|
Jay, you can't put complete faith in the driveability of cars from computer simulations. Winson Cup cars are hands down the most unstable cars to drive at speeds over 180mph. The reason for this is that they only have a 5-6 inch spoiler and little weight in the rear of the car compared to F1 cars, IRL cars, Champ cars and sports cars. IF you watch these cars at Daytona and Talladega you can see how much the back end of these cars bounce around. It doesn't take much to spin them out at these speeds and it has been said that you could reach out and touch the backend of the car and spin them out. Sometimes it doesn't even take that as I have seen cars get loose just by another car coming up behind them and taking air off their spoilers. Heavier cars are more difficult to correct but I do agree that once a Champ car or F1 car gets way out of shape it is almost impossible to reel back compared to a Winston Cup car. But the wings on these open wheel cars do help prevent them from getting way out of shape moreso than a Winston Cup car. Richard Petty said the winged Plymonth Superbird of the early 1970's was almost impossible to spin out at high speeds because the wings would catch the car and help keep it from spinning out.
All in all, there is no cars today that a driver could race where the skills would directly transfer to a Winston Cup car or F1 car. They are both unique and two of the most difficult cars to drive. Before grooved tires, skills obtained from driving Champs cars were very transferable to F1. Now I believe that Winston Cup car skills would better transfer to F1 than even Champ cars because of the lack of grip that F1 cars now have with grooved tires.
There hasn't been any significant cross-pollination between NASCAR and F1 because they are based on two different continents, one is closed wheel and the other is open wheel, one races only on road courses and the other mainly on ovals and opportunities for top drivers in each series don't present theirselves due to these differences. They are both at the pinnacle of their respective type of motorsports and F1 owners look to F3000, British F3 and CART for its drivers and NASCAR Winston Cup owners look to Busch Grand National, Craftsman Truck Series and of late, nationally based open wheel series like the IRL and CART.
Back to the main issue, do not underestimate the talent of Tony Stewart. What he did at NASCAR Winston Cup level last year was incredible. He finished 4th in the point standings as a rookie and that is almost unheard of. Although I don't think he was the 4th best driver in the series last year (he benefitted from having the best aero package with the Pontiac Grand Prix and drove for Joe Gibbs who is the top Pontiac team owner) he is easily one of the top ten drivers in the series and should only get better. I wouldn't be surprised if he won the Winston Cup championship this year. He is the real deal.
[This message has been edited by Joe Fan (edited 12 February 2000).]
|