A Classic Tie

[kidrock]

Very little people ever had to know about the hijinks that went on. There were a certain few of the plates that were bigger and the techs delivered them to the teams and they were installed with the techs there in a hurry under a cloak of darkness before anyone could be none the wiser.

Ok if you say so

[Raceready]

NASCAR first mandated restrictor plates back in the 1970's (1970-1974) but only on selected engines. If you ran a small enough engine displacement restrictor plates weren't required in those days so I'm not sure we can lump that in with what we know as restrictor plate racing today. Restrictor plate racing as we know it today came about due to Bobby Allison blowing a right rear tire in the tri-oval at Talladega back in May of 1987. The vibration damper pully on the front of the crankshaft came apart and got onto the track causing his RR to blow without warning. He went airborne and got into the catch fence resulting in about 120 feet of fence being destroyed. Bobby's car didn't get into the grandstands but about a dozen people in the grandstands were injured to some degree. NASCAR was very lucky the cables held and Bobby's car didn't get into the crowd. A situation where a car gets into the grandstands would end auto racing as we know it in the U.S. The July race at Talladega was run without restrictor plates and it marked the last race of the four that were run at Daytona & Talladega in 1987. But, due to insurance and other concerns starting in February of 1988 for the Daytona 500 the restrictor plate era was born and it continues to this day at those two tracks. The pole for the May 1987 race at Talladega was won by Bill Elliott at over 212 MPH. I was at Talladega back in July of 1986 for the Cup race and all but a handful of cars qualified at over 200 MPH. They were flat gettin' it!!

I say that since they are hauling grandstands out of tracks at record levels due to their fan losing gimmicks that they should just take out the front sections near the track and let the boys bump up the speed a bit. NHRA is more popular than ever now that they are over 300 mph and they shortened the runs to adapt to the higher speeds. What do you say?