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Imagine you fly off on vacation, get your reserved car from the car rental facility, only to find out the speedometer isn’t working.
No big deal, you say to yourself, you’re good at estimating speeds. So, you carry on, pull onto the nearest freeway and immediately get pulled over by a cop for speeding.
“But I didn’t know how fast I was going because the speedometer isn’t working,” you plead your case to the cop, who’s having nothing of it, continuing to write a ticket despite your best objections.
That’s kind of the situation drivers in NASCAR have faced for decades. Instead of allowing speedometers to show speeds on-track, as well as coming onto and off pit road, NASCAR uses an antiquated system where drivers must judge their speed based upon the engine revolutions being shown on their car’s tachometer, as well as an electronics system using sensors within the car tied into the scoring and timing system, plus external radar at the entrance and exit to pit road.
NASCAR has said it doesn’t want to use speedometers because, at the very least, they can be doctored. At the other end of the spectrum, even if there are no doctored speedometers, there still could be an appreciable difference in speedo readings from one car to another, depending upon manufacturer, etc.
I can understand that logic. NASCAR officials don’t want any hanky panky when it comes to having drivers and officials know the real speed a car is doing at any one point on the racetrack.
But in light of what happened to Juan Pablo Montoya in Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard – by the way, Allstate announced Monday that its sponsorship of the race has ended, and the event will likely return to its original name of the Brickyard 400 – maybe its time to reexamine the whole issue of having speedometers in cars.
If we can have black box data recorders in NASCAR race cars and trucks, not to mention the most up-to-date safety equipment possible, would it really be that difficult to include some type of speedometer in every car that would be unable to be doctored and would provide speed readings with pinpoint accuracy?
With the exception of maybe bicycles, farm tractors and forklifts, virtually every mode of transportation and conveyance I know of has a speedometer in the dash, be it a car, airplane, motorcycle, train or boat.
NASCAR currently gives teams rear wings, restrictor plates and tires in each race to assure that everyone has a level playing field. You mean to tell me there’s no way to install a sealed, self-contained, easy to install (and remove) speedometer unit in each car before a race weekend to give drivers an exact reference point to how fast they’re going?
And then the speedos are removed after each race, sent back to NASCAR’s Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C.
If Montoya had a speedometer in Sunday’s race, he would likely have gone on to win it, rather than being slapped with a speeding onto pit road violation that brought about a pass-through penalty and an eventual 11th-place finish, a disappointing far cry from the domination Montoya showed in the race up to the point of the violation.
Reporters aren’t supposed to pull for one driver over the other, but I second what Montoya said over his team radio: that he got screwed.
He wound up being 5.11 mph over the so-called “speed limit” on pit road, with the first five mph over the limit being forgiven. Ergo, he was penalized for being just .11 mph in excess.
I challenge anyone who can tell me if they’re going slightly over 5 mph and realize it. For example, without looking down at your dashboard, can you accurately tell if you’re driving 55 or 61 mph? I can’t, and I doubt there’s very few others that can.
So why must NASCAR think its drivers can do something that is virtually humanly impossible to do?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/27 at 09:57 PMSorry Jerry, but a speedometer would still be inacurate.
I think this is one area where NASCAR needs to look at technology. Coming from a computer background, my suggestion is that a chip be installed in the ignition system much like that of an Indy car. When the driver hits pit road, and gets the car into second gear, he depresses a button on the wheel that engages the chip. (If the car is not in first or second gear, the chip is inactive, thus removing any problems while at speed on the track.) Once the chip is engaged, it sets a new rev-limiter in the ignition making it virtually impossible to speed on pit road. The chip would be tested by a NASCAR official when the ignition system is inspected. Any tampering of the “Pit Speed Rev-Limiter” would result in an automatic one race suspension for the team. Two different chips would be available at each track with the teams telling NASCAR what gear ratio they will be using. This will also take out those drivers that use the system to their advantage and speed where they can between loops. The limiter is removed when the car is shifted back into third gear giving the driver full power once he is off pit road.
This isn’t just a way to stop a driver from speeding, but it is more a safety device for the crews that work on pit road. NASCAR says they are all about making the sport as safe as possible. Here’s my idea to help the crews, and officials, on pit road.
-Taglia
Speedometers ,Chips, ?kidding right? One Montoya broke the rules he paid ,thats his fault ,again his not NASCAR. Two the system being used was voted on by the teams during set up of the loop data process /2005 Its a good system the bad part about it is the drivers ,They want to go Fast And NO ONE complains as loudly as with Montoya when others drivers have gotton it I believe around 9 times i can remember this year I willl check that out.
So I am sorry JM lost he was running wild but There are brakes on those cars and sometimes you have to use them
Since his “lights” didn’t prevent his speeding I doubt a speedometer would have either. Besides, the pit road speed limit was 55 and they are given a 5 mph buffer. He exceeded the buffer, too bad. Quite honestly I don’t know why any driver would ever take the chance of a speeding penalty. It seems a lot more reasonable to loose a position or two by staying within the limit than to lose much more track position by having to do a drive through. A no brainer IMO.
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