May 8, 2008
By Brian Watkins
Brian Watkins
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I’ve mentioned before that I work in the video production field. I’m lucky in the fact that while I call it “going to work”, I hardly ever find a day that it feels like it. I’ve been enjoying my occupation for well over 15 years now and count myself quite privileged to have a job that pays the bills and keeps me happy as well.
While the job itself is enjoyable, many of the assignments I get sent on or hired for make the time I spend behind the camera or in the edit suite even better. I’ve gotten to shoot 3 different presidents, Washington big-wigs, pentagon brass, rock legends and country music super stars- and every once in a while I get a NASCAR gig thrown in. Those are the ones I relish the most because they’re never just filming a race or covering a news story- they involve either interviewing drivers or shooting behind the scenes. Nothing is more interesting to this NASCAR fan than to get to go behind the curtain with a team and see how things work, hear how they feel about this or that and to get to talk about the facts behind a lot of the media headlines.
The downside of this is that I’m almost always shooting for proprietary purposes, generally for a manufacturer or a sponsor. So while I get to see everything and shoot a lot of footage and ask as many questions as the crews can stand answering, 99.99999% of the time I’m there not in the capacity of media, but in the capacity to film this or that for a company and the this or that that I normally film or photograph is confidential and can’t be used in a column or article. I suppose I could write about specifics, but that would be the end of my career, at least the current incarnation of it.
I wrote everything above here so that when you read what’s below, you’ll understand why some of the details like names, locations, manufacturers, etc are vague.
So I spent this last weekend at an undisclosed location filming and photographing unnamed NASCAR teams testing unnamed components of their respective machines. On my way to the assignment I did the logistical analysis and determined that since there was a race at Richmond Saturday night that the chances of any big name drivers being at the testing sessions was pretty slim. This fact was both good and bad. On the good side, I didn’t have to try and figure out how to ask a driver who has answered a million questions a unique and relevant one. We’ve all heard the expression that there are no stupid questions or the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. In many cases this may be true. But I have heard more stupid questions asked of NASCAR drivers than I can even count. My hat goes off to all those reporters and columnists who have been able to successfully come up with good questions for drivers.
The downside of the lack of “big name” drivers at the testing session was simple. I’m a NASCAR fan, and any chance I get to meet a driver in a setting that’s not a staged meet and greet or a media frenzy is an enjoyable one. The fact that there weren’t any “famous” drivers there was hardly a let down though. Getting to see what goes on off the track with Cup teams and talking with those who are at the pointy end of the NASCAR spear was a very interesting and rewarding experience.
While I was in the process of shooting general footage of the testing, I was able to not only ask the official questions I was there to get answers to, but I was also able to have some interesting conversations. One of the more interesting exchanges I had was with the chief of research and development for one of the teams. I’ll refer to him as Mr. R&D. He, like all the other guys on the testing crews were down to earth car guys and engineers happy to BS and share stories and talk shop.
One of the more interesting topics was the COT. Mr. R&D wasn’t a big fan of the car, but for different reasons than you might think. He, like many, doesn’t care for the new look- but that’s not his main complaint. The problem he has, and what it seems most of the teams are having with the new car is the lengths they must go to to get an advantage. I don’t mean to find ways to cheat- I mean to find a tweak here or a tweak there that truly makes a difference. Something that’s all too important when the difference between sitting on the pole and going home (if you’re not in the top 35) can be tenths of a second or less. He said it was a struggle to find area in the car that they can legally manipulate and pick up a fraction of a second here or there.
I could understand his frustration as I watched the cars go out for a run and come back in. As the driver stayed in the seat, the team crunched the numbers, changed the oil, made an adjustment and sent them back out for another go. The monotony that these guys were going through to grab a piece of the clock made qualifying seem like the last 10 laps at Bristol.
As we talked a bit about the challenges of the COT, we also talked about the fate of the old Cup cars from last season. With no use for them in the Major series, teams had to have a fire sale and unload their inventory. These machines, many of which had more than $100,000 poured into them were sold to ARCA and Camping World teams- some for as low as $8,000. While the cars were lacking engines, the price was still a bargain. Heck, I’d come up with eight grand if it meant I could have one of last seasons racers parked in my driveway! They could have put them on eBay and gotten a better deal, but at the same time, there are some pretty happy development teams out there right now.
Bird Strike!
While the words bird strike conjures up images of a mallard meeting the window of a 747 or a scene from Myth Busters, this incident happened at a much lower altitude- just about mid splitter.
One of the funnier incidents during testing was when a bird decided to take a break on the track shortly before a 180mph blur of man and metal rounded turn 4 on the same line. When a car hits a bird on the freeway, the bird becomes a pile of meat and feathers on the shoulder. When bird and COT meet, the bird becomes a big bug and splatters. Aside from the driver calling in the fact that he’d nailed a bird, you’d never have known it had happened; that is until during an adjustment one of the crew pulled a feather or two from a sway bar.
Open Wheel Invasion
From success stories like Tony Stewart to strugglers such as AJ Almendinger, much has been written about the “invasion” of open wheel drivers to NASCAR. Even Danica Patrick who’s won but a single race in her 4 years in the IRL is rumored to be eyeing a NASCAR ride. (As a side-bar, how does one become the most popular driver in a sport without wining any races?)
What you don’t hear about is that many of the crew members, especially on the testing and engineering side, have also come from the open wheel circuits. While coming from a similar sport, the mindset of the open wheel side is much different from that of the NASCAR garages. In fact the biggest challenge for some of the engineers I talked to wasn’t the difference in the cars but the difference in the culture. They agreed that while it’s not a bad difference or a good difference, it’s a whole new world.
I’ll continue with more testing stories in a future column…
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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