Brad Keselowski wants rear skew taken away from cars immediately
Look at that, Brad Keselowski agrees with us.
After Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, we advocated for the permanent implementation of the rear skew changes NASCAR made for the cars at the All-Star Race. The sanctioning body took away the chassis-shifting teams are able to do on the back of the car for increased sideforce. The neutrality meant cars had to slow down more in the corners.
And, as you know, more throttle-off time means more passing opportunities. And, generally speaking, slower lap times equal better racing. Friday, Keselowski said the All-Star skew changes “should immediately be implemented everywhere.“
“I know there are a lot of technical terms in those updates that are maybe hard to understand but I think the basic explanation is that those updates or rules updates are meant to take aerodynamic performance away from the car,” Keselowski said. “That is exactly what the skew does. It adds five or 10-percent aero potential in the car and in doing so dramatically increases the wake behind the car when you have more skew and taking it out reduces the wake. It is kind of similar between the difference between following a car on the freeway and following a truck. That is the easiest explanation.”
NASCAR had said it made the ASR changes as a data point to compare. It’s already announced that there will be less downforce on the cars at Michigan and Kentucky over the next few weeks. The lower spoilers and shorter splitters combined with a lack of rear skew could make for some awfully good racing.
The difference I felt between the two races was that the aerodynamic weight that you can’t see, because it is air, was smaller and more forgiving in the All-Star race and I think that is why you saw the racing you did in that race and not so much in the 600,” Keselowski continued. “I think we have a really strong direction. It is great that we were able to run those two races back to back on the same track to get that comparison and hopefully everyone else in the sport can agree on that which I am sure is a zero percent possibility. I am a big time supporter of continuing to take the aerodynamics away from the car to increase the ability to pass in the race.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
