the restriction of cross-team chatter. Or not. Regardless, it's definitely played a role in the racing (combined with smaller radiators, lower water pressures, etc). On one hand, it's nice that the drivers are back to typically chattering with their crew chief and spotters, rather than other drivers, spotters, and who knows who else. On the other, while spotters are back to making and maintaining deals, verbal communication is just not quite as fast when you add in extra links (i.e., the reason drivers started communicating directly in the first place).

Restrictor plate racing makes these cars more sensitive to the dynamics of airflow... to take advantage of said dynamics, they have to run close together, either in tandem or in packs (we've seen both throughout the past week). Running close together pretty much guarantees contact between vehicles, which pretty much guarantees someone will at some point wreck, and wreck a few others in the process.

Drafting will be a necessary evil for the major superspeedways (Daytona and Talladega). I can see several reasons for why NASCAR chose to restrict communication as well as airflow through the throttle body. It makes for a more entertaining show, especially compared to the "two-car tango". Still, from a cognition standpoint, dependence on verbal communication is hardly optimal when performance is critical. It will be intriguing to see what workaround the teams find this time.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Two months later....

....give or take a week, and enthusiasm is still running high.

This could be dangerous.

Also, McLaren's new car (MP4-27) is a beautiful piece of machinery. Best of luck to Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button behind the wheel. There's been some interesting changes to the tech specs for Formula 1 this year (as occur every year, usually throughout it)... we'll have to see how they play out. But I'm still cheering on McLaren most loudly. ;-)

It's now pretty much official that a trip to Road America, a fabulous road course facility up in Wisconsin is in the works. I've attended a few oval races, from dirt to asphalt short tracks to the massive Talladega Superspeedway, but this will be my first road course event to attend in person. Having the opportunity to actually see race operations up close and personal should be AWESOME!! but I'm just guessing here.

I've decided to stick with stock cars for now, because I know the most about them (F1 comment above notwithstanding)... but in the end, I really like the challenges that road courses offer. Next step (maybe) will be to see a street circuit in action. Those, however, will require expanding from stock cars into open-wheel. IndyCar, anyone?

Yeah. Being a Chick Speed Geek is starting to pay off. Now, if I can just remember to post here......