by Thomas Alexander

Created on: February 26, 2010

Restrictor plate racing can't be associated with the word "healthy" if you watch any of this type of racing with all of the major wrecks caused by the restricted throttle response of the engines because of the restrictor plate not allowing free flow of air and fuel that these powerful engines are designed to produce.

The races are considered by many to be the most exciting type of racing because the cars are all so tightly grouped together with less than a couple of seconds from the first car to the last in line. Yes this came about because the engines were getting so strong and the design of the Daytona and Talledega tracks allowed the rpm's to max out to the point the cars were running at speeds in excess of two hundred miles per hour and Nascar deemed this too fast and decided on the restrictor plate to slow them down.

By that very nature this is the reason there are so many accidents in these type of races, no one car has a great advantage over the next as they have such a limited ability to pass and need to have a drafting partner to achieve any increase in speed.

This passing limitation has caused the need for the bump drafting technique of pushing the car in front of you with your front bumper and watching the effects of hard hits on the back bumper of the car being drafted shows how dangerous this can be.

Banging into the car in front of you at almost two hundred miles per hour unless done exactly right with the cars perfectly aligned has created some very scary situations over the years since restrictor plates were first mandated with the rear ends of cars being lifted completely off of the track surface, loss of control for the front car and if when not lined up right causing the front car to swing sideways. If the driver of the bumped car is not able to control the car and save it from spinning out this usually triggers the "big one" as they say in Nascar, a wreck with numerous cars being caught up in an accident that had nothing to do with the performance of their car or driving ability but just the unfortunate circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How many times has a driver that had a very good car capable of winning but ended up at the back of the pack because of of a slow pit stop or using the wrong pit strategy or numerous other minor issues and gotten caught in one of these big wrecks and had their race ruined and a chance for critical championship points lost due to no fault of their own.

Talk to just about any Nascar

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