As excited as many were to see Chevrolet replace its SS-style stock car in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series with the Camaro for this year, the new Camaro ZL1 race car has put in a pretty lackluster performance so far in 2018, earning no wins since February’s season opener at Daytona. Chevrolet came close to clinching victory last weekend with Chip Ganassi Racing driver Kyle Larson, who finished second after giving up the lead to Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch in the No. 18 Toyota Camry.
If you ask Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., Chevrolet and its Monster Energy NASCAR Cup drivers have only the car to blame.
“My car handles way worse than [Kevin] Harvick or Kyle [Busch]’s car at 200 mph,” Wallace said at Daytona this week, AP Sports reports. “Just because the cars look the same and they all go through tech and everything, they are damn sure not the same. My car is not the same as any other [Number] 18 or 4 car. It would be interesting to say, ‘Let’s swap seats and see how that goes.'”
Chevrolet, which won thirteen consecutive manufacturer titles in NASCAR’s premier Cup racing series between 2003 and 2015, is trailing well behind Ford and Toyota this season, with just the one win to the other two manufacturers’ eight victories apiece. According to AP Sports, the issue is partly due to the fact that Chevrolet designed its new Camaro ZL1 stock car to excel under NASCAR’s old template inspection system, while the sanctioning body switched to a newer, more precise scanning system for the 2018 season, mitigating some of the design’s advantages.
There’s also the issue of NASCAR enforcing new rules regarding front splitters, requiring them to be perfectly flat. That alone might not make such a great difference on a road car, but racing around an oval track at 200 mph, it means that the Chevrolets have more of a tendency to push around corners than they previously did.
“A lot of people were pumped up about the Chevy Camaro, and we haven’t delivered the wins that we thought our camp would this year as far as that goes,” says Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet driver Austin Dillon, who secured the manufacturer’s sole win of the 2018 season so far. “We’re working, though, as a group to get closer. Larson had a great shot at Chicago. That’s positive. And hopefully we can figure out how to get the speed that his Camaro has shown all year.”
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Personally speaking , I would not want to be in the Camaro on the oval , racing at 200 mph with those gun slit windows . With split second changes in position side to side , and front to back vision at a glance necessary , these Camaros would drive me crazy and probably dead ! When you look at the sightlines of the previous model , the Chevy SS , there is no comparison . Chevy won lots of races with this model , perhaps they should go back to it ….or does the rules state it must be a vehicle still in production ??
Are you trolling? the NASCAR Camaro is like 10 inches taller. The belt line is lower as well. You can literally see it in the image above.
Lol sightlines mean absolutely nothing in NASCAR. The seats restrict the driver from turning their head more further than the angles at which their mirrors are. They basically have no Peripheral vision, like a football player, due to the safety equipment. They rely on their mirrors and the spotter who stands atop the press box and tells them what’s going on around them, when and where they can pass, when they’re clear to complete a pass, and how to improve their lap times. Watch the race tonight at 7:30 Eastern time, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. They’re racing at Daytona, where spotters and mirrors are the more important than anywhere else.
GM engineering at it’s best. Camaro can’t even beat a Toyota Camry. No wonder it’s selling so poorly this year. Camry has much better options too. You can’t get red leather in a Chevy, but you can in a Camry. More options, better design, better quality for 2/3 the price.
10/10 trolling
The NASCAR Camaro and the productions model has nothing to do with each other. You can’t compare sales of a family sedan to a sports car
Should have continued racing the Chevy SS, which was essentially the Pontiac Grand Prix.
The Chevy SS is “essentially” a Pontiac G8… neither vehicle has anything in common with the Pontiac Grand Prix.
I wonder how much development went into this car for cup? We did not see much of the car testing last year leading up.
Chevy did race a similar body in the other series successfully but that does not always translate well with the more powerful cars. Also there were some changes to the nose.
Might note Kyle Larson is doing well. He likes a lose car but his team may have got things worked out more than the others.
There’s multiple factors as to why the Chevys are slower this year.
1. The Fords are much faster due to huge alliances forming that allow many teams to share many resources and build faster cars.
2. The Toyotas are receiving more help than ever from Toyota Racing Development. I’m pretty sure that TRD builds their engines, and I know that they do a lot of the competition research. They also pay far more to they teams than Chevy and Ford.
3. They haven’t ran enough races at each track to have enough notes on tuning with the new body.
4. The Chevys are split into alliances, each using their own Engines, chassis, bodies, and other equipment. Each alliance consists of 6 teams. If all the Chevy organizations were to align and combine their research, engineering, and fabrication work, they would dominate the series.
Bubba needs the right setup and the right mentor telling what to do. Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Alex Bowman have not complained about their restrictor plate cars all year, and Elliott and Bowman are starting 1-2 tonight at Daytona. Heck, Chase won the pole by a quarter of a second, which is absolutely huge during a 46 second lap around a 2.5 mile track. The speed is there, but the setups and cooperation aren’t.
That NASCAR is no more a Camaro than the wheelbarrow in my back yard. NASCAR needs to take the SC out of its name because it hasn’t raced stock cars since the 1980s. And (hint, hint) racing was way more exciting back then. Meanwhile I’ll be at the local dirt track.
You can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig. The problem is not Chevy or the Camaro, its NASCAR and their awful spec series. It is the reason the series is dying. No one wants to watch basically the same car go around with only the front being brand specific. NASCAR should take a page from Aussie Supercars and use cars that look like that.
Well if they ran all road courses that would work but even the Aussie series is more a spec series now.
