Thread: Danica Predictions??

It's not about winning and you got to give that girl credit. 99.99999% of the men out there can't do what DP can do.

The learning curve for a NASCAR type stock car (CUP) has to arguably be the largest learning curve in motorsports today. Besides the EFI which is a sealed unit from McLaren there is no telemetry or data gathering and the driver has to be able to communicate exactly what is going on with a car. You will see, especially Roush and Penske teams, go off on an engineering tangent and get wildly lost for 6 months trying to get it back or hit it right and stay on top for 10 races before others catch up. The most important thing is having a driver who knows how a suspension works, can analyze what it's doing, and can effectively communicate that, driving is almost secondary beyond that. When you have a +/- tolerance of .250" to .025" on alot of your suspension base points laid out in the rule book, an ill set up car cannot be masked by a driver anymore, this isn't NASCAR of the 1960's through 1990's. Look at how out to lunch Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, Dale Jr, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch and others all have been at one point since the aero-equal body and engine program unification started in 2004. Dale Jr. 18 Cup wins, a Daytona 500 win, Bristol win, All-Star win, 2 Busch Championships and the COT threw him for such a loop that it's taken him 3 years to look like it's getting turned around. And what started to get it turned around after 3 years, a crew chief he could communicate with.

I would be willing to bet that if she can basically figure out the NW car, with it's restricted throttle body and friendlier chassis that she can be a week in week out top 10 driver in the NW series this year, and she showed flashes, at the 1.5 mile tracks especially, last year. Also, the NW series sans Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards next year is going to be a joke. NW is now mainly rich kids who want to play race car driver, no less than 8 drivers have fathers who are VP level of their sponsors and countless others have parents who bought their kids into the sport (Logano, Bayne, Ragan, etc.). But while these drivers may fluke into a win, they are not aggressive enough to ever be top 20 Cup contenders and with a series packed with career Cup mid-packers and back markers she can do fairly well.

That being said NASCAR royaly screwed over the sport with the COT and it has to go. Forcing teams to hand build bodies to a 1/16" tolerance instead of factory composite bodies (ie NHRA, NASCAR uses composite nose and tail sections with a TEGRIS splitter), a chassis that you are forced to use high durometer bump stops on a big spring car, and generally putting teams in an engineering box made out of ****. NASCAR like all forms of motorsport to some degree, has been ruined by sponsorship money. Sponsors hated seeing 7-10 cars finish on the lead lap and NASCAR made the ultimate sin of trading innovation for close racing and what has it gotten them besides a near complete loss of their core fanbase. They even ruined Bristol (yes, I gave it 3 years and have to admit I love 2x2 racing but they ruined it.) The complete new redesign of the COT (the Window's Vista of racing) in 2013 can't come soon enough.

I think an going forward an F1 model would be best. Manufacturers provide the engines and bodies, teams supply the chassis, all approved by the sanctioning body. No customer teams in Cup, each team must build their own chassis and limit teams to 3 drivers each.

Sorry for the tangent, NASCAR really pisses me off sometimes with their bs.

Everyone's an expert.

Revised to exceptionally average

Originally Posted by David@MR

Revised to exceptionally average

I think it's safe to say your a little more then that!

she's not gonna be amazing her first year, but i think she'll get better as she gets more experience with each track.