Why Motorcycle Road Racing is better than Nascar..

[Frank_Angel]

Tom Cruise didn't even drive the car at speed for insurance reasons. Greg Sacks did the driving.  ;)

Just for fun, look at what an AMA rider wins for a Superbike first place finish, then look up what a NASCAR Nextel Cup driver wins for a last place finish. Then try again to convince me that AMA riders could be competitive in NASCAR.

[Lowe119]

As far as Rossi beating the test driver's time - that is what the announcers for the F1 race said. Test driver - not Schumacher or any of the other racers.
As far as set-up.... I totally agree that there are 4 wheels that need setting up. I never said the mechanics for nascar were crap. They are gold. Nascar probably has the most talented mechanics known to man. I have always said that nascar is a mechanics' race. If you love and appreciate the talent of mechanics - then nascar is appropriate for you. NO nascar racer could win without a top crew. In fact - I don't feel ANY race that depends on your pit speed is a race that reflects on the driver.
I guess that shows how I feel on team sports. Nascar is a team sport that only rewards (fame at least) the driver. You don't see quite that much reward for even a quarterback of a champion nfl team.

[Lowe119]

So answer me on the driver's part in turns. Do they have brake markers? Do they even brake or shift? Do they have to do anything when they come into a corner, besides let off the gas?
They have two corners (which they call 4) that you can learn in a couple laps. Sure they come back and tell their mechanics what they felt and the pro mechanics go to work, but as far as DRIVING - what do they REALLY have to do?
And why do they ALL suck so bad on their two road courses?
I can see why it is harder to race nascar - there is no separating variable except the mechanics. Give me the same car as jeff gordon and a day worth of practice and I will do a ton better than if you gave me Rossi's bike and a day worth of practice. And I'm a bike racer..... :)

[Frank_Angel]

As far as Rossi beating the test driver's time - that is what the announcers for the F1 race said. Test driver - not Schumacher or any of the other racers.

Ferrari's test drivers are race drivers - Schumacher,  Barrichello, Badoer and Burti, with an occasional stint of late by Andrea Bertolini.

In Rossi's defense, he was driving last years car, the  F2003, not the current F2004.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

I don't buy it that cars are harder than bikes.  Sure, I respect 1/4ley and his opinion, but I just don't buy it.  Bike racing was easy for him and cars were new when he told you that.  Setup is another issue.  I'm talking the actual act of piloting the racer.  There is no such thing as spin and continue in bike racing, and bumping can get ugly fast.  You don't have to hang on or climb around in a car.
Personally, I would be much more comfortable "widening" a hole in a car than on a bike.
And Dave, you can't argue that NASCAR has restricted the cars to the point where anyone can build one.  NOT SET ONE UP...  That's high art.  But any grease ape could build one, given enough money.  In F1, the stuff thy use to build cars all either causes cancer, needs to be manufactured in a zero G vaccum, or is harvested from crashed UFOs.  Same with MotoGP.  
I still say that NASCAR is a contrived show.  So contrived that they lost their credibility with me and I won't watch.  They change rules and make snap judgements that often seem to have more to do with keeping the points chase tight and the TV ratings up than they do with reality.  It's almost like watching the scripted plots of Pro Wrestling.  And there you go.  Look how popular pro wrestling is.  This brings me nicely full circle to my original point about Joe Average spectator and what he wants from his sports entertainment.
Remember that my Dad raced cars for the first 20 years of my life, I cornerworked cars and bikes for the next 15, and have been racing for the last 5.  I've been around the block.  I truely feel that NASCAR is more about marketing and less about racing than any other form of motorsport.  This has been a very successful formula for them, but I don't respect it.  OH, did I forget to mention that I LOVED NASCAR in the 70's, before it got popular?  It was really RACING back then.

[Super Dave]

So answer me on the driver's part in turns. Do they have brake markers? Do they even brake or shift? Do they have to do anything when they come into a corner, besides let off the gas?
And why do they ALL suck so bad on their two road courses?
I can see why it is harder to race nascar - there is no separating variable except the mechanics. Give me the same car as jeff gordon and a day worth of practice and I will do a ton better than if you gave me Rossi's bike and a day worth of practice. And I'm a bike racer..... :)

Brake markers?  Well, I've been to lots of tracks that don't have nice little numbers that give you reference when to brake.  I've even raced on two street circuits.  No brake markers there.  

