But NASCAR's R&D Center managing director has to keep owners and manufacturers in mind when he makes changes.
By BRANT JAMES
Published May 1, 2004
Restrictor plates could become a relic if NASCAR's "car of tomorrow" develops the way Gary Nelson, the league Research and Development Center managing director, envisions.
NASCAR has used restrictor plates at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega since 1988, after a fall race at the Alabama track in which Bill Elliott set a NASCAR qualifying record of 212.809 mph, and Bobby Allison had a frightening crash in which his car tore out a piece of catch fence.
Restrictor plates, ashtray-sized metal squares with holes bored in each corner, reduce the amount of oxygen allowed into carburetors. That reduces horsepower in engines that can generate as much as 800-plus under normal conditions.
It's not that Nelson wants a return to mayhem. One of the R and D center's main charges is to improve safety. But he thinks - hopes - there is a better way.
"When I got this job at NASCAR I said I was going to get rid of them," Nelson said at a media summit in January. "I am still trying. Haven't found anything better.
"There's been a lot of ideas that we have kicked around and occasionally one will stick around for a year or two, but ultimately we always find that going back to that restrictor plate is pretty simple, pretty easy and is pretty well understood by the competitors."
In an era when a team might require $20-million to be competitive, team owners fear development of a new breed of car will conflict with another NASCAR pet project: cost control.
"As we start examining all those things with the cost to the car owner in mind, we understand that the more of those things that are on the track today that we can save, the better," Nelson said. "So don't think of it as throwing away the old car and having to buy a new car. Think of it as anything that we can use that the owners have already invested in, we want to use. If it's doing a good job, let's keep it.
"If there's something we can do better, let's add it on and ultimately we end up with a car of tomorrow really one piece at a time. That's what excites me every day and gets me going is the progress we're making there."
The key, said owner Rick Hendrick, is moderation.
"I think they've got to be careful about how they come up with a car of the future and make 800 cars obsolete out here," he said during a teleconference. "Then, all of a sudden, we have to go through a fire drill of building all new cars.
"Whatever they do, they need to work with every team that's in the sport and try to work on a phased-in program that doesn't obsolete the whole fleet at one time. Number one, we're not going to have anywhere to go with the used cars and we don't have enough manpower to build all these new cars at one time."
Changes such as roof escape hatches, new extinguisher bottles and hood tethers were easily adaptable on current cars. Eventually the innovations will not, Nelson said.
"All of those things are called "car of tomorrow' parts," Nelson said. "But when you look at the bigger greenhouse or other elements that we're working with, they don't just apply. You can't just put it on as an option ... because it upsets the balance of aerodynamics. Those are the kind of things that you kind of put on the shelf and say, "We have done the study, we have worked on it, it has this effect, if we want it, it's there; if we want to wait a while, we can wait a while."'
Doug Duchardt, director of racing at General Motors, said NASCAR is sensitive to manufacturers - currently Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford in Nextel Cup - who want stock cars to resemble cars in the showroom.
"I do know that they're concerned about making sure that we're able to put the distinctions that we want to sell in that package to make it look like what we sell," he said. "We're in the middle of working with them on showing them. They can't do that unless they know what our cars look like in the future."
