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Evolution of Gearboxes and Driving Techniques

33:20
48:12
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At 33:20 in

Ricky Rudd Bought His Old NASCAR Road Course Car Back! (Bonus IROC Dodge Daytona)

What happens here

Ricky Rudd discusses the specialized gearboxes used in NASCAR road courses and how they transformed driving techniques. He explains that older cars required 'heel-toe downshifting,' where drivers would use their heel and toe simultaneously to manage the brake and throttle during downshifts. This was critical to avoid 'wheel hop' (rear wheel lock-up) and prevent damage to the drivetrain. With the introduction of the Jericho gearbox, drivers could directly engage lower gears without complex footwork, changing the entire approach to braking and acceleration on road courses.

Goal: Explain the impact of gearbox changes on NASCAR road course driving.

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championship for that year this car would have gone on display across Dodge dealers all the way across the United States everywhere so this thing was on display just like you see it here now well what happened is uh at the end of that year I get a call from Jay snoy who runs irck he said Ricky I got are you interested in that irck car would you like to have the body panels off of it I can't give you the whole car because we're we're pulling the uh sheet metal in this case fiberglass body we're pulling all the bodyw work off we can't I'd like to uh get you to chassis but we need these cars for the next year for the next season he said but I've got these body panels and if you want them he said I'll bring them to your shop in in morville this is the time I had my my own shop at this time so this would have been so 94 the championship was W in '92 so somewhere between 94 and 98 99 J signo got that call from Jay he says this uh I got all these body panels he said I'll bring them to to Charlotte if you wanted I got a truck coming down there next week I said man that would be great I'd love to have that so that explains the body work so the body panels went up in the attic uh at RPM shop my Ray shop in morisville they went up in the attic and I didn't know what to do with them at the time and then uh I think it was Bill Engel the crew chief at the time surprised me I had no idea this was going on is that chassis was a chassis uh one of our tide 10 chassis and I'm not sure what happened to it it must have gotten wrecked put out the pasture uh they sent it out put a clip on it snout on it but anyway it sat back in the shop I didn't know this during the two or three weeks during Christmas during the Christmas time uh Engel sent that car out I can't remember who did it but they he sent it to a local Builder and he sent the body panels over there and and this is what came back so we used it in our showroom at our at Red Motorsports we used it out the showroom we would sit a tide 10 car out there and this used to live in the showroom excuse me and so it it it's basically a rolling chassis it doesn't have a motor in it uh it's got everything under it except for motor and transmission um but we again it's more of a a prop we used it just to sort of sit around and uh uh and it it its purpose well I didn't realize that these bodies are they're nonexistent uh what I understand is only one other Dodge Daytona in existence and Roger Pensky owns that is what I understand yeah…

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