Parity vs Open Competition:
Is there a Difference?

"Lugnuts Column" by John Mannin (lugnuts40@hotmail.com), used by permission

CART exemplifies open competition. Within a relatively stable and solid set of rules, innovation and experimentation is allowed. When rules changes are made, they are well thought out and usually made with driver safety in mind, not to establish parity or a level playing field. NASCAR's ultimate goal, on the other hand, is parity: All the cars are basically equal - the differences are subtle and lie with the driver and team's ability to guess at late race track conditions and chassis set-ups. Innovation is stifled and spending big dollars doesn't really help as much as in other series.

After the 1994 season, CART was faced with what NASCAR fans would consider a crisis of major concern — one team totally dominated the season. Roger Penske's team won 12 of 16 races, including the Indy 500; and Penske drivers Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Tracy finished 1, 2, 3 in the season championship. Bill France and NASCAR would have tried to "save the show" for the fans and would have instituted rules modifications like minimum wing angles on Penske's or a higher minimum weight to "equalize the field". Penske innovations like the third shock in the front suspension or the tire pressure sensor would have been outlawed. Outlawed, despite the fact that the technical rules did not address or anticipate such innovations.

I am not trying to slam or make fun of NASCAR, but rather point out the differences in philosophies of the sanctioning bodies.

Teams in NASCAR are actually discouraged from developing new innovations. Two examples from recent years are the Hendrick Motorsports car known as "T-Rex" and the Penske South team employing carbon fiber roof flaps. The T-Rex car for Jeff Gordon was unconventional, but within the rules. It featured such things as a more central driver position and modified construction and suspension. NASCAR admitted that the car was legal, but asked the team not to bring it to another race. Some of the features were probably improvements in driver safety (such as the more central driver position in the car), but NASCAR did not like it because it was a marked difference from the stock configuration. Winston Cup cars are not stock, and die-hard NASCAR fans will freely admit this. Penske south developed a carbon fiber roof flap and attempted to implement it, arguing that the flap was lighter and would pop up quicker and keep the car on the ground where it belongs. NASCAR acknowledged this was true, but banned it anyway due to high fabrication costs as compared to steel.

Manufacturers are discouraged from developing better body styles. If General Motors develops a dominant Monte Carlo body style, NASCAR compensates by cutting breaks for the other manufactures. This season saw the introduction of the Ford Taurus and since Ford had designed the car with the 5 and 5 rule in mind the car dominated the early part of the season. Then NASCAR took the cars to the wind tunnel and instituted new rear wing height rules for the Taurus. This was done in an effort "to save the show for the fans". There is another reason, probably even more significant: brand loyalty in NASCAR is very, very important. Many fans will never forgive Rusty Wallace and Penske South for changing from the Pontiac body style to the Ford. A couple of years ago, Jack Rousch threatened to change from the Thunderbird sheet metal to the Monte Carlo if NASCAR didn't address the problem of the Fords being uncompetitive. NASCAR intervened and Mark Martin rides still in Ford sheet metal.

Chassis supplier allegiance is just not significant in CART. Last season, Patrick Racing and Forsythe changed from Lola to Reynard prior to the season, and this was not viewed as controversial. If Pat Patrick had lobbied CART saying that the Lola was not competitive and CART "needed to do something about it", CART would likely have given Pat Patrick Adrian Reynard's phone number. Also, Tasman and Payton-Coyne made the switch mid-season, and again, this was not viewed as an earth-shattering event. It came down to either the team owners or the sponsors being willing to write the check for a competitive package.

In my opinion, the numerous rules changes in NASCAR actually favor the big budget teams. The rules modifications have historically included ride height adjustments, front air dam clearance, rear spoiler height/angle, etc. These changes are made to either reduce downforce or increase drag. The big money teams hit the wind tunnels, quantify the effects of the change, and then tinker with the body work to regain as much of the loss as possible. The lower budget teams don't have the resources to put into keeping up with all of the rules changes. As a result, the smaller teams are always playing catch-up and a few well funded teams take the lion's share of the victories and championships.

So, why such an in-depth look at the continual flux of rules changes in NASCAR on a CART web page? The first step in setting goals for an organization is often to answer the question "Where do we want to be in X years?." Many times, the answer is a series of "well, we don't want to be where they are right now!" This is where I see CART at the present time. CART is great racing in search of an identity. CART doesn't want to see the obscene budgets now common in F1, nor do they want to go the path of a spec series, a la IRL or NASCAR.

Back to the 1994 season . . . .

