To wing it, or not to wing it.

A recent thread on www.dirtdrivers.com got me thinking about the arguments between winged and non-winged sprint car racing.

I'll start off by proclaiming that I'll take either one. I love sprints in every configuration. However I think that the quality of racing is better without the wings. I'm not a technical expert when it comes to the sport but I feel that there is more driver output in a non wing car.

When you're not getting all of the power to the ground it puts less strain on the motors and less reliance on having the biggest bullet. How the driver chooses to use his throttle foot becomes ever more important.

It also seems that cars are not locked down and able to run different lines when they're sans wings. That ability to run separate lines makes the action on the track much more enjoyable.

It's true that non-wing cars don't turn lap times as fast as their counterparts. I don’t care, IF the lack of wings permits the cars to dice in and out of traffic, battling for position. There are few things more frustrating than watching glorified hot laps throughout the course of a show.

Proponents of winged racing are always quick to point out that wings do act as a safety device during a flip. While there is some validity to that point, consider that wings allow for faster speeds. Faster speeds make for harder crashes. Also, wings do little good if they fly off during the initial stages of a crash, and thus are gone when the car is flipping.

Then there is the cost argument. I think that even without wings, racers can and will find ways to make the sport expensive. It would be interesting to see how many shows you can get out of a 410 that doesn't run a wing as opposed to one that does.

I’m inclined to think that running without a wing would lessen the costs some, because of less stress on the motor and other components in the car. You also don’t have the expense of replacing the wing should the car get upside down.

One major downside to going wingless is cars lose valuable billboard space. Like it or not, that is an issue in modern day sprint car racing. Without that added surface area sponsor logos are harder to see when they're crammed onto the body paneling of a car.

When it comes down to it I believe it’s just a matter of what you’re used to watching. Growing up in the Midwest, we run our sprint cars with wings. If you grew up in Indiana or places out west, you probably view wings as sacrilegious.

As I’ve said before I’ll take sprints any way that I can get them. A majority of the races I watch in a season are run with wings. However the traditionalist in me loves to watch sprints burp the throttle and give it a pitch sideways through the turns.

Luckily we live in a world where we can watch both.