Ok, Now That We Have Daytona Out of the Way, Let the Real Racing begin at PHOENIX!!!

Not much of an article this week, just some random thoughts on the week that was.

- Granted, we PVR'd the race and began with the pre-race show @ 1:30 and fast forwarded through the commercials, however, the commercials did not seem too frequent, and it seemed like FOX has reduced the amount of time that we have to see Tim Brewer on the screen, so I'll say that the coverage of the race seemed better than it has been, though I think there is still enough they can improve upon.
- All the articles seem to be about Trevor Bayne yesterday and today. I'm prepared to give him props for keeping his car clean in what ended up being quite a wreckfest, however at Daytona, when Brian Keselowski can finish 5th in his 150 mile qualifier anything can happen. Trevor's got some skill and a bright future, but I think the Jeff Gordon comparison's might be a tad bit premature. Let's see how Trevor does over the next 6 races (he is only running a partial schedule, but he is running the first 7 races of the season) before we anoint him the next '4-time'.
- Previous paragraph aside, congrats to Danica Patrick for her 14th place run at Daytona. She seemed tentative in hooking up with others and unsure how to do that, however still managed to keep the fenders on the car and drive it to a good finish. No thanks to her teammates - Dale Jr & Aric Almirola in the #5 & #88 car who had the opportunity to help her out and instead drove around her. Seems to me she could have been given a little more help in practice and early on in the race to prepare her for running the two car draft. The fact that Danica had two teammates in the race this weekend makes it inexcusable that in the race on the radio she stated "I don't know what he wants me to do, someone has to help me out here" in reference to Clint Bowyer when he had been pushing her and was looking to change positions to get some air into his engine to cool things down a bit. How did that she not know what he was looking to do, and how did that situation not come up in practice???
- Congratulations to Michael Waltrip for winning what was probably the best race of the weekend in the Camping World Truck series. Seeing his emotions in victory lane makes me think that win likely meant more to him than any of his NASCAR wins at any level. Great to see the black 15 truck in victory lane. The racing was what we are used to at Daytona with a big pack shuffling back and forth with the trucks bouncing around and off of one another.
- The Nationwide and Sprint Cup races were both better than what I anticipated, it's just a shame to see single cars get a run like they used to be able to do and pull ahead of 5 or 6 cars, only to drop 30 positions in the next 30 seconds because there wasn't a second car pushing them. Hopefully NASCAR will take a look at the rules package at the Superspeedway's before we make a return to Talladega and Daytona.
- Pre season, everyone was talking about how people were not going to like how Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski would likely win the majority of Nationwide Series races this season, but not see their names at the top of the standings, no one really mentioned how odd it would look if someone not competing for the Sprint Cup Series Championship won the first race and his name wasn't at the top of the standings, but that is exactly what we have today.
- Who would have thought that the top three in points leaving Daytona would not include the race winner and would include David Gilliland and Bobby Labonte?
- Next up is Phoenix where Juan Pablo Montoya, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch dominated the spring race last year, only to have the caution fly and see Ryan Newman pick up only his second win since 2005. Note that this race was not till April 10th last year. Will weather have an impact with the race being 45 days earlier this year?

Doesn't Matter What You Thought of the Shootout, the 500 Race is Going to be DIFFERENT!!!

After the Goodyear tire test in December at the newly paved Daytona track, teams discovered that two cars running in tandem were running 20 miles an hour faster than single cars. However, they discovered another problem. They could only run two cars in tandem for a lap or two before having to break the two car draft because the rear car wasn't getting enough air into the engine to cool it. Since the tire test, teams have been focusing on how to get more air into the car that is doing the pushing in the 2 car draft. The theory had been that the longer 2 cars could stay locked up, the further ahead of the field they can get, and if possible, swtich positions to prevent overheating without losing the lead, and in the end battle it out with only a couple other cars for the win. After the Shootout practice, NASCAR forced teams to remove the extra cooling hoses to limit the amount of laps teams could run in tandem. Unfortunately the engineers did such a good job of setting the cars up so that the engine could remain cool that it didn't matter they didn't have the extra hoses. Once cars got locked up in the Budwieser Shootout on Saturday night, they were running 8, 10 and 12 laps hooked up without overheating. The strategy worked out well for Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray & winner Kurt Busch, as the 4 cars did break away from the rest of the field and were left to settle things exactly how they had intended. (Controversial penalty to Denny Hamlin not withstanding). Personally, I do not care for this method of racing, I believe that a driver should not need to depend on another car pushing them to be able to be competitve. I feel I have reason to be optomistic however looking forward to the racing in the 500 itself, and here is why.

First and foremost, the racing on saturday occurred at night with little rubber on the track and with very cool temperatures. Almost ideal conditions for speed. However, as a result of the speeds acheived during the race due to the 2 car draft, NASCAR has instituted a new rules package mandating the diamater of the water hoses hooked to the cars radiators be kept to a specified limit, and the installation of a pressure relief valve that will trip at 230 degrees of water temperature. In the shootout and practices, cars were running their water temperatures right up to 280 degrees before backing out of the two car draft. These changes will make for an entirely different twin 150 races as the air temperatures are forecast to be much warmer on Thursday afternoon. This means that the cars will not be able to lock up for much more than 2 laps before the water temperature starts to climb. Once the water temperature in the engine hits 230 degrees, the pressure valve opens up and the water that is keeping the engine cool starts blowing out of the motor. If you lose too much water you'll cook the engine and blow up. This will keep the cars from breaking away and having a 4 car breakaway battle it out for the win like we saw Saturday night. Further, there is no rain forecast for the next week and plenty of activity on the track. We've got practice for the 150's on Wednesday, the 150's themselves on Thursday. Friday and Saturday will see practice and racing for the Camping World Truck Series, Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series. This is going to work the surface of the track much more than it has been, and also add a whole lot of rubber to the tracks surface.
What this means for Sunday's 500 race is that with an afternoon race under sunny and warm conditions, there will be a lot more heat in the track than we've seen up to that point, and there will also be a lot more rubber. Heat & rubber make for slick conditions, which is going to make drafting that much more precarious.

So not only will cars not be able to run in tandem for as many laps as what we have seen so far, but the cars are also going to be much more difficult to control because conditions are going to be much slicker than what we have seen to date. And all of this is assuming that NASCAR is not going to make any further changes after the 150 races. (A change to the restrictor plates is still a possibility). So although the cars are likely still to use the two car draft to race for the win, it should be a different race than what we saw Saturday night, with the potential for a few more cars to be in the mix when it comes down to the end. It may not be perfect, but I'm hopful it will be better.