Restrictor Plates Suck, part 112

M.L. Morgan

Well, race fans, it’s just a matter of weeks until the Daytona 500, Nascar’s Super Bowl . I’ve
always thought it was strange to have the biggest race of the season as the season-opener. What
do we have to look forward to ?

Before the restrictor plates, virtually every place of business south of Canada had their versions of
the Daytona 500 winners pool posted conspicuously. What could be more exciting than watching
the Daytona 500 ! A lot of folks still maintain their Daytona 500 pools, but now they are trying to
predict which 20 cars will be involved in the first major wreck. I think we’ve gone backwards
when the winner of the Daytona 500 pool is the lucky? person who predicts the first driver out of
the race. That’s a bunch of crap.

I get a lot of e-mail from other fans who are equally unhappy with the restrictor plates. I’m not
making this up. King William II rarely calls to ask my opinion, but I go out of my way to let him
and Nascar know the feelings of the fans. Of course, Bill France, Jr. is Nascar. Sometimes it’s
easy to forget that one person can wield that much power. But it’s true. Sadly, King William II
worships at the temple of the dollar$ and cents. All of his disciples are required to do their tithing
at the concession booths, paying 20 bucks for a 3 dollar t-shirt.

The restrictor plates are another example of the arrogance of Nascar. The restrictor plates were
devised in the early ‘70's to equalize the old big-block engines with the then up and coming
small-block engines, which now are the accepted engines. Now the small-block engines are
putting out more horsepower than the old big-blocks did. The tremendous advances in tire
technology and research into the aerodynamics of the race cars have created race cars which will
literally fly.

So how does Nascar deal with this ? Restrictor plates which choke 300 horsepower from all the
cars. That certainly keeps the cars from flying but it also forces the cars to draft together in a pack
unable to pass a car unless they do it in tandem. That sounds to me like a prescription for a
multi-car crash. When some Ernie Irvan wannabe gets frustrated and decides he has to pass the
pack the next picture we see is a 20-minute yellow flag. That’s absurd, but it’s a fact of life in the
restrictor plate races.

It bothers me that our Super Bowl has to be run with these ridiculous restrictor plates. There are
many other ways to slow the cars down to where they don’t become airborne. I’ll talk about some
of the simplest and cheapest ways in a future column. Trust me.

For now I’ll give you pool players my pick for who will be the first car out of the field. Rusty
Wallace. He seems to have a problem with tracks longer than 3/4 miles. Maybe he’s just got a
short attention span. But I doubt that’s the reason. Rusty is a very capable, veteran driver who
always comes to these restrictor-plate debacles with good equipment. I seem to remember
Earnhardt getting air-borne last year at the 1997 Daytona 500. He’s not a trainee, either. I can
only blame Nascar’s restrictor-plate rules. That rule sucks, big time. You may quote me.

I’ve recently found a new website which all race fans need to visit. It’s called A Lighter Side of
Nascar and it’s really good.

Have comments or questions? E-mail: M.L. Morgan

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