NASAR Truck flaps make their debut at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend – Flaps lifting, while going forward
NASCAR Truck flaps have been added to the plate racing rule book. The flaps are designed to lift on the rear deck lid. The idea is to prevent the trucks from flipping over in the case that a truck gets turned backwards.
When going forward, the rear spoiler creates downforce. When, a drivers gets turned backwards, the spoiler creates lift. These flaps nullify that lift. However, many trucks are seeing the new flips come up will they are going in the forward direction, which is not intended.
“They’re flaps! They’re not meant to be there,” stated John Hunter Nemechek to Claire B Lang as NASCAR officials surrounded his truck on pit lane after his flaps lifted during qualifying and he failed to transfer from round 1.
“It is what it is. NASCAR, it’s a mandatory thing so that we don’t get off the ground. The spring, it cleared all their inspections. It was on the heavy side of what they wanted it to be and it still came open.”
“So, at this point, I don’t really know. We were really fast in practice. I guess opening that flap, it just put the parachute out, which really sucks. It definitely slowed us down. It didn’t make us go any faster.” John Hunter Nemechek concluded.
“We just added a spring,” Joe Nemechek was fighting similar issues on his truck as well.
“It was weird because we didn’t have any issues yesterday. But, when I took off, the door popped up as soon as you got on the race track. NASCAR went through yesterday and was measuring the tension and how much it takes to open that door. We just actually added another spring on that door to keep it from opening.”
“It definitely slowed it down, Joe Nemechek refers to his son’s qualifying run. “It did the same thing on mine this morning. The one you want to open is the one right in front of the spoiler, that lets all the air off the spoiler. That one there wasn’t a good thing. I think it’s dumping air out from underneath the truck, onto the spoiler.”
Teams trying to get an advantage or a mistake? “It’s just new,” stated Joe Nemechek. “When NASCAR did all this stuff, they did it in the wind tunnel to try and figure it out. It’s kinda a work in progress. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in the race when you get all these trucks together to see if they open up.”
“For us, we have more springs. We’re gunna hook more springs up because we think it’s a disadvantage if they open,” Joe Nemechek concludes.
“We had a little problem in practice. But, the guys fixed it,” stated Kaz Grala.
“Whoever has a flap come up on their truck, they slow down a lot. I don’t think it will go down on it’s own. I think you’re going to have to pit to fix that.” stated Ben Rhodes.
Christopher Bell’s truck flaps popped up in practice. NASCAR requested that he add additional springs. Which appears to have solved his issue. He will start from the pole in today’s event.
What happens if the new NASCAR truck flaps lift during the race? Would they force the car to hit pit road? NASCAR has yet to issue a statement. “That’s a good question,” stated Joe Nemechek.
Additionally, if the flaps become non-functional during the race, NASCAR has stated that the flaps will need to be taped open. That will be an extreme disadvantage based on what we saw in qualifying.
NASCAR is forming a meeting with all the teams. They say the issues related to tension numbers.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race is today at Talladega Superspeedway.
Related: NASCAR TV Schedule – Talladega
Author: Shane Walters
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