Do oval track racers brake?  Well, it depends upon the car and the track.  Just like bikes.  Does anyone use the brakes going into the infield kink at Daytona?  Well, no.  

But at 200MPH, rolling off the car has a substantial amount of aerodynamic friction and mechanical friction to slow the car enough to get it reasonably settled...similar to a Superbike going into turn one at Brainerd.

Why so bad at Road Courses?  Some guys in AMA Dirt Track are better at TT racing than others.  They are the TT Specialists.  Just the way that is.  A NASCAR is not necessarily light...it certainly is restricted to keep direct factory involvement out of competition.  The result has been the rise of sponsorship of teams and the employment of all those people.

Can you go as fast as Gordon or Kennseth?  Well, Jamie James was a pretty good motorcycle racer.  He couldn't make a go at it.  Kevin Schwantz, top flight GP star and World Champion, had the money to buy what he needed to have a good ride in the Busch NASCAR series, but didn't get anywhere.  Mike Hale rode factory Hondas, didn't help him.  Dale Quarterley seems to be the only one that has been able to see success.  He's won a Busch NASCAR race.

[Super Dave]

More on Dale.

Cars new to Dale when we talked about that?  That was in 1993, the year that he won the Superbike National.  He'd done an IMSA road race, some Busch racing before I'd been introduced to him in 1991.  Dale started racing motorcycles when he was younger...but before that, Dale raced go carts all over...before he got way too big and someone suggested motorcycles...Dale was like 6'3" and 190#+.  The concept of driving a four wheel vehicle for Dale is not a problem.  

The full context of our conversation started with me asking, "What's more fun...cars or bikes."  Dale quickly said, "Cars."  My eyebrows moved.  "...But bikes are more exhilarating."  He continued, "There's nothing like trying to hold the bike wide open in sixth gear through the Gravity Cavity (Road Atlanta before they filled it all in before the 1998 season for you racers that haven't been around) with the bike shaking.  

Ok, I could understand that.

In a car, yeah, you're in a cage, and it's a lot harder to get hurt.  Dale said that was fun.  You could spin out and it was no problem even if you hit a wall.  But you still had these four corners to deal with rather than two on a bike.

I work with a lot of people, and the neat thing about bikes is that our body position can help the chassis.  Even guys that don't know anything about how their bike works do certain body positions on the bike that indicate something about how the bike is working.  Intuitively, we move in a fashion that helps the bike get through the corner.  In a car, you don't have that opportunity...it's got to be right.

As for this all being a team sport...well, Rossi took his whole crew to Yamaha.  Same thing.  If it were so easy for riders to win championships by just moving to another team, he wouldn't need all those guys.  

Set up still requires a driver/rider to execute on the track.  DA is not allowed in NASCAR, so the team still relies upon the guy in the seat to give feed back.  

Are we getting to a whining point between bowling and golf on TV?

(Personally, I like bowling...)

The PR machine that IS NASCAR does a great job of promoting their drivers.  The teams usually have a PR person for each driver.  In the IRL series, the teams usually have a PR person for the whole team...and that goes for teams that are owned by one person (owning both a Busch/Nextel Cup and IRL team).

So, make a case why one is better.  How are you going to sell this to school kids let alone adults?

Bike racers are better?  Doesn't really matter.

Does it look cool?  Well, Freestyle Motocross seems to pull in more people than a road race.  If road racing were so cool, why aren't people showing up?

It's what I do, and, if anything, you've got to sell the image of the man and the machine at speed.  

Chris, can anyone build a "NASCAR".  No, but the formula for building one is attainable.  I don't know how to get a set of superbike forks that Mladin has.  No way can I ever get any.  You can't do that in NASCAR.  

As for rule changes and all, they are trying to keep a reasonable playing field.  They are dealing with a reasonable foundation where each manufacturer has a reasonable chance of winning.  

Do you think Yamaha will win an AMA Superbike race this year?  I doubt that any of the privateers on superstock set up R1's will be doing it and the "factory" team isn't even playing.  Really, you can probably count on one hand (at this point you only need one finger) the number of guys that have a chance at winning an AMA Superbike race in 2004.  You don't have that kind of opportunity in NASCAR.  You'll have guys that have the drive, the set up, the team...and they will probably be favorites...but then Rusty Wallace comes up with a win.  Anyone think Jack Pfeiffer, Kevin Hanson, Rick Shaw, or even Michael Barnes have a chance at winning an AMA Superbike race?