In the midst of the total Team Penske domination, there was evidence of a fundamental problem with the Nigel Bennet designed chassis. At Indy, Penske had the 1000+ hp Mercedes pushrod engine (just how long were those pushrods, anyway) and was setting trap speeds at the end of the straight of over 250 miles an hour; but in the corners, the chassis were scrubbing 40 miles per hour. Some speculated that the drivers were instructed to sandbag during practice, others opined that it was the heavy weight of the purpose built Ilmor designed Mercedes that was unsettling the balance of the chassis in the corners. The answer came three months later in Brooklyn, Michigan. At MIS, the all-conquering Penske chassis were totally outclassed by Lolas, no less! The Nigel Bennet design was optimized around the Goodyear tires of the day, and 1994 was the last year of Goodyear being the only tire supplier in CART. When Firestone emerged in 1995, the Goodyear tires became softer in the side walls and amplified a problem with the pitch sensitivity of the chassis that, in my opinion, was always there. After all, the PC-24 was a refinement of the dominating PC-23. It seems that the reason the third shock was developed in the first place was due to the pitch sensitivity of the PC-23. The explanation given at the time was that when the chassis went over curves and bumps the car would remain level in relation to the track. The first place that a problem of pitch sensitivity would manifest itself would be in high g-force turns, and that is the definition of a super speedway.

During the off season after 1994, CART did not implement any Penske unfriendly rules modifications to render the chassis ineffective. In my opinion, NASCAR would have done this in an effort to avoid another season with a run-away championship. Reynard, Lola, Ford, and Honda worked hard to improve their products and to close the gap to the Penske Mercedes combination. The task was accomplished, as the 1995 championship went down to the last race, and in 1996 and 1997, the championship was settled at the next to the last race. The playing field leveled itself by "natural selection" and close competition was the result. By natural selection, I mean that if you do not produce a competitive product, eventually, your customer base will dry up. This happened to March, Cosworth (referring to the Cosworth DFS), Lola, and it is currently happening to Goodyear. March just gave up, whereas Cosworth, Lola, and Goodyear have acted to maintain or regain the customers that they have lost.

Back To The Present . . .

At first glance, we have another run-away champion this year. Yes, Alex Zanardi clinched the championship with four races left — the earliest clinching in CART history. Alex has had a great season, but he has not dominated as Al Unser did in 1994 or as Nigel Mansell did in 1993. I actually believe that the Ganassi team was more dominant last year. Zanardi has six wins this year, but only in one or two has he dominated from start to finish. In the other victories, he was within striking distance and capitalized on the misfortunes of others. If it were not for a couple of ill-timed tire failures, Michael Andretti would still be in the championship fight.

Now as we look forward to the 1999 season, I find myself asking if Reynard may suffer similar problems next season. The Reynard Honda Firestone combination has won 10 of 16 races this year, and by all outward appearances looks dominant. A closer look at last season casts some doubt on this observation. In 1997, Alex Zanardi was in the top 6 in every morning warm-up. This year, Zanardi is doing very well, but is not at the top of the morning warm-up as consistently as last year. Unlike last season, this year, I see many Reynard drivers making mistakes and trying the impossible pass, feats almost exclusive to Michael Andretti and Paul Tracy last year. (Greg Moore ALWAYS tries the impossible pass!) More importantly, the 1999 Reynards are going to be delivered starting in October. This means that the design of the new car was pretty much set by mid-season, before the majority of the road and street circuits. Reynard teams will get the advantage of more test time, but the Swift teams are going to get a car with more development. Also, the 1999 Reynard is going to be a very much a customer chassis. With the F1 effort next season with BAR, I see the Reynard teams left to their own devices to refine the car throughout the season. I question if Reynard can continue their superior customer service. Swift will certainly capitalize on this and assist teams with updates and refinement.

CART has effectively avoided the spec chassis nature of some of the other major racing series in this country. It's obvious that if teams find the Reynard chassis uncompetitive or not as competitive as the offerings from Swift or Lola, some teams may switch before or during the season just like Pat Patrick did a couple of seasons ago. All of the chassis will be new designs for next season, and as a result I don't believe that any of the current chassis will be updateable. The penalty in recent years has been to start near the back of the pack if a team is using year old equipment. The only notable exception to this has been Greg Moore. All of this leads to the issue of lower budget teams not having decent setups out of the box on race weekends. This season, Davis Racing's Arnd Meier seemed to have issues with not having good setups off the trailer many weekends. As a result, we would see constant improvement in their times during the weekend, but qualifying times that still had them at the back of the grid. The effect of this is that the Lola is viewed, inaccurately in my opinion, as an uncompetitive chassis. I believe that if they had a full testing budget, they would probably be much quicker off the truck and probably qualify a lot higher on the grid most weekends. The Patrick team has conducted at least one test of the 1998 Lola, and reportedly, Pruett was able to test the Lola as fast as the Reynard

