Well, in light of the Charlotte roval being a big success I have decided to go ahead and detail the idea my friend and I had for a next-gen NASCAR despite not having a photoshop artist's assistance to help express the idea. I am certain will someone will misconstrue the idea based solely on the starting point, but I'm gonna try anyway...
So, why so worried about the concept being misconstrued? Because we're starting the explanation not with a Cup car, but with this:
Yup. We're starting with a DTM car. I actually picked the Audi because the front end is actually somewhat similar to recent NASCAR Fords, which may help with visualization.
Now, in order to try and minimize the ignoring of the explanation in favor of bashing on the notion, I definitely need to make a disclaimer in the most eye-catchingly shouty way possible:
I AM NOT ADVOCATING THE USE OF CLASS ONE IN IT'S ENTIRETY OR EVEN JUST USING THE TUB AS A BASIS FOR A NEW NASCAR CUP CAR. THE USE OF DTM MACHINERY IS TO HELP ILLUSTRATE THE AESTHETIC SIDE OF THE MATTER ONLY. Are we clear on that? Okay, let's move on to the idea itself.
NASCAR obviously isn't supposed to be super aero-heavy. So to start with let's take the car pictured above, throw it's rear wing, massive front splitter, rear diffuser, dive planes, and all the extra aero bits into the garbage. Save only the fender flares and hood vents for now.
In place of the front splitter, we're going back to the pre-CoT days and using a fully enclosed front valence with just the radiator opening and a couple small vents that can be used to adjust the small amount of front downforce the car will have - the hood vents will be redesigned for this purpose, and the downforce vents will serve as auxiliary cooling in case of debris blocking the main radiator opening.
The rear wing will be replaced by the common blade spoiler NASCAR has used for decades, with the rear decklid being widened relative to the fender flares to fit one of sufficient size. For maximum use of their small levels of downforce, the spoilers would have actual endplates on them.
Contrary to common belief, the flared fenders and strips along the bottom of the doors on DTM cars are not in and of themselves downforce-generating components, though they can and often are be shaped to be. In their most basic form, they actually SMOOTH the airflow over the car - and these parts would be designed to optimize EXACTLY that, with the strips being completely filled in and smooth, and the fender flares being shaped for maximum aerodynamic smoothness and carrying no downforce-generating components whatsoever.
Most importantly, instead of building a new car, this new exterior treatment would be applied to the existing machinery. All that needs to change on the chassis side is to lower the center of gravity. This can be achieved by simply reducing the dimensions of the cockpits - lowering and narrowing them by just a few inches would have a MASSIVE impact on this, and will also create the flared fender look without having the widen the cars from where they are.
The side impact safety that NASCAR is so proud of would be easily addressed, as I doubt anyone would complain about moving the driver a couple inches further in if the cockpit is going to be narrowed, so there'll still be plenty of room for enough of that impact foam in the doors, and smart design could turn the fender flares and door strips into yet more side-impact protection.
So that's idea. In short, you're taking cues from aero-heavy cars, but transforming the design's purpose into aero-smoothing instead of downforce-inducing and fitting the results over the existing chassis with some small changes to the chassis' cog.
Questions, comments, reactions?