Teams look high, low for ways to get an edge

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- With a miniscule window for tinkering, and a tighter set of templates, NASCAR teams find themselves dipping into an increasingly smaller bag of tricks.

	Two members of the No. 18 team grind away at a bracket. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive

There's more you can't do than you can do at the restrictor-plate tracks, Daytona and Talladega. And Friday's marathon inspection process at Talladega was the latest hard-learned lesson for many teams, particularly those that had to reconstruct car parts or make multiple trips through the inspection line.

"The advantages now come in the little things, the smaller areas of the car," said Robbie Loomis, Jeff Gordon's crew chief. "But because there are smaller areas, all of sudden they become more and more important."

With horsepower restricted to 400 mph rather than the usual 800-mph range, any tweak gets explored. Among the most current alternatives -- all used only for qualifying -- are lighter brake systems, aerodynamic wheel hubs that offer the least amount of resistance, different oil mixtures, and aerodynamically-designed tailpipes.

"The bodies are so much more similar that the only place to get an advantage is obviously more motor," said Pat Tryson, Ricky Rudd's crew chief. "But other than that, you look for everything you can get or produce. We have some tire struts that we work on. Small, little fender braces, wheel opening sizes more than you used to do. Stuff underneath the car where they don't control it as much as some other areas."

Dave Blaney's team doesn't use the specially-formulated oils, but crew chief Robert "Bootie" Barker thinks they're too risky, even if it means an advantage.

"A lot of people what they'll do for qualifying is put a combustible oil and kind of leak it down into the cylinder," Barker said. "It'll add power for a little bit, but you're going to risk damaging your motor. You got that stuff. You got aero hubs, you got all kinds of stuff. So yeah, you get everything you can. You have to."

Tryson says those special oils are, "probably worth four-to-five tenths [of a second]," but he agrees with Barker: they're risky.

NASCAR legend Darrell Waltrip backs up Barker, saying the qualifying-only oil, "can have all kinds of additives in it, like nitro, anything that'll make the engine make more power. You're looking for air, more air and more fuel."

Especially at a restrictor-plate track. But what about the 32 other regular-season events? Crew chiefs say most of the specialized elements that might help during Daytona and Talladega qualifying usually don't translate to other tracks.

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"We have enough rear springs for Daytona and Talladega, just the [No. 6] car, to run at every race for the rest of the year and not use the same two twice," said Ben Leslie, Mark Martin's crew chief. "But as soon as a manufacturer comes out with a spring that rates two pounds closer than the bare minimum, you can't give it up."

According to Leslie, the most recent restrictor-plate innovation involves rear springs. He said he noticed five to 10 teams with different shocks at Daytona. Now, everyone in the garage uses them.

When three teams show up with something at Daytona, 15 teams show up with it at the next Talladega race," Leslie said. "The whole garage has it by the Fourth of July race, and by then, there'll be three teams with something else. And by the last Talladega race, there'll be 15 teams with that."

"Well, you just chassis-dyno all you can, to get all the power you can," Barker said. "You just try beaucoups of sets of tailpipes to get one or two horsepower in the rear wheel."

"There's transmissions you can run nowadays that don't have any grease in them," said Tryson, adding that another option is rear-end gears, which now come ceramic-coated or with ball bearings. Ball-bearing rear-end gears are worth a few extra horsepower on the chassis dyno, Tryson added.

Leslie said the light qualifying brake systems can be used at Michigan and Atlanta, but, "you're talking about probably a total of 20-25 laps on that brake system for the whole year."

"You use some of it in a race," Tryson said, "but 80 percent of it you can't in the race."

"Here you're just looking for speed," Leslie added. "And everything counts."