Showing posts with label Manufacturers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manufacturers. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
The Other Side Of The VW Scandal
A look back at the VW "cheating" scandal and how there actually wasn't any cheating - just bureaucrats throwing weight around.
Sunday, August 07, 2016
Denny Does Watkins Glen
The collapse of Hendrick Motorsports continues with Jimmie Johnson's melee with Greg Biffle at the Watkins Glen race.
Kevin Harvick's day ended late
Denny Hamlin continued the Toyota-Ford conquest of NASCAR as he won for the first time since the Daytona 500, ahead of a Keselowski-Truex set-to that left Truex irked to no end while Chevrolet's chances for the season continue down the drain and a remarkable effort by the Ford company unfolded amid the chaos that littered the road course.
Chris Buescher had a frustrating day after his surprise win at Pocono, and what unfolded at The Glen was revelatory to an eye-popping extent - Ford intensified its effort behind Buescher's team to get them into the Chase, something we suspect hasn't happened to this extent since the ill-fated Dixie 500 at Atlanta in 1990 when Ford made Robert Yates test a car for Mark Martin and then had the Yates car raced by Martin under Roush auspices because it was faster than anything Roush could build - all in an ultimately-futile effort to beat Dale Earnhardt for the 1990 championship.
This effort by Ford indicates that a renewed commitment to NASCAR is real, first shown by the signing of Stewart-Haas Racing for 2017; it also indicates a renewed commitment to depth by Ford - a commitment first seen in the latter-1980s and early-1990s, especially the pivotal 1992 season when Fords won sixteen races and the manufacturer crown, their first since 1969 and the first time a GM brand didn't win it since Richard Petty pretty much single-handedly won it for Dodge in 1975.
It's a commitment the other brands need to take into account. Though cleaning up the wins Toyota is doing so with basically one team; the signing of the Truex #78 and its expansion to a second car with youngster Erik Jones for 2017 is a step, but Toyota needs three organizations or more to truly have competitive depth. Ford likewise needs to shore up so four organizations are fighting for the win.
Chevrolet's slow-motion collapse has been the market correction the series has needed for well over ten years; the last time one can remember Chevy being this mediocre was the mostly-forgettable 2000 season. There is an admitted level of schadenfreude involved in seeing Chevrolet's struggle - the hoariest gripe in fan circles in NASCAR has always been ostensible favoritism for Chevrolet by NASCAR, first tacitly acknowledged in 1965 by Ford stalwart Fred Lorenzen amid the Chrysler boycott and the massive decline in race crowds that resulted, this amid a forlorn effort by a few Chevrolets in late spring of that season.
One must also acknowledge the surge in race crowds in the 1970s when Richard Howard signed Junior Johnson's moribund race team in early 1971 to build a competitive Chevrolet, and the effort exploded in Bobby Allison's monstrous 1972 season of ten wins and over 4,300 laps led. By 1974 Chevrolets constituted some 75% of most fields and it stayed that way even as other GM brands were brought in during 1978 and beyond, until Ford's recommitment of the 1980s reached maturity by 1992.
It does bring to mind a Brian France comment from earlier this season as to rumor of another manufacturer - or two - wanting to commit to NASCAR, a rumor that has been curiously quiet with no perceivable evidence of any embryonic NASCAR program by another manufacturer.
*****
Amid all that Hamlin's win was only the second for Toyota at Watkins Glen. Other notable runners were Trevor Bayne, who finished an astonishing ninth, and AJ Allmendinger, the 2014 winner. Likewise lost in the shuffle was Jamie McMurray, finishing eighth and getting far less attention of late to teammate Kyle Larson, who ran good but didn't finish particularly well.
A bit of trivia largely overlooked was Matt Kenseth's 600th start, which ended in tenth.
Overlooking all of this is the continuing semi-mystery of Dale Earnhardt Jr's recovery from concussion symptoms, a recovery that seems to be progressing yet curiously hasn't yielded any timetable for him to return to a racecar - a fact that leads one to believe his season may be done.
