Whatever you prefer calling restrictor plate racing nowadays; “Pairs racing,” “tandem racing” or even “Noah’s Ark racing,” one thing remains the same: drivers will be paired up from the beginning of the race until the end, two-by-two, nose to tail.
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| The four HMS cars at Talladega (Getty Images) |
At Talladega in April, a race won by the Hendrick Motorsports tandem of Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., it was the other HMS tandem that led coming to the white flag: Jeff Gordon being pushed by Mark Martin.
What are the chances that it will happen this weekend in Daytona? Pretty darn good.
“I'm really excited about working with Mark Martin this weekend like we did at Talladega. We worked a lot together at Talladega, worked really well together and had a shot at winning the race there late, and I think we are going to be able to evolve with that and make it even better for Daytona this weekend,” Gordon noted during Tuesday’s NASCAR teleconference.
Gordon has six wins in 37 starts at Daytona, including three Daytona 500 victories. Martin, meanwhile, is still searching for win No. 1 at the track nearest to his home in Florida.
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| Gordon talks to the media before the 2009 Brickyard 400. I loved the perfectly positioned Pepsi bottle too. Got to get your marketing in order! |
But Gordon and Martin have been around the sport for quite some time, and both have seen a lot of changes in the sport, including the way drafting has evolved over the years.
Restrictor plate racing used to be large packs, running two and three-wide, sometimes ten cars deep. One small mistake could take out twenty cars. Drivers needed to constantly be focused on what was happening in front of them, and what was coming from behind them. One move could take you from 20th to first, or first to 20th, all in the matter of one lap.
Now, that’s all changed. Just like in high school, the new tandem drafting is all about finding the right partner to dance with.
“You really have to find somebody to work with,” said Gordon, a four-time Sprint Cup champ. “And you have to really compromise, because there are some times, you may be getting pushed and other times where you're going to be pushing.”
A.J. Allmendinger described restrictor plate racing on his May 11th visit to Kentucky Speedway in quite the same way.
“It’s scary to be out there at times. It’s insane. And I know the fans love it…but from the seat, the toughest thing is just knowing that you can’t get off their bumper. You have to be pushing and if you check up, you’re going to lose 20 spots,” he said.
Gordon also talked about the details that go into the new type of racing.
“If you're the car in back, you just follow that rear bumper and try to keep as much air getting into the radiator as you possibly can, and you just follow that car wherever it goes. And each lap, you will get a sense of where the driver that's leading, where their line is and so that you can kind of anticipate that,” he said.
One of the newest, and maybe weirdest, phenomenons at Daytona and Talladega is the sharing of radio communications between teams, even between drivers who are not teammates.
“It is odd to me, you know, to give those channels up to the other teams. It's not something that we are used to doing,” said Gordon. “But you know, restrictor plate racing has always brought a unique style of racing and going about things different for all of us involved in the throughout the years.”
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| Martin and Gordon work together during practice at Talladega in April (Getty Images) |
One thing that Gordon expects not to change is working with his veteran teammate this weekend.
“I feel fortunate,” he said. “We had a great working relation with Mark Martin, our teammate, at Talladega and we continue to do that and plan to continue to do that in Daytona this coming up weekend.”
Maybe Gordon can push Martin to his first win at Daytona, beginning a month of firsts for NASCAR’s most respected driver. I wouldn’t hate it.
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