TwoSmoke

I was watching the exciting GP2 Canada race before the Formula 1 race this morning and when it was over I reached to turn off Speed TV when NASCAR came on. Then I noticed NASCAR was at Sonoma road course.

Ummmm, this could be funny (interesting maybe) I thought.

Lap times around 75.2 seconds. They must be using a really short section of the course. Their cars look like tanks thrashing around out there.

None the less, I just might watch the start of this race for the fun factor. The only NASCAR race I could make myself look at.....

So what do you guys think about NASCAR's attempt at a road course?

63Corvette

The NASCAR course does not include the Carousel. Since I have run there for many years, I enjoy watching Cup cars at both Sears Point and Elkhart Lake (And Watkins Glen). I enjoy seeing where/how they are faster. They are great drivers, but their cars are set up so stiff that they just bounce around all over the track on the curbs, They also shorten turn 11 every lap

KBow_Photo

Sonoma is broken up in 3 different layouts I think, the NASCAR circuit is the shortest. Its just under 2 miles in length.

Everett Ogilvie

I admit that I like NASCAR racing, but I especially like the road courses when they go there. A lot has changed in the past several years when they visit the road courses.

In CUP it used to be that the "road course ringers" would be put into many of the cars for the two annual road course races, and the ringers would pretty much dominate the top 10 in the finishes. That is absolutely not the case anymore and in fact they don't put many ringers in that often now because they are not that competitive with the regular CUP drivers. There are several reasons for this; one is that the CUP guys are improving because they no longer count the road course races as "throw aways" - they know they now matter in the Chase points system so they need to have good finishes, so they work hard and most are much better road course drivers as a consequence. The biggest reason is that the ringers are only in the stock car a few times a year and don't work with the Crew Chief and the crew, so it is very hard to be competitive with little to no experience in the car. Bottom line, the CUP drivers are much better, the teams are much better at setting up a stock car for a road course and the races are actually very close and very fun to watch.

The NASCAR Nationwide road course races are a slightly different story. They do 3 road course races per year and in this series the "ringers" are still quite dominant. Case in point, the Nationwide race at Road America yesterday, which was a very good race. The ringers pretty much dominated, but some of the regulars are indeed getting very good and can give any of the ringers a run for their money. Just look at the top 10 from yesterday and you will see mostly ringers, with a couple of "regulars".

As far as how a stock car can do these days compared to a true sports race car? The Nationwide cars yesterday tied the Rolex Grand Am GT lap times at Road America, nuff said.

drivinhard

NASCAR should run 10 road races a year. At min, they should add a road course in the chase.

Or get rid of the two piddly ones they do now (waste of time/effort/$$ for the teams to build a road course program for 2 races)

slo_z28

That absolutely astounded me when I saw that, its amazing what they can do with those heavy tanks.


My work sponsored a car there a few years ago, pretty cool stuff. That is my favorite track hands down.

mountainbiker2

When Nascar road races, it's the only time I watch the whole event. I wish they were all road races.

Steve A.

bosco022

Cup cars handle and brake much better than many think, and 900 HP hides quite a few sins as well. They are missiles in a straight line.

z06801

At the K&N race at Miller the Nascar stock cars were getting into 1:34.xx(East track) pretty hard to make fun of those times, It was a great race to watch as well because of how loose the cars looked

PushinTheLimit

I would like to see at least 5 road courses in the Cup schedule. Keep Sonoma and Watkins Glen. Add in Road America, Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca would be awesome to see. And make one of those a Chase race.

bosco022

VIR would be a great road course for cup, and they already do testing there.

TLGunman

But then they couldn't test there, leaving Kershaw for "local" testing, which isn't as good as VIR. Granted a race at VIR would be cool!!

Falcon

The problem with road races is that the spectators can only see the part of the race that occurs right in front of them.

Timz06

I'm not a nascar fan, but the road races are awesome, I look forward to them all year.

The cars are fast, and there are no slouches as drivers at that level.

Tim

travisnd

The road races are the only NASCAR I watch. Watched the Nationwide race at Road America and the cup race at Sonoma (this is Sears Point right?) today. To me one of the coolest parts is seeing just how brutally fast the cars are. During an oval race they're always at high speed so you never see the acceleration. On the road course you get to see they rocket up to speed. Would love to see a race at VIR. Curious... does anyone know what they run on VIR full in testing?

napacruzerc5

That's why they have "big screens" around the track to show the fans what they are missing.

jcsperson

I wish NASCAR would spin off a big V8 road-race series like the Aussie Supercars.

They also need to cut back the Cup events. 41 races is way too many. They've saturated their market. Football has, at most, 24 weekends including exhibition games and the playoffs.

gkmccready

NorCal NASA Group C ran the NASCAR configuration on Saturday the 16th. I qualified my PTE Miata at 1m33.706. flink qualified his GTS3 BMW at 1m27.791. The SU Radical did 1m24.293.

1m15.2 is damn fast. :-)

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=795994

dvandentop

yep wish they had a spinoff v8 supercar series here would be bad ***!

drivinhard

I gave a TT check ride in a COT Penske former K. Busch cup car, you cannot imagine how hard these things pull under WOT. It is even more astounding when you think how heavy they are while doing that.