It is starting to cast a bit of a pall on the sport with Bristol and an unsually late August date for Michigan beckoning amid a rare bye week.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
NASCAR Gets Curiouser And Curiouser Entering Atlanta 500
The Daytona 500 has passed and now NASCAR's touring classes enter Atlanta, where the weekend is forecast to be sunny, and looks to be better than 2015's race weekend. It enters with Daytona 500 TV ratings down from 2015, but it also enters with some blockbuster news.
Stewart-Haas Racing announced it will switch to Ford for 2017. Not since Toyota arrived in 2007 and then lured Joe Gibbs Racing into its fold for 2008 has a manufacturer switch generated the news this does given SHR's 30 Cup wins and the two driver titles - Tony Stewart's in 2011 and Kevin Harvick's in 2014. The change is a shocker since Chevrolet in essence built the team out of Gene Haas' small outfit and gave Tony Stewart co-ownership of the team to lure him out of Joe Gibbs Racing's Toyota fleet, where he'd won at Talladega in 2008. It is also a weakening of Chevrolet's power with Hendrick Motorsports still potent but no one else in the Chevy fleet having any muscle - RCR Enterprises remains a shell of itself while Chip Ganaasi's team remains in the RCR engine fold - we'll see how long that lasts.
The defection to Ford is also a surprising reassertion of the moribund Ford fleet, which has had Penske Racing and gotten nothing else out of its small force other that Richard Petty's Daytona and Watkins Glen wins in 2014; the Roush-Fenway group has been essentially a dead team since Matt Kenseth and later Carl Edwards went to JGR, this amid scuttlebutt that engine man Doug Yates will assume some form of ownership control of the team down the road, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Some other scuttlebutt in the sport has it that hope exists in Daytona that such manufacturer moves may compel other brands - Honda and Dodge notably - to want to enter. NASCAR certainly has not done well keeping manufacturers happy and that needs to change. Dodge's withdrawal has meant a weakening of all NASCAR's series. One certainly should want Dodge to return - I suspect in his heart Richard Petty wants to run Dodges rather than Fords and that program would still fit him better, while Honda's racing efforts have recently been personified in Indycars and taking on rival Toyota makes sense in NASCAR.
*****
As for Stewart-Haas Racing the defection to Ford comes by "a desire for more autonomy," which also reflects the shafting of customer cars that has been the pattern for Hendrick Motorsports. SHR has been a Hendrick satellite fleet from Day One, and Hendrick's history with customer teams has been a pattern - Bob Whitcomb's team won twice in 1990 with Hendrick engines and was then cut off because it outwon Hendrick's entire fleet; Darrell Waltrip then bought out Hendrick's #17 team, won five times with Hendrick engines 1991-2, and was cut off; Joe Gibbs began as a Hendrick customer team and won the 1993 Daytona 500, then finished a solid fourth in points, only to see a huge drop in horsepower in 1994; the team changed drivers to Bobby Labonte and got Chevy's controversial Monte Carlos of 1995, and won three times - when Hendrick's designated champion Jeff Gordon complained after a head-to-head loss to Labonte at Michigan JGR saw the writing on the wall and began building an in-house engine shop that debuted in 1996.
That SHR won as much as it has as long as it has indicates Chevrolet made it a priority - and also indicates something wrong in Chevy's leadership that the team is going to Ford, this as JGR's Toyotas have won fifteen of the last thirty-two races entering the 2016 Atlanta 500, a sure sign the NASCAR manufacturer paradigm has shifted.
*****
The Atlanta 500 weekend is the first with NASCAR's renewal of the 5&5 Rule low-downforce package - a cutting of downforce NASCAR implemented starting with this race last season. They want this to be the package for the entire season but the failure of these low downforce packages in the past augurs poorly for that happening. Jimmie Johnson won this race last year but the Hendrick fleet came out of Daytona looking noticeably weaker. The other top-tier team in Cup, Penske Racing, had a curiously subpar Speedweeks as well.
Judging a potential darkhorse team for the Atlanta 500 is tricky given the lower depth of the field, and one needs a few races to shake out before one can make any kind of gauge of who is going where as the season rolls. Basically it's Joe Gibbs Racing and if they don't win it's a tossup.
