Restrictor plate racing returns

Hold your horses, gentlemen.

Restrictor plate racing returns to NASCAR this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, and again teams will be dealing with a device making speed secondary to safety.

In an effort to slow down the cars, NASCAR continues to tweak the plate, and Sunday’s Cup event will be no different.

The holes on the plate were 60/64ths of an inch at the last plate race at Daytona, but for this race they will be reduced by 1/64th of an inch will decrease horsepower by 12 to 15.

“I know they’ve made one big step and that’s to reduce the restrictor plate size to slow the cars down so we’re less likely to get airborne,” Ryan Newman said. “I know the speedway has made improvements with respect to catch fences and things like that. But ultimately we don’t want to get to that situation.

“Realistically, the drivers, as NASCAR has evolved to restrictor plate tracks, have changed the way we drive. There will be times when we single-file out and there will be times when we’re four-wide/four-deep for the whole pack at times.”

A restrictor plate is an aluminum square with a hole at each corner, designed so it can be mounted to the four posts positioned around the carburetor of each Sprint Cup vehicle.

In the center of each plate, there are four small holes. These holes allow airflow to the carburetor, but restrict it which, in turn, slows down the cars.

Even the smallest change in size makes a huge difference.

“I would say 10 to 20 percent of our time is spent exclusively on our restrictor plate program because there are only four (plate) races on the schedule,” said Jimmy Makar, senior vice president of racing operations for Joe Gibbs Racing. “The biggest point we focus on is the engine development, because it’s so different than the places we run each week.”

The four holes in the center of the restrictor plate are off-center of the carburetor port. Air and fuel creates horsepower, so not only does the plate restrict the amount of air, but also the direction of the airflow, which cuts down horsepower.

“Tons of hours and thousands of dollars are put into restrictor plate racing,” said Todd Parrott, crew chief Yates/Hall of Fame Racing driver Bobby Labonte. “I’d say that we spend about two times the amount of money on our restrictor plate program than on our short track and intermediate programs.”

Restrictor plates came about because of an accident at Talladega Superspeedway in 1987. Bobby Allison lost control of his car, crashed and almost ended up in the grandstands. The catch fence was the only thing that stopped his car from spiraling into the crowd — and the only thing that prevented tragedy.

In fact, the fence had been reinforced just prior to the event. Had the old one still been in place, the consequences could have been horrifying.

Speeds were already spiraling beyond the 200 mph barrier at Talladega and Daytona when the wreck occurred, and that’s when NASCAR decided to slow things down for the safety of the drivers and fans.

“I think NASCAR is always looking at safety, and it starts with the fans and works its way back,” driver John Andretti said. “It’s amazing the difference 3 or 4 miles per hour can make in terms of an accident.”

The first restrictor plate was used in the 1988 Daytona 500, and they have been in use ever since.

“I think everybody works as hard or harder on the four restrictor plate races than they do all the other races combined,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition. “I think there’s a lot of emphasis put on those races because most other places we go are so much alike.

“The cars are basically the same for short and intermediate tracks with minor changes to set-up. So, there’s a lot of emphasis on the plate races.”

As an added twist several Ford teams will be using a new engine package this weekend.

Matt Kenseth and David Ragan will both run the FR9 designed by builder Doug Yates and Ford engineer David Simon.

“This puts us on a level playing field with the rest of the competition,” Yates said. “We feel like it’s going to give us some advantages aerodynamically where, perhaps, we can tape the cars up more and run the engines hotter. The RPM and power levels have changed tremendously.”

There are no common parts between the old and the new engine.