I'm sure glad to hear this. Who knows maybe they will come up with something good and we'll have one more thing to watch.

Mac, my vote is for the one on the left. It's too bad that a lot of people here never got the chance to watch them race. The Watson roadster was beautiful.

Why doesn't USAC use their heads? They have an excellent dirt sprint series (thanks to Staab) and midget program going. If they want to build the sport, why don't they stick to what is going good and help the dirt Silver Crown get on solid footing? The Gold Crown seems to me as a waste of money and time. Anyone who is going to run the kind of tracks that these cars are designed to run on are going to be in taxicabs and Nascrap cars. How many of us are going to Richmond or Chicagoland to watch these cars run. I'm going to continue to support what I love best and that is the dirt. USAC would be wise to abandon this idea altogether and stay where thier roots are and get the Springfield,DuQuoin,Terre Haute back where they belong as a premier divison with packed stands. The only way to do this is get more teams,cars, and drivers. We the fans are going to continue to support. I sure as hell am NOT going to Richmond or Iowa speedway or Chicagoland to watch a Gold Crown Series race. Just my opinion. Mike Tekulve

As anyone who has been on this board for sometime knows: I was never for the new cars to begin with. I think they where a bad idea because of a couple of reasons.

1)The success of these cars was to come at the expense of a great niche group of owners. The people who had cars who had supported USAC where to mothball their investment and outlay a serious amount of cash to support a series that went from being a simple one-two day deal where they where the stars of the show to now being a two-three day deal where they where second tier at best. Many of these owners have $, but the money it takes to run a car like that is much different as maintainence is very,very different. What Silver Crown Racing is and what the new cars race are two total different worlds. Very hasty decisions to cash in on NASCAR hand outs.

2)I still honestly believe that with the tracks that they run at(New Cars) that soild axle race cars with old style steering boxes are not the safiest way to go. They started with a clean sheet of paper and basically none of the current parts would work anyway, so why not use some ideas like independent suspension and rack and pinion steering? I do not like the rear axles being one piece Alum. Not that I like the idea of steel one piece much better, but the Alum. ones should be x-rayed after each race. Especially rack and pinion and independent suspension if they are going road racing.


All of that said, now that it is what it should have been all along;the Gold Crown Series, and people on the opposite side now are sitting with museum pieces, I think it should be reskined and races found for them. The owners have a choice now if they want to run the car or not, they are not forced to buy them. There can still be value in their investment.

These new cars can indeed be a bridge that gaps the past and present. It's a very overwhelming voice that screams for a look that brings back a roadster type design. If popular enough, they could get a race at the speedway. While I do have some doubts as to the absolute safety of the current car(Remember,many people died in the upright and roadster type cars when they where big and bulky without crush zones) it is an issue that will not go away and maybe USAC needs to do some form of study to see if that style of car not only plays well to the racers, but casual fans as well.

If I have to pick from one of these I say 1 or 4, but the noses aren't near as big an issue as the hideous tail section. The only car that I saw that looked good was the Penske/DRC#12. They used the wrap to mask the look of the tail section.

The new cars did not seem very sound air wise as the balance seemed to get off very easily. The new designs have to take that in mind as well.

If they are going road racing with them, if I where an owner I believe I would have to make sure P.J. Jones name was on the side of my car. Could win on the ovals and will win on the roadcourses.

Actually, It seems as if USAC is being pretty ballsy by in some ways basically saying they are going to have a series on a stage that competes with the second tiers of IRL and NASCAR, and on the same level as ARCA, but being extremely upper level for this type of racing. Not just a thrown together series to take some NASCAR handout money.

For anyone out there that is good is good at photoshop, use it to take off the down tubes and shape the rear tail section in a side photo and the car really looks very different. I didn't use photoshop, just a photo on paper and a pen, but it did look alot better. In my opinion.

Why don't you just spit in the face of Darryl Guiducci, Johnny Vance, Roger Johnson, Rotondo-Weirich and all the other owners who invested thousands of dollars in this series, with that attitude?

I'll remind you, many of these owners also participate in your precious SPrint Car and current Silver Crown series. Wonder how you'd feel if they had the attitude towards those divisions as you have towards the Gold Crown Series?

Cry me a river, Mike..... I have zero sympathy for anybody who fell for this scam. When nascar pulled the plug, all of these guys got a good lesson about misplaced loyalty, false promises and "pie in the sky".

If they had been smart enough to listen to the guys, who didn't want anything to do with this car, like Bob East, Tony Stewart and the nascar teams, these owners wouldn't be sitting on all of this useless junk.

Nascar flushed a whole lot of money down this toilet and I wonder where usac will get that kind of money to revive it????

At this point, this car has such a reputation of failure, has created so much "bad blood" and is so "radioactive", that it is best to kill it and bury it deep, once and for all.

Frankly, I think we've seen the last of it.


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mac:
Any truth to the story that you were approached by Mike Devin to do a redesign on the tail of the new gen car and that the final design that every one including you is "ugly" at is yours?

Mike, from reading your posts you don't seem to like the fans having an opinion.
Could you tell me what is it that you do in racing. I'm sorry but I don't know. I'm just a fan of over 50 years. You should remember that without happy fans willing to pay for a ticket the sport will die.

Thank God! :applaud:

David, how many times do you have to be told? Stop making posts using facts, common sense and a level head:respect:. Even after knowing you for 30 years, you continue to disappoint me with you saying the right things and not jumping to conclusions.:O:

Actually, the tail that they had on the prototype had a rather ungainly hump at the transition from the flat top surface to the arc shaped rear edge. I was contracted to remove the hump and recontour the transition to a much smoother shape, so, yes. I did do a modification to the original tail, but, no, the tail is not my shape.