It was the phrase of the day at Dover Motor Speedway on Sunday (April 28) after the NASCAR Cup Series race, and nobody (except for Denny Hamlin) was happy about it.
So, let’s talk about air blocking.
P.S. It’s not new.
Aerodynamic dependence as a whole has always been a part of racing, but as the cars have evolved, it’s become a problem. But it’s not new. Even as a problem, it’s something that fans have been concerned about since at least the 1990s and the fourth-generation racecar.
It was aero dependence that allowed the slingshot passes of old at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, too. Different car, different times. It was to the benefit of drivers and fans back then, though, so it wasn’t something to try and fix.
Fast forward to now, and air is king.
A big part of that is that the sport still wants the cars to look like their showroom relatives. Fans want the cars to at least bear a passing resemblance to a car they can drive to work and manufacturers want people to recognize their cars. As far from stock cars as NASCAR is in the 21st century, nobody is ready to turn to a car that’s designed to race well and not look like any car fans can buy.
The need for, and the advantage of, clean air has been maligned for years, but it was particularly showcased on Sunday at Dover, when passing was next to impossible thanks to the ability of the leader, in clean air, to block his opponents simply by moving enough to change the airflow and take away the downforce.
This wasn’t physical blocking, where the driver in front used his car to stop the pass. The driver behind can parry that kind of blocking with his bumper. He couldn’t get close enough to use a bumper on Sunday, and drivers got loose on their own just trying to make a pass, with varying consequences up to spinning.
Speed didn’t matter.
And there’s the real problem fans had with it. Speed should matter. Skill should matter. And they didn’t matter Sunday.
Dover’s days could be numbered if a solution can’t be found; it was that bad.
Kyle Larson, who finished runner-up to Hamlin despite appearing to have a faster car in the late laps, was critical of how easily the leader could hold off any attempt at a run on him. To be completely fair, Larson 1. Has used air blocking to his own advantage and 2.
He’d just gotten beat, so if he sounded a bit hypocritical, that’s a fair criticism.
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