When the NASCAR Sprint Cup teams take to the track at Daytona for the start of the 500 this weekend they may look the same but there a lot of tiny rule changes that could really spice things up.
Almost every part of the 2015 cup car has been changed in some way. So ahead of the ‘Great American Race’ we take a chance to look over those changes.
A new electronic rulebook features 60 changes, and some of them like the changes to tyre pressures, side skirts and lug nuts could result in a fairly wild end to the ‘500.
The new engine rules will come into force at Atlanta, the second race on the schedule.
Meanwhile most of the cars that will take the start at Daytona will look pretty similar to those that started the race last year apart from a few new paint jobs here and there, apart from the Toyota’s which have all new bodywork on them. After the Japanese brand performed really badly in 2014 winning only two races NASCAR allowed TRD to rework its Camry, partly to make it look a bit more like the production car, but really to make it more competitive.
It now features a new nose, hood, side windows and tail. These have all been performance balanced using a common wind tunnel test programme with Ford and Chevy, but Toyota thinks that it has found ways to improve on track performance that do not show up in the wind tunnel. This seems to be the case after Matt Kenseth won the Sprint Unlimited as Daytona last weekend. Many of these small changes likely relate to underbody ducting which the teams can tune and develop themselves.
A FULL ANALYSIS OF BOTH THE NEW TOYOTA SPRINT CUP CAR AND THE 2015 NASCAR RULE CHANGES CAN BE FOUND IN STOCKCAR ENGINEERING – GET YOUR COPY FOR FREE BELOW
Stockcar Engineering is a highly targeted technical publication read by those responsible for engineering and running stock cars at all levels. While other publications focus on cars that compete in Cup or circle track racing, such as Modifieds and Late Models, Stock Car Engineering is concerned with the application of advanced technology throughout oval racing. From British Short tracks to Sprint Cup races at Daytona, Stocker Engineering covers it all, just so long as it is cutting edge technology.
You will not find set up tips or step by step how to guides, instead you will find the latest advance engineering solutions and their applications in racing, often before they are even common knowledge in the Cup garage!
In the new issue we take a look at how the new rules change Sprint Cup, Toyota’s new look Camry (and just how Kenseth was able to drive how he did), we take a look at what NASCAR R&D is really up to and we find out about ECR Engine’s secret weapon.
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