NASCAR Cracks Down on Crab Walking

I first noticed the phenomenon last week at Darlington, and boy, was it ever noticeable in Saturday night's Sprint All-Star Race XXIV at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

That phenomenon? NASCAR Sprint Cup cars driving down the straightaway sideways.

Yes, the "Car of Tomorrow" was designed to reduce the amount of tweaks that a team could do to the body and frame settings of the car as it traveled down the track. NASCAR wanted to rope in the gray areas of the rulebook that permitted teams to essentially build a race car that resembled a wave more than an arrow.

Teams trying to find the newest edge with the new car design have seemingly stumbled across a way to make a car faster by jogging the rear end out to the right side of the car, causing a "crab walk" effect as it drives down the straightaway. Literally speaking, if one was to stand in front of the car, you could plainly see the right rear tire.

NASCAR -- outfoxed on the rules for its new car -- has decided to take a stance and force the teams to take out the awkward rear ends to a certain degree.

Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said Saturday that teams will get a memo, likely this week, telling them to "clean up" the way they're turning their wheels to help the cars handle better.

"They need some of that, but there are some of them that have pushed it," Darby said.

Good for NASCAR on this one, I say. Frankly, the dirt track-type look on the straightaway isn't very visually appealing.

But I do think NASCAR is probably just getting to the tip of the ice berg in terms of the new car.
The new car was designed to be more racy (it isn't), safer (job well done), and help smaller teams race on an even playing field. The final goal is likely going to be the one thats missed the most because NASCAR didn't seem to take into account that teams with tighter rules create looser engineering budgets.

Will it get to the level of a Formula One Series? It's not there yet, but its well on its way. Teams will not stop at any cost -- as long as the sponsorship dollars are rolling in -- to win. And that cost?

From the engineers, where the crab walking cars came from.