March 5th, 2010 
Journo Following Sunday’s race in Atlanta the Cup Series will enter its first off week of the season. While there won’t be any racing, teams will still be hard at work preparing for the impending switch over to a spoiler.
The upcoming test at the Charlotte Motor Speedway will be the first chance many of these teams have had to try out the new configuration at a track on the Cup schedule. With limited testing and existing notes and information that will soon become (at least somewhat) out of date could this spoiler become a game changer for the season?
The opinions among the drivers are mixed as we have seen over the last few months. Some say 2010 will be split down the middle, while others think the change won’t make much of a difference.
Thanks to the engineers, and NASCAR and team testing we have some idea what this move will do to the downforce of the car. The real test though will come when we have a full field at a place like Texas or Charlotte.
It’s only been since January that teams have known about this and with time ticking away until NASCAR takes the track with the new spoiler, it’s got to be an interesting time to be an engineer at one of these teams. For some organizations, like Richard Childress Racing, that are just getting back on track with their performance the overwhelming question is, ‘will this throw a wrench into our improvement.’ If you’re over at Hendrick, the question is, ‘are we going to be able to maintain our dominance.’
Despite questions they may be asking about what this means for them, they’re not alone in their uncertainty. As those in charge at NASCAR have noted it will take some time to see how this will change things. What happens if this move has no effect, or things actually gets worse? Without the benefit of a lot of on track testing this is a bit of a craps shoot.
Personally I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen. I believe there will be some effect, but given the talk from all parties involved I don’t necessarily believe the impact will be huge.
Change or no change, I can’t say I’m a fan of making a move like this several races in (though I applaud NASCAR for identifying and remedying a problem in a timely manner). However this plays out, it will no doubt be interesting to see how this testing goes and how well this change is received by drivers and fans alike.
So what do you think? Will the spoiler make a difference in the racing or is all this much ado about nothing?
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What I am going to be looking at is if the drivers can save the car when they get loose. A lot of credit has been given to the side plates on the wings for helping save the cars once they start to go around.
It will make a difference only if it dramatically changes the handling of the car (compared to the wing) and then only to the extent how well the different teams adapt.
If I were Chad Knaus, I would have spent hours in testing on the 7 post machine and in the wind tunnels comparing the wing to what is likely to be the new spoiler (Question: do the teams have the specs for the spoiler?). Using the wing results on different simulations as a baseline, you could identify the extent of the changes the spoiler has in certain situations (clean air on a given track, running in traffic on another track and so on).
Some teams will have a better idea of what to expect and how to tweak the cars, others won’t. Since the better prepared teams are those running up front now, I’d expect them to keep running up front. In other words, no real changes at the front, some mixing up in the middle of the pack.
IMHO, much ado about nothing.
I wish they’d give teams the option of running the spoiler OR the wing.
That way, if you felt the wing was better, you could stay with what worked, but if you thought the spoiler was faster, you could switch. Allow the driver and team some choice instead of being IROC.
NASCAR does run a small risk in switching mid-season. The racing this year has been much better than past years. But that’s more to do with the new Goodyear tires and the shark fins on the roof. The increased fins appear to work well with the wing. But a roof spoiler also worked well with a spoiler in 2000-01. So if the racing is impacted and reverts to single file, will they switch back? I think they’re on the same page as fans & will go with whatever package works better even if they have to eat a little crow if the spoiler doesn’t work.
Now if they would only get rid of the splitter!!
NASCAR and its fans simply cannot make up their minds! There has been a big outcry to make the cars look more like stock cars people drive every day, great! But here’s where it makes no sense: go to any car dealer and what will you see on current sporty factory cars, WINGS; what do you NOT see; SPOILERS! Do you want them to look like factory cars or not??
My thought is that the “new” LOL spoiler will have very little effect on the competition. ( the teams will reconfigure the weight of the cars to accomodate the balance issues ) . But where it will show as a help is when the cars get backwards. No air between the trunk and wing means less lift. Cars should stay on the ground better.
The Cat.
Jon Medek… Thanks for the laugh, I’ve noticed many fans differing thoughts for years now.
Fact is some don’t know what the hell they want, at least not consistently.
As to the topic at hand, I’m thinking the spoiler won’t make too much difference, at least not as compared to pre-CoT days because of the larger/taller greenhouse on the CoT.
Taller greenhouse means less air getting to the spoiler, less air means less downforce.
But, we’ll see what we see.