[251am]

Moto is better than Nascar because it is more of a racing sport; man and machine vs. the track. Nascar has become the next World Wrestling Federation on an oval. GO RENEE GO!!!!


(Do we get to see the resulting work of anti-Nascrap art?)

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

My dad and I used to design and build our own sports racing cars.  If you can weld, bend sheet metal and build a motor, you could put together a stock car.
I know that most motorcycle racers haven't done so well in cars.  I think that might be because the car people have all been involved in one dicipline for life, and the bike guy is changing diciplines.  Mostly a matter of experience.
But put a car guy on a bike!
Take me as a case in point.  I'm a huge guy, and not very athletic.  This hurts me as a bike racer.  But I do have a fair amount of talent.  I know that I drive much better than I ride.  If I had the bread to go car racing, I could be more successful than I am in bike racing.  Why?  Because it is just physically easier to drive fast than it is to ride fast.  Also, depending on the class, I could pick one where the car and driver get weighed together.  Then guyes like... well, like EVERYBODY wouldn't have a weight advantage on me.
Old guys, fat guys and sick guys have won at the pinical of various forms of car racing.  Fangio won the Targa Florio while suffering from a heart attack that later killed him!  Try that on a bike!  You'll just fall off.
Sorry, but you'll just never convince me that racing a bike is easier than racing a car.

[Lowe119]

It's almost like watching the scripted plots of Pro Wrestling.  And there you go.  Look how popular pro wrestling is.  This brings me nicely full circle to my original point about Joe Average spectator and what he wants from his sports entertainment.

That is funny, because I was thinking the same thing on the way to work. I think THAT is what turns me off of nascar. The same people watch nascar and wrestling - and I watch them watch. It just gives me a bad feeling. Then they do the fantasy nascar thing just like fantasy football. They get together and watch them go around in circles and watch their picks. It's like dog or horse racing. What is wrong with this picture?

[Super Dave]

I've done fantasy WSB.

All I know is that there are only a tiny number of motorcycle racers that can even pay the bills.

I have worked in the racing fuel industry for some time now, but I have just recently stopped.

So, I have worked with racers that drop $40k into motors to race for a small purse at local tracks in car racing.  They have big haulers, bigger trailers than me, etc.  They work hard, experiement, they are looking for a better set up.  

That's still the key.

Scripted?  Probably just like the NFL where the salary caps keep the action moving from one team to another.  A consice set of rules that can be changed if necessary is important to NASCAR.  

I think open wheel racing is pretty cool.  But it certainly doesn't have the pull of NASCAR.  Ganassi has a really great set up for IRL, but he had to expand into NASCAR.  

Why not bikes?

Poor rules structure?

You can't be innovative in motorcycles anymore.  Everything is production based...based on what somone will allow you to have.

I couldn't get an HRC CBR600F2 Blackbox in 1993, but it was kind of common at the AMA level.  Dale Quarterley was trying to get a set of HRC Kit carbs for his RC30 in 1991, but Kehin refused to sell them to him.  He could claim them of the then factory team's bikes, but there would be reprocussions.

So, back to bikes...

As anything, focus on the task at hand.

If you want to talk about how cool bikes are, don't talk bad about anything else.  As an experienced motorcycle road racer for, in some cases, several eternities, I have a lot of first hand experience in seeing the problems.

But I also recognize the beauty of it.

On another topic, why are Austrailians so fast?  'Cause they gotta work on to get somewhere.  Those guys are driven hard to do what they can.  They don't practice their sponsors names for interviews.  If they ride poorly, they are angry, and they come back for more.  They'll sling some things in the press, but they can back it up.

Motorcycle racing in Austrilia seems to be in good shape.  What are they doing right?

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

If you want to talk about how cool bikes are, don't talk bad about anything else.

 
But I also recognize the beauty of it.

Don't slam NASCAR?  Dave!  I'm injured and broke.  I can't even ride right now.  Slamming NASCAR is all I have left! :-[

The beauty.  Isn't that why we race?  I love the world of tilting horizons more than any place I've ever been.  The way the sun comes through the trees on a Blackhawk afternoon, or the black and white effect of the front straight at Gateway after you've just been blinded by the sun coming off the bike path.  Reading the patch on the back of a friend's leathers as I draft him, and trying to go by on the brakes at the end of the straight.  Time slows down, and everything becomes surreal.
I love racing a motorcycle...