Thoughts on the restrictor plates at Loudon

[Joe Fan]

Actually, the plates didn't seem to be as bad as I thought they would be. Jeff Burton was one of the few teams to actually test a restrictor plate at a small track (with such short notice) so this more than anything this was the reason why he dominated the event. Given ample time for the other teams to test, there is no way that Burton would have dominated as he did today. It seemed to me that these restrictor plates caused more racing for position than the unrestricted races had there in the past.

Generally, I think that NASCAR accomplished its goal of slowing the cars down and at the same time, was at least an effort on their part to try to do something in such a short amount of time. I think that if a throttle would have hung open there today, a restrictor plate would have helped prevent the car from overaccelerating. The same principle applies here as it does at Daytona and Talladega where it takes a car several laps before it gets up to top speed.