NASCAR announced recently that they will transition from wings to spoilers and will ease up on the policing of 'bump-drafting' at Talladega and Daytona. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
The only significant constant in Sprint Cup racing is change. Just when things might seem to be approaching a level of stability, somebody introduces a new widget or NASCAR changes a rule or a speedway resurfaces its track.
Boom. It’s a whole new ballgame.
With the Bud Shootout and the season-opening Daytona 500 rapidly approaching, teams are looking at designing cars with a new “look” on the rear deck as the traditional spoiler will replace the wing sometime in the spring. And there is a big new frontier looming out there with NASCAR’s liberalization of its on-track policing at Daytona and Talladega.
It makes for new challenges, but the idea of addressing change is nothing new for these guys.
“Any time you get something thrown at you that you weren’t prepared for and is out of the norm, it’s going to be a little bit of a distraction,” said Jimmy Makar, vice president of racing operations for Joe Gibbs Racing. “But we’re fortunate in that we are in good shape for Daytona as far as having cars ready and being where we want to be in the off-season. We can handle the distraction and not get behind.
“We’re building our car for Martinsville (March 28) with the spoiler on it, assuming that that is when it will happen. We feel like we’re in a position to react to it and learn what we need to do to be competitive before the other guys do.”
The margin between success and failure – sometimes between qualifying and not qualifying – in Cup racing has tightened to such small fractions of numbers that teams now wrestle within a small space in attempts to make big gains. This phenomenon has resulted in more people chasing more speed with more equipment – all within a tiny box.
Ken Howes, vice president of competition for Hendrick Motorsports and the quiet man behind much of Hendrick’s advance over the past two decades, has seen all this from a unique perspective. A native of South Africa with a background in Formula One racing, Howes joined Hendrick’s sports car team in 1985 and moved over to the stock car operations in 1990.
