Boy am I not a NASCAR fan (never watched a race) but this came up on Jalopnik Wall ride Warning–Youtube! Chastain puts the side of his car against the wall and goes around the curve 70 MPH (!!!) faster than the rest of the pack to gain 5 positions and qualify for the championship. Brass balls to be sure, and from the comments the move will likely be banned.
So playing Mario Kart does payoff.
Pretty much literally. I think he said you could get away with it in the NASCAR game he used to play with his brother so he thought he’d give it a shot. Not sure how to calculate the risk/reward ratio on that move.
I’m trying to figure out why the friction caused by scraping your car along the wall makes you go faster instead of slower. I’m also not sure how the chances for success are worth more than the potential damage to your car. It apparently worked this time, but he had the element of surprise on his side. His peers are tough, savvy, and experienced, and they may make him regret it if he tries it again.
In terms of outlawing it, I’m sure NASCAR will. It is daring and exciting, and we can’t have that. I used to watch them in high school, but modern NASCAR is pretty tame and boring.
I was watching the race on TV and that was one of the best things I’ve ever seen in NASCAR. So out-of-the box that it didn’t seem real. The nature of NASCAR has cars in the wall all the time, so I’m pretty sure that he has some experience with his car being against the wall and what that feels like. So it wasn’t a completely blind move. His past experience with being pushed into the wall likely meant he sort of knew what he had to do to make it work.
One reason it worked is that he didn’t slow down as he came into the curve. He was going full out and the momentum slung him around. Cars typically slow down as they come into the curve, but he didn’t. He drifted up to the wall at full speed in the straightaway and carried much of that speed through the curve. The walls of the racetrack are covered in styrofoam, so it wasn’t as damaging or as rough as concrete.
Also, being the final turn any damage to the car (which was pretty bad) won’t impact his aerodynamics or mechanicals for the rest of the race. It’s not something you could do on every turn and survive.
This guy seems to be saying that instead of using the force of the car to make the turn (change the direction of the car), he let the wall do that work and instead used all the force for speed.
I can’t comment on the physics, but I can say that that kind of speed in that kind of turn is surreal.
I watched a good NASCAR discussion of this. Basically, as everyone downshifted to third or fourth in the turn, he pops it up to fifth, floors it, and lets the car guide his turn. Because the center caps of the tires jut out quite a bit, and the hubcaps poke out just a little as well, he essentially rides those against the wall like a slot car.
One other interesting point: this was not a new idea, I just had tried testing it, but weren’t willing to actually try it in a race.
Yep, really kind of an amazing move. Just let go of the wheel and have the wall turn you. If you don’t contact the wall at a steep angle, it’s not a crash. And yeah, due to the damage done to the car, it’s wouldn’t be wise to do it any time except the last lap. I imagine the car’s alignment was a little wonky and difficult to drive on the cool down lap.
Here’s an Ars Technica article with a bit more detail.
Technically, it’s not the first time it has been done. Kyle Larsen tried to do the same thing at Darlington. The difference is, that Darlington is a much longer track, and the racing line is much higher in the turns. So doing it provided less of an advantage. Check out the condition of Larsen’s car on the cool down lap here.
I call Bullshit. He should be DQed, fined and perhaps worse. Those walls are built like that for the safety of the drivers, and him possibly compromising them should get him an ass-kicking. It’s just fucking cheating, really.
But I don’t much care. NASCAR is crap to me.
If it’s not against the rules it’s in-bounds… Maybe not for long. Sports is all about rules and testing them.
It’s not the friction that matters; it’s the normal force. When your centripetal force is provided entirely by your tires, there’s a hard upper bound to it, so there’s a maximum possible speed it’s possible to go around a turn (much lower than the maximum possible speed the car can go on a straight). There’s not really any practical limit to how much force normal force can provide, though, so he was able to gun his engine and give the car everything it’s got, and still make it around the turn.
What rule did he break? If this really is a bad idea (spoiler: It probably is), then NASCAR probably ought to make some sort of rule against it. But they haven’t yet.
Hehe, it’s only a plausibly good idea on very short tracks and on the last lap. I can’t imagine trying that kind of a move on a 2-mile oval would be worthwhile, at all. The speeds are higher, and the turn is approaching the length of the whole track at Martinsville.
Plus, as was demonstrated by the interaction between Hamiln and Larsen above, if the driver in the lead stays on a high line, it doesn’t work.
Also, it was a very specific scenario what he needed to move up just a few spots to get into the championship.
Excellent explanation, and thank you! 
I’m assuming there is a delicate balance here between using the wall as an ally and tearing up your car on the wall. So, were I riding high in a turn, and this fellow went above me in order to pull of this maneuver, and I “accidentally” drifted up and into him in order to give him more of a “wall massage” than he bargained for, his delicate balance would be gone, right?
Tough rule to write/enforce though. Those guys spend a lot of time bouncing themselves and grinding others on the walls. Any rule is probably going to have an ‘intent’ clause, and those never work out well.
I don’t think it’s that delicate. You’re going to rip up your car, and possible disable it in the long run, but in a situation where there’s no other option it’s worth going for it. It’s the equivalent of pulling your goalie in hockey - there’s a good chance it will backfire but you have no better choice.
Ah, got it. I’d really try to make him pay, though, were I the intended “victim” of his maneuver. LOL
It looked to me from the video in the OP that one of the drivers saw him coming (just before the finish line) and moved across slightly to block, preventing Chastain from gaining another place or two. This wasn’t really an option for the line of cars he overtook prior to that, as they were all taking the normal racing line round the apex of the bend, which was too far away to move out and block/squeeze him. They may not have seen him in their mirrors even if they were looking.
As for banning it, probably no need - as others have said, it’s not new, will only succeed in very specific circumstances, and if drivers start trying it more often they will incur an undesirable amount of damage to their car. And most importantly, I don’t think it significantly increases the danger-level already inherent in the sport.