V8 and NASCAR

[steve_spackman]

am i wrong in thinking that NASCAR and the Australian V8s are linked in certain ways...

they seem very similar apart from the oval and road tracks

[bt52b]

Very different cars, rules and engines.

V8Supercar uses heavily modified road cars, on road and street tracks in all weathers. Races are usually realatively short distances.

NASCAR use a spec car, the so called Car of Tomorrow, a heavy tublar steel chassis, run on mainly ovals and the odd road course, in dry weather (cars have no wipers!). Race distances are long, sometimes seem to go on forever...

Engines are V8, but V8 Supercars used injection, whereas NASCAR still use carb's.

You can download the complete V8Supercar Rule Book in the Tech are of their site. The NASCAR rulebook is stored in Area51 ;) , so good luck at having a look at it.

[AndySpeed]

They couldn't possibly be linked: V8 supercars is entertaining, Nascar isn't!

[Rollo]

V8 Supercars run fuel-injected 5.0L V8s, and the chassis are somewhat developed from the standard road cars.
NASCARS run 5.9L V8s, carburetored, and the chassis are spec chassis bearing no relation to the road cars at all, save for stickerage on the front.

Oh, the longest V8 Supercar race is longer than the longest NASCAR race by about 80 miles.

[steve_spackman]

They couldn't possibly be linked: V8 supercars is entertaining, Nascar isn't!

i would agree

[Micholly]

I'm only a casual motorsport fan, although i hope to get more involved this year. I try to be fair, give everything a chance, from stock cars to karting (as a spectator).

But i don;t get the appeal of Nascar. Is there something i'm not understanding? Some great racecraft that i don't see? Even the few circuits the travel to lead to fairly boring races in comparison with other series.

[RJL25]

surely just having a close look at a picture of a V8 Supercar and a NASCAR would tell you they are completely different? A V8 Supercar is closer in concept to a BTCC car then a NASCAR

[kmchow]

In the past, I mentioned that Nascar's COT is slowly bridging the gap btwn V8 supercars and the old Nascar. Perhaps in several more years, we can run the same cars? That would be one way to reduce costs!

[RJL25]

how? The COT is still nothing like a V8 Supercar, other then the V8 engine and rear wheel drive configuration, the two have absolutely nothing in common

[Rollo]

NASCARS are virtually spec cars. The only differences between the shells of the cars are the stickers on the front. When TRD first looked for a 360 cube V8 for their NASCAR, they didn't have one, so they reverse engineered a Ford engine to build their own.

Up until VE Commodore and FG Falcon, the V8 Supercars were constructed using a shell that came off the production line. The problem was that the rules had set down dimensions which were written for VP and EB, but the chassis for VE and FG exceed those dimensions, so the race cars have had to be purpose built.
The race going VE Commodores and FG Falcons, are actually smaller than their road going counterparts.

[Stu_H]

Only link I could possibly think of would be Marcos Ambrose who is doing a good job in Nascar....and in the past Dick Johnson had a dabble Stateside.

Aside from that the tenuous links end!