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NASCAR Pushes Loose

Understanding drivers and announcers

Even longtime NASCAR fans are regularly confused by racing terms tossed around by drivers, crew chiefs, and TV reporters. Here's part of the problem: Those expressions must first be translated from the original Piedmont drawl or 'Bama twang. In addition, few fans have driven a car to its true limits, much less attempted to adjust suspension. While it's one thing to not comprehend pit reporters, it's an entirely different matter when your racing knowledge is challenged by the owner of the NASCAR team. It's even worse when you hope to race his car. "What's the difference between 'push' and 'loose'?" It wasn't a question, but rather an accusation.

I was an experienced road-circuit racer—what stock car racers disdainfully called a "sporty car driver." We were testing at the Willow Springs road course in preparation for the '93 NASCAR Southwest Tour race at Sears Point (now Infineon) Raceway. This was more than a big deal for a lot of us. The race would run the day before the Cup race. I wasn't the only one thinking "Hey Mr. Car Owner, watch me!" The field would include NASCAR veterans Davey Allison and Ken Schrader, as well as a then-little-known sprint-car driver named Jeff Gordon. It was important for my wife and kids because I paid the tire bill from a checkbook marked "Children's Education Fund." (You might be a racer if...)

My first practice laps produced competitive speeds, but the car was a bit "free." By that I meant the rear tires, while not sliding as much as the fronts, were slipping some. A free-handling car is fast, but it's a demanding mistress who is intolerant of less-than-perfect driver inputs. (Psychologists: Why do drivers describe ill-handling racecars with a word that rhymes with witch?) Also, the sliding usually overheats the rear tires and the car soon becomes loose: It tries to spin out.

Team owner Jack Lee ordered a change that he said would "snug it up": reduce how much the rears were sliding. But after the adjustment the handling was worse. In the second session, the Lee's Iron and Metal Lumina was on the verge of going loose: In Willow's Turn Nine—a sweeping 140-mph right—the steering wheel was pointed no more than a handful of degrees right of center. My description prompted the team to install a stiffer front sway bar (more correctly termed an "anti-roll bar"), which should have reduced front grip and restored the car to a more drivable balance. Instead, the car went seriously loose: It was trying to ruin my reputation in every turn.

That's when Lee challenged my understanding of oval-track terminology. (I'm thankful he didn't say "Boy, the simplest thing to replace on this car is you." But he was thinking it!) I easily passed the oral portion of the exam: On top of my extensive racing experience, I had covered oval track racing for various publications including "Stock Car Racing" magazine, been a crew member for sprint-car teams, and read every book on race car chassis setup. Still not trusting me, Lee sent NASCAR veteran Ron Esau out in the car. Esau reported: "It's so loose I could barely hang on to it." (It turned out that older rear tires gave up before newer fronts.)

So that you might better understand what drivers and announcers are talking about—and pass the pop quiz when you get a Cup test—allow me to define the terms most often heard on NASCAR broadcasts.

Push

When the front tires lose grip before the rears. (Engineers call this understeer.) Severe push feels as if the steering shaft has turned to rubber or, when extreme, snapped clean off. Have you ever hit a patch of hit ice or deep water in the middle of a turn? Did the car keep going straight even though you turned the wheel hard to the left? That's push in the extreme. Just as Intuits have many words for different types of snow, oval trackers have many versions of push. This is largely because it's almost impossible to drive—much less race—a loose car at 180 mph. At least for very long.

The higher the speed, the more critical it is to have some push: At Martinsville or Richmond a just-barely-loose car might not be too bad. Not so at Atlanta or Charlotte. When a driver says the car is "a little snug," he usually means "The car doesn't have quite enough front grip to be really fast but I'm afraid any adjustment you birdbrains make will cause it to go wicked loose." On the other hand, "tight" or, especially, "really tight" means "Try something: You can't make it worse." "Aero push" is when turbulence from a leading car reduces front aerodynamic downforce—and, thus, the grip of the front tires. Trust me, that's real excitin' at 180 mph: You can see exactly where you're going to hit if the downforce doesn't return soon.

Loose

The rear tires lose grip before the fronts and the car tries spin out—and will without precise driver input. (Engineers call this oversteer.) Most civilians who experience this condition call the result "a wreck." A loose racecar looks spectacular—think drifting—and the driver feels like a hero, but loose is almost always slower than a little push. That's because the driver can't accelerate hard off a corner. Also, "a little loose" often becomes "a lot loose" as the rear tires burn down. Aero loose often happens when cars are running side-by-side and turbulence off the outside car disrupts air flow to the rear wing. Know this: With push you hit the wall with the front of the car, with loose you hit the wall with the back of the car. With push you see the wreck, with loose you feel the wreck.

Free

This is a short-lived condition when the front tires are sliding only a small amount more than the rears. (Engineers call this neutral.) While often very fast, a free car is demanding, fatiguing and difficult to race around other cars. Once I had a car go free at California Speedway at 150 mph between Turns 1 and 2: With a very high voice I told the crew chief that his adjustment didn't work. Back in the day, few drivers attempted to run an entire Cup race with a free car. As competition has grown to today's white-hot intensity, some are giving it a try.

Balance

How the handling evolves—or, usually, devolves—over numerous laps or even a single corner. Have you ever tried to tip a chair back and keep it poised on its rear legs? After a few beers? It's only slightly more challenging to keep a racecar perfectly balanced for an entire race. For the first handful of laps, new tires will mask all but the worst chassis set-up flaws. Then the car may become loose before morphing into push. Or it'll start pushy and go loose. With a witchy car, handling switches characteristics during a single corner: It goes from push to loose and back to push. About the worse is corner-entry push combined with corner-exit loose: The driver has to give up speed to get the car to turn into the corner, but the tail slides out when he tries to accelerate.

In another article, I'll describe the terms used to describe mid-race adjustments: wedge, track bar adjusments, tire pressure, and spring rubbers.

A final story from that practice session at Willow: I'd raced at Sears Point a couple of previous times and knew the danger of getting crashed when another driver makes a kamikaze pass attempt into the final hairpin—I'd been both the wreckee and the wrecker. I asked car owner Lee if we could put a mirror on the right A-pillar. His disdainful glare made it clear what he thought of THAT sporty-car idea. In qualifying, a driver crashed into me in the last turn. Fortunately, I still qualified 22nd fastest in a field of well more than 50. Today, NASCAR cars have mirrors on both the left and right A-pillars.

One more thing: Ron Hornaday won the race. Included in the list of those who didn't were me—and Jeff Gordon.