[Jeff Higgins]

Great info, Ashley. You're more current on the NASCAR stuff than I am. I think I'm confusing "spec" with "very restricted"; i.e. four speeds only, steel rotors only, etc. Not that the number of gears matters anywhere but a road course and maybe Pocono (for some teams). Fourth is what they race in all the way around.

Yes, NASCAR motors are unbelievable when you consider the restrictions on them. Pushrod V-8's at 9,000+ rpm's, anyone? For 500 miles??!! That's "endurance racing" in anyone else's book. I remember when (and this is going to date me) Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins started the smallblock/short wheelbase revolution in Pro Stock drag racing in the early '70's with his mouse-motored Vegas. 8,000-some-odd rpm was considered "reving it to the moon", and he only hoped to go a quarter mile that way. My how times change. Cup car motors, on a single carb, rev higher and make half again the power his drag motors made on twin Holly's sitting on top of a tunnel ram. And they last 500 miles to boot.

The technology and innovation is certainly there in NASCAR. Too bad NASCAR sees fit to "keep it even". Almost weekly adjustments to spoiler heights, air dam ground clearances, on a make-by-make basis just to keep them all running together. And the silly environment of taking any new, innovative parts to NASCAR for approval before they can be run on the car. If it's too good, too far ahead of the pack, you don't get to run it.

I remember Richard Petty (before he retired) pining for the days when he could "get out there and race some one". In his opinion, those days were long gone. Everyone just drives around together and, like a game of musical chairs, whoever just happens to be in front when the music stops "wins". It is, to some degree, totally random. That's too bad.