The truth is racing is in trouble in all series as attendance is down.
The truth is most sports attendance is down.
NASCARS biggest issue other than lacking an Earnhardt is the points system. I was a long time fan back to the late 60’s. We watched all season for the driver who scored the most points all year to win a championship,
But they went to the chase playoffs. That lost me when a driver who sat out half the year became champion. Then ‘this stage crap is just another way to try to create drama that needs not created.
If they just let them race and more short tracks. Cup should be running at Eldora for at least one dirt race.
Also add Mid Ohio and Road Atlanta.
NASCAR wants ford to win the championship this year as it had been 15+ years since ford has won and toytota has won 2. they are worried after ford spent all that money to buy up winning chevy teams and they don’t win they will leave. get rid of the splitters and get the air going under the car not over and you will see some better racing.
This is what happens when you get lazy and don’t spend the time necessary in the wind tunnel to make the necessary tweaks.
Get rid of the spotters! The driver is suppose to drive the car by himself not with the aid of a spotter.
The spotter will tell the driver what lane is the best to be in, when to move up or down to block, what the other drivers are doing.
Give the drivers all the mirrors or a camera with a in car screen to see and make him decide when he has enough room to make a pass.
Now if a spotter or crew chief wants to tell a driver go low because theres a crash then that’s perfectly fine. Or give info about the car, damage, handling.
This will make driving more exciting
Brian if you have ever been in one of these cars you would understand you can not see out easily with the new seats we have.
You remove the spotters you will kill someone.
Cameras will not work as they would be damaged.
They already have a number of mirrors but they are limited in effect.
Being a spotter is not an easy thing and even with their help the effects are limited.
I will agree with you on the mirrors. The rest are excuses! I have sat in a cup car, and yes it’s very restrictive. So change the dam seats and put in more mirrors.
These drives are supposed to be the best in the world and they are being babysat around the track.
A spotter helping a driver get threw a crash is perfectly fine, telling them when to change lanes and pass is ridiculous!
It is not baby sitting i5 is just trying to keep people from getting killed.
These are great drivers but they can not see through head rest and side pads.
They just can’t see out of the cars anymore with the seats they use.
On top of the seat they now use full faced helmets and HANS devices.
I have been in these cars and even used a HANS device before. The vision is limited.
Dale Sr skipped all of this as he used his own seats, open faced helmets and no HANS device because he wanted the vision. Well we know how that turned out. That is the start of when NASCR began to die too.
Sorry for the reality check.
I agree with you the cars are setup so that you can see out of them! So then change the God dam cars!
Open up the sight lines, add mirrors, change the seats, and make these drivers get around the track on their own!
As for Dale Sr he didn’t give a dam about safety just driving as fast as possible. And by the way when Dale Sr hit the wall I was pulling for the wall! And I am a die hard chevy guy!
Again it is not the car but the seats and the seats serve as the platform to protect the driver from neck and head injury.
You can not change this as you will open the door to more head and neck injuries.
The seats are the result of Earnhardt, Petty and several other driver deaths.
The drivers hate the seats but know they may just keep them from getting killed.
Rules like this protect people that think they are smarter than apeveryone else or have no clue. You should understand that.
Then change the seats that let the driver be able to see and protect them in a crash! Dont tell me they cant do it because they could if they wanted to.
As for drivers getting hurt that’s just part of the job!
I agree. The front end of the Camarillo is hurting the Chevy drivers this year. It creates too much drag. Something tells me the new rule changes benefited Ford the most. Hopefully the second half goes a lot better than the first half.
NASCAR changed the splitter rules after the chevy design was done and the new
rules hurt chevy and helped ford old body design.
I agree with you, 1 million percent. It’s like NASCAR punished Chevy for switching to the Camaro. The Fords have not changed since 2013 and the new splitter benefits them the most. I think NASCAR should ban teams from putting tape of the front grille because it basically adds downforce which was taken away with new rules.
Ford is going to the Mustang next year, and will likely have similar problems. NASCAR has always been about sedans, and the common template was designed with that in mind. Now that both Chevy and Ford are racing pony car coupes, the template should be tweaked so that the cars look and perform closer to their street brethren. I personally prefer the sedans, and wanted Chevy to run the Impala or Malibu this year- But as we all know, sedan sales are way down and I guess they’re not worth investing race-team dollars on…
Except for the name, the models racing in Nascar have nothing in common with any production model in existence.
Under the sheet metal is a tube frame and engine that have nothing in common with a Camaro, Mustang, Malibu, Impala, SS, Camry or whatever it says on front.
The only thing in common a NASCAR Camaro has with a street Camaro is the bow tie.
I think NASCAR plays too much favor with Toyota, With all of the money Toyota is pouring into they will buy it out under a different name. Remember when France got caught driving, DUI he was driving a LEXUS, what a snub in the face of the ‘good ole boys’, Does anybody think that SHR & HMS are on the same playing field as TRD. Toyota is now involved in all types of racing all over the world and TRD are using those engineers to build their cup engines. Nascar then relaxed the specs on Ford so they could equal Toyotas specs, but couldn’t do it on both Ford and Chevy at the same time. Either Ford or Chevy had to be left out. So they picked Chevy since they were switching to a brand new body. Let’s see how well Toyota and Ford do in 2019 with their Brand new bodies. Something stinks, I have been watching nascar since I was 10 and am now 67. Don’t tell me that HMS has gone a whole season and still haven’t figured it out yet.