Racing Technical Terms
Technical Terms L-Z
| Marbles | Marbles are debris on the track that usually accumulate at the top of the track. This debris includes pieces of tires, trash from the grandstands and small pieces of metal from the cars. (See Scrubbing the Tires below) |
| Modern Era | The period from 1972 to the present that is used for statistical purposes. |
| Pit Road | Pit road is the roadway inside the track that the drivers comes down to get maintenance done on their car. Each race track has a specific pit row speed. Since NASCAR cars have no speedometers, the pace car drives at the pit road speed on the front stretch of the first lap. The drivers then the relay the gear they're in & engine RPM to their pit crews to determine the correct speed when entering & exiting pit road. Speeding on Pit road usually results in a pass through penalty. |
| Primary Sponsor | The company that pays the most money to sponsor a race team. Their logo is displayed on the hood of the drivers car. Hood logos can cost in excess of $1,000,000. |
| Restrictor Plate | A plate with small holes in it. It is placed in between the carburetor and the block to limit the amount of air the engine receives thus limiting the horsepower & speed of the car. Currently the only two tracks that use Restrictor plates or Daytona & Talladega. |
| Ride Height | The distance between the bottom of the cars chassis rails and the ground. Teams adjust height to achieve the least aerodynamic drag without the car bottoming out & damaging the exhaust & other parts of the under carriage. |
| Roof Flaps | In order to prevent rollovers and keep the cars tires on the ground NASCAR cars have two roof flaps located toward the back of the roof. When a car starts to spin these flaps deploy. The first flap opens when the car has rotated 140 °s the second flap deploys when the car has rotated 180°s the 2nd flap deploys. |
| SAFER Barrier System | Steel And Foam Energy Reduction barrier system that is an energy-dissipating material that has been being installed on NASCAR tracks since the death of Dale Earnhardt @ Daytona in 2001. The barrier are designed by a team of engineers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They made of structural steel tubes welded together. Behind these tubes are bundles of closed-cell polystyrene foam. The theory behind the barriers is to dissipate the cars energy over a larger section of the wall thus preventing the car from rolling back down the track into oncoming cars. The dissipation of the energy also lessens the risk of driver injury. |
| Scoring Loops | When the yellow (caution) flag is thrown up to 12 electronic devices record information from transponders attached to the bottom of each car. These transponders send data, as to where a car is located in the field the moment the yellow is thrown, back to a central computer. The computer then determines the correct starting order when the green is thrown. |
| Scrubbing The Tires | The tires used on NASCAR cars have no treads and as heat builds up in them they become very soft. If the tire picks up Marbles (see above) the car will not drive correctly and the risk of tire damage increases. In the beginning of the race race during the pace laps and during caution laps, you'll notice the drivers swerving up and down the track. This done to clean or "scrub" the tire. |
| Silly Season | Slang term for the period of time that starts toward the end of the current season and runs through the beginning of the season where teams announce driver changes, sponsor changes, crew chief changes etc. |
| Spotters | Each race team has a spotter who stands on top the grandstand. The spotter is an important member of the team in that he can see the big picture. The spotter relays to the important inform to the driver about when the driver is clear to pass, alerts the driver when an accident occurs & is critical assisting the driver get throught accident area, where often the the smoke on track is so thick that the driver literally can't see passed his windshield. Spotters also often broker deals with other spotters as to when their drivers will pit. |
| Superspeedway | Oval race tracks that ar more than 1 mile in distance. Since Nextel's re-structuring of races approximately 2/3 of the races run on Superspeedways. |
Suspension | The parts that attach to the cars wheels and axles that affect the way the car handles. Some of these parts are the springs, the shock absorbers and the the sway bars. |
| Taking the Air off Someone | Pulling up extremely close to a car from behind. This has the effect of making the car in front loose by forcing the air from the front car's spoiler underneath it causing the front car to be lifted & the rear tires to loose their grip. |
| Turbulence | The air that comes off of the car. This is is sometimes referred to as dirty air and can cause the cars behind directly the car producing the turbulence to get loose. |
| Wheelbase | The distance from the front axle to the back axle on the same side of the car. |
| Windshield Clips | They attach the windshield to the chassis of the car and are quickly removable in the event of an accident where the driver needs to be removed from the car or the windshield needs to be replaced. |
| Windshield Tear Off | During the course of the race the windshields on the car get debris on them from the tires & cars leaking oil or water. Some times even little particles from the track cause a sandblasting action on the windshield. To remedy this situation the windshields have 3-4 layers of a thin plastic film on them that can be easily taken off one layer at time to restore the drivers view. |
| Wing (COT) | Replaces the spoiler and is mounted to the car with brackets. The wing provides more stability to the rear of the car and creates less dirty air that hits the car in the rear. |
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