*****
The other story to watch is the Truck Series Georgia 200. NASCAR's caution clock debuted at Daytona and appeared to have more effect on the intensity of the racing than expected; now though we have a non-plate race on an intermediate superspeedway, where the Trucks have put on some spirited races the last five seasons. The effect of the caution clock on this race is the first key to watch.
That's part one of what to watch with the Trucks at Atlanta. Part two is the Maury Gallagher Chevrolets of Daytona winner Johnny Sauter and Daytona polesitter Grant Enfinger, to see if they can follow up Daytona with a strong effort at Atlanta. The Curb and Thorson Toyotas, the Fords of Brad Keselowski, and the Shigeaki Hattori Toyota all showed fire at Daytona and will want to keep that momentum, while some teams that didn't make the Daytona race - like Jennifer Jo Cobb - also look for a rebound.
So it goes entering the Atlanta 500.
Stewart-Haas Racing announced it will switch to Ford for 2017. Not since Toyota arrived in 2007 and then lured Joe Gibbs Racing into its fold for 2008 has a manufacturer switch generated the news this does given SHR's 30 Cup wins and the two driver titles - Tony Stewart's in 2011 and Kevin Harvick's in 2014. The change is a shocker since Chevrolet in essence built the team out of Gene Haas' small outfit and gave Tony Stewart co-ownership of the team to lure him out of Joe Gibbs Racing's Toyota fleet, where he'd won at Talladega in 2008. It is also a weakening of Chevrolet's power with Hendrick Motorsports still potent but no one else in the Chevy fleet having any muscle - RCR Enterprises remains a shell of itself while Chip Ganaasi's team remains in the RCR engine fold - we'll see how long that lasts.
The defection to Ford is also a surprising reassertion of the moribund Ford fleet, which has had Penske Racing and gotten nothing else out of its small force other that Richard Petty's Daytona and Watkins Glen wins in 2014; the Roush-Fenway group has been essentially a dead team since Matt Kenseth and later Carl Edwards went to JGR, this amid scuttlebutt that engine man Doug Yates will assume some form of ownership control of the team down the road, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Some other scuttlebutt in the sport has it that hope exists in Daytona that such manufacturer moves may compel other brands - Honda and Dodge notably - to want to enter. NASCAR certainly has not done well keeping manufacturers happy and that needs to change. Dodge's withdrawal has meant a weakening of all NASCAR's series. One certainly should want Dodge to return - I suspect in his heart Richard Petty wants to run Dodges rather than Fords and that program would still fit him better, while Honda's racing efforts have recently been personified in Indycars and taking on rival Toyota makes sense in NASCAR.
*****
As for Stewart-Haas Racing the defection to Ford comes by "a desire for more autonomy," which also reflects the shafting of customer cars that has been the pattern for Hendrick Motorsports. SHR has been a Hendrick satellite fleet from Day One, and Hendrick's history with customer teams has been a pattern - Bob Whitcomb's team won twice in 1990 with Hendrick engines and was then cut off because it outwon Hendrick's entire fleet; Darrell Waltrip then bought out Hendrick's #17 team, won five times with Hendrick engines 1991-2, and was cut off; Joe Gibbs began as a Hendrick customer team and won the 1993 Daytona 500, then finished a solid fourth in points, only to see a huge drop in horsepower in 1994; the team changed drivers to Bobby Labonte and got Chevy's controversial Monte Carlos of 1995, and won three times - when Hendrick's designated champion Jeff Gordon complained after a head-to-head loss to Labonte at Michigan JGR saw the writing on the wall and began building an in-house engine shop that debuted in 1996.
That SHR won as much as it has as long as it has indicates Chevrolet made it a priority - and also indicates something wrong in Chevy's leadership that the team is going to Ford, this as JGR's Toyotas have won fifteen of the last thirty-two races entering the 2016 Atlanta 500, a sure sign the NASCAR manufacturer paradigm has shifted.
*****
The Atlanta 500 weekend is the first with NASCAR's renewal of the 5&5 Rule low-downforce package - a cutting of downforce NASCAR implemented starting with this race last season. They want this to be the package for the entire season but the failure of these low downforce packages in the past augurs poorly for that happening. Jimmie Johnson won this race last year but the Hendrick fleet came out of Daytona looking noticeably weaker. The other top-tier team in Cup, Penske Racing, had a curiously subpar Speedweeks as well.
