MD80891 makes good points in discussing the COT spin campaign that began almost as soon as the checkered flag fell at Bristol. Among the points he makes is the repeated use of the term "old school" by defenders of the COT. It is worth examining because there is a very romanticized view of Old School racing and one needs to look back to see how much of that romanticized view is really relevent to the present.
An argument often made is that "back in the day" the racers had to really drive their cars, had to manhandle their cars, etc. whereas modern drivers simply aim their cars, do not have to exert themselves as much, and so forth. What this argument so often ignores is that back in the day there were quite a few differences in the cars compared to today - they were substantially heavier; they ran bias-ply tires which could be "raced" differently from radials, a difference still seen today at tracks such as NHIS where Busch East cars run bias-plies when running companion races with Winston Cup, BGN, and Trucks; a lot of the limits placed on the cars today, such as sway bar size and mounting, were not issues back then; template rules were far more relaxed by today's standards; and the cars had just over half the horsepower of present cars. They were thus some five or more seconds a lap slower at virtually all the tracks compared to today.
There were also some important differences to some of the tracks, Bristol in particular. It had an asphalt surface that was frequently treated with sealer to prevent cracking. It was notorious for forcing cars to run the high grooves and when cars wanted to race side by side they did so with more frequency than on concrete surfaces.
When discussing aerodynamics a common argument is that the cars back then didn't run as much spoiler etc. as today, an argument that ignores that spoiler sizes increased as the cars got faster and less stable; when NASCAR faced issues of car stability it answered by increasing downforce, and it consistently worked. The "old school" revisionism of today ignores that the drivers then wanted more, not less, grip for their cars, and teams worked to get more grip - indeed, Kyle Busch's postrace blast at the COT at Bristol mirrored driver complaints about the cars they'd had to switch to early in 1978 - "The Dodge Magnum is undriveable at 190," Richard Petty said while Donnie Allison said, "I can't drive the Olds, it moves around too much." Cale Yarborough said in Daytona qualifying, "I couldn't hold my breath any longer, you wouldn't believe how unstable the car is." NASCAR increased spoiler size to get the cars stable, and things more or less settled down.
The simple fact is that Old School racing was often better than today, but it was never because of lack of stability or lack of grip; the cars had as much grip as was possible back then. Certainly "back in the day" the answer to issues of competition was never to punish aggressive racing or setups; it was never to cut downforce.
The implicit notion is that "Old School" drivers would not want more grip for their cars, would not want this or that, etc. This, though, ignores that racers want to be able to race in a car that sticks to the track and can take the lead of the race; the old school fought for more downforce and so forth as much as today's generation of racers.
Nostalgia for the old school isn't a bad thing, until it is distorted to justify a bad rules package. The Old School was cited to defend the varied incarnations of the failed 5&5 rule and is being used again to justify the COT. When this happens then "old school" becomes unrecognizible.
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