The first stop at the two short tracks is behind us, and true to form, it has stirred the blood and fueled rivalries again. You get the sense that Gibbs vs. Hendrick will be the NASCAR version of Ferrari v. McLaren. Kyle dominates Bristol and rips on Dale Jr., and a week later later the 48 gives the 11 the dirty slide job to win the race. I know the 17 won the first two races, but Gibbs and Hendrick are the two best teams, and it will be fun to see the battle throughout the season.

I want to divulge in a more technical topic for a change, but not quite yet. I have to first say that I made a magnificent dinner last night. I got inspired and went to the grocery store and picked up some Cod fillets. I baked them in a bed of lemon juice, green peppers, and jumbo scallions. I served pine nut couscous on the side and I took the rest of my leftover cabbage from my St.Patricks day feast and made some homemade slaw. MMMMM...loved it.

I had been seeing cars come on the 7 post recently with rear anti-roll bars (ARBs) in them. I thought this was weird, because these were outlawed for all tracks 1 mile and over for the last bunch of years. So I thought the teams were doing some 007 stuff, but it turns out, the rule was changed. You can run them everywhere now (but maybe not the speedways), so I thought I would explain ARBs for a moment.

ARBs tie the right side of the suspension to the left side of the suspension, and they add stiffness that helps the car resist roll. Resisting roll helps in a couple of ways. It helps to keep the camber of the tires at a more desirable angle, and it allows the car body to stay flatter and in a better aerodynamic position. The normal 4 springs help to keep the car from rolling a little bit too, but to be able to do it as well as an ARB, you would have to run really big springs. Running big springs, especially at a track like Texas, will hurt your downforce and increase drag, which is the opposite of going fast. What the evolution (not intelligent design) of the cup car has led us to, is running soft springs at the front, with a big ARB. This lets the nose of the car travel to an aerodynamically advantageous position and still keeps the car from rolling over.

This picture shows one side of the ARB on a mini. Couldn't find a good picture of a cup car ARB, but it looks almost identical.

Rear ARBs do the same thing. Addind an ARB at the rear will make a car turn better, so running them at short tracks and flat tracks will be an advantage. The one big difference between the front and the rear ARBs is that the front ARBs will be anywhere from 1.25" in diameter, up to 3" in diameter, and are usually over 2" at 1.5 mile tracks. At the rear, they are much smaller, and are usually about 1/2" in diameter. So the effect is much smaller at the back. I do not know why NASCAR banned rear bars in the first place, as it did not save anyone any money.

Predictions for this week. Back to the big tracks again, so you have to bet on who was fast at Atlanta. Look for the Penske cars to be strong, as well as the Roush and Hendrick cars. I will go for a Mark Martin win, and I will pick the 6 to rebound from his crappy season for a top 10. I think RGM will fair better at the bigger track and a top 25 is in the cards I think.