This season, we have seen many teams innovate and have those innovations copied. The two most notable areas of development this season have been the kick ups near the rear tires and the area under the sidepods. Reynard teams have added what look like channels to the bottom of their cars. Apparently, wind testing showed an improvement with these channels. Even the Swift chassis now employ a variation of this channel. Last season when Lola was having chassis problems, they copied Reynard's rear wing with the hope that their design was flawed. It turned out that the problem was with the undertray. A few years ago, Team Penske came up with the shark fin. While many wonder if it just wasn't a great additional space for sponsors - most believe that it helped with the flow of air to the rear of the car. Most of the teams adopted the shark fin. This year the newly designed Penske chassis came out without the fin. The bottom line is that CART remains a series that sets the rules before the season begins and sticks with them. The manufacturers and the teams then have the ability to work within these guidelines and innovate in order to achieve some advantage. If a team or a manufacturer comes up with the right combination of changes that are beneficial and make the cars even faster, then CART tends to try to find new ways to slow the cars down — and this is the important part — the changes are adopted *after* the current season. A recent example of this would be the Handford device which has introduced a new variable to the superspeedway races.

Earlier, I said that CART seems to be a great series in search of an identity. The truth is that CART presently has the most technologically advanced race cars in the United States. Both Mercedes and Ford have publicly stated that they are able to utilize the lessons learned while competing in CART to improve their products. The biggest problem is that the series has failed to successfully market the technological superiority of their product. Let's face it - NASCAR's various series are all based on the same mid 1970's chassis. They use big V-8 power and older engine designs. CART uses more current technology in their engines - from the turbo chargers to the overhead cam design of the engines. CART is able to generate well over 900 HP from a 162.5 cubic inch engine using methanol. NASCAR generates over 700 HP from a 358 cubic inch engine running on more potent gasoline. Champ Cars can turn in laps over 230 MPH, even with a Handford device - A NASCAR can turn in laps approaching 200 MPH on a larger track.

Beyond the technological advantage that CART has over NASCAR, it should be noted that CART drivers are faced with a far greater variety of tracks to race on than any other series in the world. As a result, a driver who is a great oval driver or superspeedway driver but who is unable to be competitive on road courses has little chance to win the championship. In CART, if a driver tries to bump and grind with a competitor, the outcome is usually terminal for that driver. Touching wheels at 200+ miles per hour is very dangerous. Open wheel cars differ greatly from the type of cars raced in NASCAR. As a result, it is difficult for drivers from either series to be able to compete in the other series concurrently or even back to back seasons and experience a great degree of success.

With all of this on the table, I would still have to give the opinion that open wheel drivers tend to be more talented than their stock car counterparts. Racing is not an old man's game - unless you race in NASCAR. In Formula One, Damon Hill is considered ancient at 38. Bobby Rahal is retiring from CART at 43. Dave Marcis in NASCAR is over 50 and still able to qualify for some races. Don't get me wrong, the great drivers can drive for longer in CART, but there are only so many Mario Andretti's and Emerson Fittipaldi's in this world. Dale Ernhardt, Rusty Wallace, and Ricky Rudd may be able to race in NASCAR for many more years, but I doubt that you will see very many drivers be able to accomplish the same feat in CART. The speed and the technology make it difficult to keep up one's abilities to be at the top of the sport.

So, if CART has a wonderfully technologically advanced series filled with talented young drivers - where is the problem? Marketing. You can develop an identity but it has to be brought to the masses. CART has been about a number of owners making decisions whenever they could agree. Until this year, the focus of CART's marketing efforts have been towards corporate America. CART attracts $300 to $400 million of sponsorship money each year, and has a well developed hospitality program. However, most American race fans are not familiar with CART, and as a result, domestic television rating are not great. NASCAR, on the other hand, has been about Bill France and then Bill France Jr. telling owners and drivers their decisions, and most of these decisions were based on providing the fans with entertainment. CART needed a leader to unify the squabbling owners, and they got that in Andrew Craig. Through Craig's leadership, CART has grown the series despite a very nasty split with Tony George and IMS. With the recent IPO, CART has completed the transformation from a very expensive racing club to a publicly held corporation with new accountabilities that only a CEO can take care of. The team owners need to remember that they must work together to move the series forward and provide shareholders with value. Essentially, CART has to take a look at how NASCAR plays the marketing game. So our Lugnuts message this month goes out to CART - MARKET WHAT YOU HAVE!