NASCAR Rules

So, what with the advent of the silly term "NASCAR Dad" and the recent kerfuffle over Robby Gordon's complaint about women drivers being lighter, so their car will go faster (Yes, I know that he was talking about Indy cars, but he drives NASCAR now), I got curious about the rules that govern NASCAR.  Now, apparently, NASCAR doesn't release its rules publicly, but the folks who put together "A Yankee's Guide to NASCAR" have ferreted out a lot of them, and compiled the basics.

I don't have the patience to watch car racing or (or full cricket matches), but the NASCAR rules are pretty interesting reading if you like technology.  What I found most interesting is that there are a lot of rules for car weight, horsepower, and technology imposed almost entirely to ensure that the winners are sorted from the pack by the team's talent and their luck on the day.  Just because you can afford an Indy car that could beat the hell out of all those stock cars, that don't mean that you get to race the Indy car against the stock cars.  That view, that talent and luck on the day ought to win out, is the liberal position.

Liberals are comfortable with inequality of outcome.  We're comfortable with the notion that some people are smarter or stronger than others, and that they'll succeed while others fail.  That's pretty much the luck of the draw.  We're even comfortable with a fair bit of starting-point inequality -- some people are lucky enough to be born into better circumstances, and the cultural price to really level out those kinds of inequalities (even if it were possible) is really just too high for most people to contemplate.  But our support for things like public education and some publicly-funded bottom to the income scale which falls well above starvation is based on a pretty simple notion:  Talent and luck on the day should be more important than which car you can bring to the race.

Liberals:  We're for NASCAR Rules.

Comments

[Ben]

Slightly OT, shouldn't NASCAR dad mean "father of a NASCAR driver"? Following the "soccer mom" example, at least.

[paperwight]

Mother of a soccer?

[Rob]

So, do NASCAR rules have anything to say about driver weight?

The thing that irritated me is that physical difference always works to female disadvantage in the sports world. Women can't play football because they're too small. If, on the other hand, men are too heavy to drive Indy, we need to equalize the stakes.

Right.

[paperwight]

At least according to the sources I've found, NASCAR rules have a minimum empty car weight of 3400 lbs, minimum driver + car weight of 3600 lbs. So if a driver weighs less than 200 lbs, they weight the car.

It makes sense if you think of the car as a horse, I guess.

[G. D. Frogsdong]

Well that's a stupid sort of driver. Did he ever speak up before about driver weight differentials, or car weight differentials? If he hasn't proposed that the total weight of cars and drivers must all be equal in every race...

...he should shut the hell up.

[Desert Donkey]

An interesting analysis, however NASCAR rules have long been designed to encourage close racing. Runaway wins are considered bad for the entertainment value (read boring and no money in it). Rules can change from race to race if someone, or some brand, shows a technological triumph that gives them an advantage.

[G. D. Frogsdong]

You gotta tell me how many "runaway wins" there have been in NASCAR because I am not a fan so I don't know. Are there a lot of them? Have there been a lof them in, say, the last ten years? My impression is that runaway wins would be pretty rare, and that being fifty pounds lighter than the next heaviest competitor when using a zillion horsepower engine to propel you wouldn't make that much difference as to lead to runaway wins.

Also, just out of curiosity, do the lightest drivers always win? I mean, I've seen some of those drivers and some of them have some real beer guts. Do those guys always lose and is it always attributable to weight differential?

[Desert Donkey]

A runaway win in NASCAR is very rare because the rules are designed and modified constantly to insure no runaway wins. Yellow flags near the end of races have been used to insure that the final laps are close. The pretext for the flag may be something as minor as a paper cup blowing across the track.

Weight of drivers is of minimal importance because the NASCAR cars weight in the 3000 lb range, similar to that of a small family sedan.

The minor dustup regarding Danica at the Indy 500 is somewhat more relevant as those cars are closer to 1000 lbs, but I agree that in either case horsepower and aerodynamics are bigger factors by far.

Of course when everyone is looking for an advantage, every little bit counts.

When I was a teenager I raced motorcycles that weighed around 200 lbs. This is the scenario where rider weight is a major factor, just as it is on a horse. I weighed 132 lbs and was 6' tall when 17. Ideal for motocross racing. Those were the days. I now weigh nearly double that :-)

And close racing or not, watching NASCAR is about the most boring thing one could do with a day.

[Christophe]

Interesting, but not really as precise as I would like to. I'm currently building a replica of the NASCAR Charger that Hershel McGriff raced at Le Mans in 1976. Do you have any idea where I could find the 1976 NASCAR rulesbook ?