Judging a potential darkhorse team for the Atlanta 500 is tricky given the lower depth of the field, and one needs a few races to shake out before one can make any kind of gauge of who is going where as the season rolls. Basically it's Joe Gibbs Racing and if they don't win it's a tossup.
*****
The other story to watch is the Truck Series Georgia 200. NASCAR's caution clock debuted at Daytona and appeared to have more effect on the intensity of the racing than expected; now though we have a non-plate race on an intermediate superspeedway, where the Trucks have put on some spirited races the last five seasons. The effect of the caution clock on this race is the first key to watch.
That's part one of what to watch with the Trucks at Atlanta. Part two is the Maury Gallagher Chevrolets of Daytona winner Johnny Sauter and Daytona polesitter Grant Enfinger, to see if they can follow up Daytona with a strong effort at Atlanta. The Curb and Thorson Toyotas, the Fords of Brad Keselowski, and the Shigeaki Hattori Toyota all showed fire at Daytona and will want to keep that momentum, while some teams that didn't make the Daytona race - like Jennifer Jo Cobb - also look for a rebound.
So it goes entering the Atlanta 500.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Saturday, March 16, 2013
More On The Generation Six
THIS WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MARCH 9.
The Generation Six racecar continues to generate controversy as NASCAR's heavy-handed punishments of Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski for speaking out continue to generate debate amid the car's poor competition performance and burgeoning support for Hamlin. Largely lost amid the controversy is another story circulating under the radar that may be a major change in the sport - the striking level of cooperation between manufacturers in the sport.
It's a major change given the bitterness that permeated manufacturer rivalries in the past. If it is real, it can help the sport in multiple ways. Right now, though, the Gen-6 car is not producing what was promised of it, and the talking point of "give it time" sounds as Mike Mulhern puts it - "'come back next year and we'll have it all sorted out for you.'"
"That is unacceptable," as Mulhern succinctly puts it, and it is given the project began in mid-2010 but which was obviously working where no one seemed to know what they were doing. Testing showed almost right away the car was not going to make anything better - one of the most notable changes was at the splitter; it was advocated that removing the splitter would help alleviate aeropush; when NASCAR did just that for tests at Texas and Kansas, the change produced failure.
The story of the Gen-6 racecar is evolving into one of the more graphic fiascos in recent NASCAR history and a further indictment of the sanction body's leadership from Brian France to John Darby.
UPDATE: Hamlin chose not to appeal NASCAR's fine, but the fine has left a sullen atmosphere in the garage area which brought about this thoughtful piece by Nate Ryan about NASCAR's inability to lead.
The Generation Six racecar continues to generate controversy as NASCAR's heavy-handed punishments of Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski for speaking out continue to generate debate amid the car's poor competition performance and burgeoning support for Hamlin. Largely lost amid the controversy is another story circulating under the radar that may be a major change in the sport - the striking level of cooperation between manufacturers in the sport.
It's a major change given the bitterness that permeated manufacturer rivalries in the past. If it is real, it can help the sport in multiple ways. Right now, though, the Gen-6 car is not producing what was promised of it, and the talking point of "give it time" sounds as Mike Mulhern puts it - "'come back next year and we'll have it all sorted out for you.'"
"That is unacceptable," as Mulhern succinctly puts it, and it is given the project began in mid-2010 but which was obviously working where no one seemed to know what they were doing. Testing showed almost right away the car was not going to make anything better - one of the most notable changes was at the splitter; it was advocated that removing the splitter would help alleviate aeropush; when NASCAR did just that for tests at Texas and Kansas, the change produced failure.
The story of the Gen-6 racecar is evolving into one of the more graphic fiascos in recent NASCAR history and a further indictment of the sanction body's leadership from Brian France to John Darby.
UPDATE: Hamlin chose not to appeal NASCAR's fine, but the fine has left a sullen atmosphere in the garage area which brought about this thoughtful piece by Nate Ryan about NASCAR's inability to lead.
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