
The Ungainly History of Nascar’s Wing Era - luu
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a30349118/eye-of-the-beholder-february-2020/
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mannykannot
The author seems to think the motivation was drag reduction, while I had heard
the issue was one of countering undesirable lift, which is bad for tire
traction. If these things did reduce drag, could someone explain how they
achieved this?

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rypskar
According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_(car)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_\(car\))
a spoiler can reduce drag by changing the airflow around the car and reducing
turbulence. A wing, like what the Daytona and the Superbird have is mostly for
downforce to get more traction. But it can also help straightening the airflow
after the car.

The turbulence after cars is one of the main reasons specially hatchbacks gets
so dirty in the rear end and this turbulence create a drag on the car.

The article is of course wrong when not calling Charger Daytona and Plymouth
Superbird for good looking, they are art and some of the best looking cars
coming from America.

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kls
They are also 2 of the most expensive and sought after Mopar vehicles in
existence. There is no doubt they where not popular at the time, many
Americans thought they looked too European and did not reflect the muscle car
image of the era. Also Mopar only built enough production ones to qualify as a
stock car. IIRC in the range of 2000 each I think the Daytona may have been a
little higher IIRC.

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joncrane
I thought this was going to be about NASCAR's winged COT phase, which truly
WAS awful.

Interesting, quasi-related note: the read spoiler (not wing) in today's cars
is so high at some tracks that they have to make the top few inches out of
clear plexiglass so that the drivers can still see behind them with the rear
view mirror.

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Causality1
The "we ban everything that helps someone win" habits of NASCAR and F1 are
what make them incredibly boring to watch. I frankly don't see any difference
between them and their e-sport counterparts.

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schwap
The same team has won the last 6 F1 championships, clearly not everything that
helps them win is being banned.

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DominikD
It's down to monies. There's no hard limit on spending (yet) so larger teams
can and do invest more. On top of that smaller teams have to buy some of the
components from the larger ones and integrate those into their designs. This
is bound to be less effective than doing integrated, end to end design like
Mercedes does.

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joncrane
Ferrari have a historical place in the sport, and have oversized power. They
are also a racing company that builds luxury sports road cars to fund their
racing ambitions (every other car company is a road car company that uses F1
as marketing).

Yet, they have been shooting themselves in the foot for the last few years,
even though on paper their cars were faster than Mercedes'.

It's not just about money, though money is the biggest factor. It's about
having a good organization, good decision making, and good DRIVERS.

