MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Aerodynamic Roof Flaps Are Proving Excellent at Spin Control

Four of the seven caution flags in last Sunday’s Daytona 500 were caused by wildly spinning cars but, somehow, none tipped upside down.

Not even the one driven by Davey Jones, the former Indy car and sports car driver, and it made seven complete revolutions as it slid down pit lane between the pit wall and the infield grass like a whirling dervish.

Old-timers at Daytona and other NASCAR superspeedways couldn’t remember a car spinning like that without getting airborne and perhaps cartwheeling. As it was, Jones got a change of tires, made some suspension changes and returned to the race.

The Bodine brothers, Brett and Todd, and Bobby Hamilton, driving Richard Petty’s car, also had spectacular slides without getting upside down.

There might have been some luck involved, but the non-flips were mostly the result of some painstaking work by NASCAR’s safety personnel, headed by Gary Nelson, with cooperation from the factory teams of Ford, Chevrolet and Pontiac.

The secret? Roof flaps, a pair of 8 x 20-inch pieces of carbon fiber that pop up at a 90-degree angle when a car gets sideways in a slide.

“The aerodynamic devices are similar to spoilers on the wings of aircraft and have been responsible for keeping the car glued to the ground when it spins out in situations of aerodynamic lift,” Nelson said.

The flaps, which weigh about 15 pounds, have been made mandatory for all Winston Cup cars.

“The idea of some kind of device to keep the cars upright has been worked on for more than 10 years, but only last year did we settle on roof flaps,” Nelson said. “So many people have been involved in the process that it would be difficult to list them all. Several hundred people and thousands of man-hours have gone into the development of the roof flaps.”

Jack Roush, whose cars are driven by Mark Martin and Ted Musgrave, built the prototype, and the flaps are all produced by Roush Industries in Lansing, Mich.

“They did the job,” Jones said. “They kept me on the ground. Every time I went around, I expected to start flying, but the car never lost contact. It was amazing.”

The second Winston Cup race is the Goodwrench 500 on Sunday at Rockingham, N. C.

*

Legend cars, five-eighths-scale fiberglass versions of NASCAR modifieds from the ‘30s and ‘40s, have been added to the Mickey Thompson stadium off-road racing series for the second round tonight at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Among the body styles are the ’37 Ford coupe, ’37 Ford flatback sedan, ’37 Chevrolet coupe and ’40 Ford coupe.

Rod Millen, three-time Grand National truck champion, will drive one of the legends, along with stadium and off-road veterans Brian Stewart and Larry Ragland.

The stadium program is highlighted by Thunder Trucks, full-sized V-8 powered off-road trucks usually seen in desert racing. Bob MacCachren, who won the season opener last month in Anaheim Stadium, will be favored in his factory-backed Ford.

*

Motor Racing Notes

INDY CARS--Bob Thomas, who spearheaded the Ontario Motor Speedway’s promotional campaign in the early ‘70s, may come out of retirement to join President Tony George and Chairman Jack Long of the Indy Racing League to help promote the new Indy car series scheduled to start next year. . . . Mauricio Gugelmin of Brazil, a former Formula One driver, will join former Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan in Pac West’s Reynard-Ford Cosworths this season. The opening race is March 5 through the streets of Miami.

*

LAND SPEED--Al Teague, holder of the world land-speed record for piston-driven cars at 409.986 m.p.h., will leave Wednesday for Australia, where he will try to better his record on Lake Gairdner, near Adelaide.