Fontana, Calif. — NASCAR’s been looking at the ever softening springs in these NASCAR Cup cars, searching for a way to keep control of some of the tricks the teams are up to when it comes to getting a car to suck to the track as much as possible.
One of the tricks that the teams had resorted to is using the front swaybar as a torsion bar, which, in essence. means that some cars were running five springs.
“The intent of the swaybar is as an anti-roll device,” said Ford field director, Robin Pemberton. “Now when they’re [the teams] preloading as much as they are and using the bar as another spring. And that’s not what it’s intended for.
“What the teams have realized is that you can put some preload on the swaybar and it will help hold up one side or one corner of the car,” Pemberton said. “It takes some preload off the spring and with today’s soft springs they’re unloading it where you can unwind the left front spring, take the preload off that spring, then the car can travel further without the spring binding.”
To stop this practice of using the swaybar to hold the car up NASCAR issued a bulletin this past week, which told the teams that the bar must be a neutral part of the suspension system, not an active one.
NASCAR inspectors, here at Fontana, have been checking for compliance by looking at the bar movement when the car nose is pushed up and down.
NASCAR’s been working on the front ends during the past several years as the teams have learned the value of getting the car set at a rake to the wind, or with the nose sitting slightly lower to the air stream than the rear of the car.
Predecessors to using the swaybar as a spring were soft front springs and bump stops, which mechanically prevented the nose from pushing down further than where the aero gurus of the sport wanted them. Bump stops gained huge popularity prior to NASCAR outlawing them several years ago.
