03/08/07
We pick up the Austin Coil InnerView with Mr. Coil giving his opinion on everything from NHRA’s rules policies to cost of racing and many other subjects.
Over the past few years the NHRA have instituted new rules and changes to current rules involving both internal and external engine parts that have resulted in a “Spec” motor and other performance limiting components of the car itself. Do you feel those actions have stifled the innovative crew chief?
Austin Coil: Actually what NHRA has done is to create a moratorium on (engine) development and of course I really hate that because what we would prefer to do is develop engine and components that are better. Instead they (NHRA) kind of turned this into NASCAR racing where all the motors are required to be awfully similar. That is irritating when you have a part that you know you could make better and you're not allowed to, but is there some reason for it? Well, sure there is. We could have an all new engine designed with raised-up camshafts and all the sort of things that would be nice. Naturally every one would have to have it to be competitive in their mind, if not in fact. That’s one facet of the (new) rules that does save (teams) money in the short term.
What about the rev limiter?
AC: The rev limiter is everyone's scapegoat. Whenever something goes wrong, they blame it on the rev limiter. The team owner gets in the crew chief's face and says, “I can't believe this thing blew up again,” and the crew chief yells back, “It's that damn rev limiter, it came on and just ruined our (stuff).” Well, I believe the rev limiter gets blamed more often than even the driver. I would say, for instance, we had a lot of damage pre-season testing in Las Vegas, but the rev limiter isn't to blame for any of it.
NHRA has stated their reason for the new rules and changes were not only for increased safety but also to make it cheaper to go fuel racing, did they accomplish either?
AC: As far as the rules making it cheaper to race, Of course not. Every time they make a rule, it costs the teams way more (money). The best statement about rules that I can remember anyone making in print was when (Formula team owner) Frank Williams was
asked about the new rule limiting testing to save the teams money in Formula One. He answered, "Yes, they make new rules to save us money (such as) the rule that limited the amount of testing we can do in a season. In order to fulfill our obligation to our drivers and sponsors and make the necessary test laps, we had to create an extra team just for testing, so their rule cost us $40 million."
Let's see, NHRA made a rule change to limit us to 90% nitro. Well, we blew up all kinds of (stuff), then everybody settled down and we discovered that we needed to have bigger fuel pumps and larger fuel tanks and different cam shafts and cylinder heads and all that. Then when 85% came around, we really had to work hard on having better blowers and better heads. Everything we had developed before they made the 85% rule was totally obsolete again -- and that's how it goes.
