The Big Picture

By DAVID GREEN

A week ago, Racecar Graphic Ltd. hosted the fourth annual World Motorsport Symposium at world-famous Oxford University in England. The two men who presided over the symposium were aerodynamicist John Iley of Ferrari and engine guru Dr. Andy Randolph of Earnhardt Childress Racing. Kurt Romberg of Hendrick Motorsports was also a speaker.

NASCAR engines have gotten a considerable amount of respect at this event, with Chevrolet's new R07 engine and its development team, led by Jim Covey, honored last year.

So it shouldn't come as a shock, I suppose, that Randolph was chosen as one of the leaders of the two-day session or that Romberg talked aero with the international racing crowd. But it raised my eyebrows.

I mean, in recent years, the Brits have to a considerable extent gotten over our snit about the taxation without representation thing and our subsequent departure from their Empire. For more than a century now, we have been fast allies. And there has been more than a little crossover, of personnel and ideas, between NASCAR and various international forms of racing, up to and including Formula One.

I guess I'm more thin-skinned than I like to admit about the condescension that was prevalent on the part of the global racing community toward NASCAR for so long.

It goes both ways, of course. Some NASCAR fans are pretty arrogant in their dismissal of road racing in general and F1 in particular. But at the end of the day, the average Englishman can be so much better at arrogance and condescension than most Americans.

Getting past all that, it's interesting to note that in the session overseen by the Ferrari aero specialist, NASCAR's new car was a topic of great interest.

I have to re-read the promotional line from the British Web site F1 Fanatic to believe it:

In the final part of his look at the future of aerodynamics in motor racing, John Beamer looks at how F1 is following NASCAR in using aerodynamics restrictions in a bid to improve racing - although NASCAR’s efforts have not been entirely successful.

"How F1 is following NASCAR..." Wow.

For those who don't know, F1 will adopt radical aero modifications for its cars next year. There's much anxiety about whether or how well the changes will work to improve the product. As Beamer notes (and Mike Daly will surely agree), NASCAR's new aero package did not work out all that well in 2008.

What does it all mean? I don't know. But I think the symposium is a great thing for auto racing and I'm glad American racing is involved in it. It constitutes a big-picture look at the sport and its future, and it does not have one genre, manufacturer or sanctioning body's undue influence.

In a tenuous time, it's a reason to be optimistic.