After watching this piece on how NASCAR factors in driver weights: http://www.nascar.com/video/cup/2009/09/21...scar/index.html

I wonder how exactly it works in other series. I know in IRL a few years ago there was a flap because the driver weight is NOT taken into account, and that idiot Robby Gordon cried that Danica had an unfair advantage.

In F1 I guess they weigh the drivers after each race.

In NASCAR they weigh them only twice a year--at the beginning of the season and again halfway through.

I don't know how much difference 20 lbs makes but as I demonstrated in an experiment I did in the Schumacher's weight games thread, going 10 lbs in one direction or the other is just a matter of eating a lot of salty soup or restricting salt and fluids.

Given that NASCAR does their weights in 10 lb increments, a halfway diligent driver could skew the results up at least one weight category. A Schumacheresque driver I'm sure could probably go two.

After the midpoint of the season, after bloating up, I'd be practically starving myself for the second half of the season.

That idiot Robbie Gordon was right.

Most series I'm aware of weigh once or twice a year and will 'spot check' weight here and there.

One series I was in weighed the drivers in full gear at the beginning of the year. At the midpoint of the year in the Sunday morning drivers meeting, they brought their scales to surprise everyone with a weight check. Most guys came up somewhere close to their original weight, but one guy, who qualified really well for the race that was about to take place, was over 40 pounds below his first weight. He had obviously gone into the first weigh-in loaded with as much weight as he could carry just to cheat. The bitch of the deal is that the new weights didn't take effect until the next weekend, so he got to race that day with everyone knowing damn well he was underweight. I was a little bent about that one.

So then they started weighing everyone in shorts and a t-shirt only then adding a generic driver gear number. Nowhere to hide weight. Well, I know one guy who decided he could still game the system. He had made a jock-strap with pockets that he put lead shot in. His shorts didn't look strange, but he had a good 5 pounds of lead shot underneath. Well, he's also drinking as much water as possible before weight in. On the way to weigh-in he has to piss so bad that he's about ready to explode and there's a line of drivers, so it's not just an in-and-out deal. At some point he decides he has to go piss. So he goes to the nearest port-a-john and as he's relieving himself, he starts dropping lead shot all over the floor. After he finishes his piss, he decides he can't just leave the shot there, because the line of drivers is not more than 50 feet away, and they'll all be loading up on water before weigh-in and all have to piss. If there's one of his competitors outside the john, he'll get caught for sure. So he has to scrounge around on the piss-soaked floor of a race track port-a-john to pick up all the lead shot. He said his hands smelled like beer piss for a week. Ain't karma a bitch!

I raced in a class where the car and driver had to weigh 1365kg.
You drive over a weighbridge as you come off the track and if you are under weight you are out. Simple and easy.

Slight thread hijack - in my class in Aus, I have one of the lightest cars at ~390kg, but am one of the heaviest drivers at 105kg.

I quite like the idea of weighing the car & driver together though.

Hah. Excellent.

In the European single-seater categories I've worked in, the minimum weight is the driver and car combined. GP2 is 688kg, World Series is 712kg and A1GP is 720kg. Typically there are spot checks conducted during testing, practice and qualifying where the driver and car are stopped at pit entry and placed on the official scales. After qualifying and the races the cars are held in parc ferme and the drivers are required to be weighed before leaving the pitlane.

Hope that helps.

Have you ever noticed that even when the driver is still under parc ferme he is still handed a sponsors hat. A very heavy sponsors hat?
A few years back I noticed that F1 drivers were handed a tyre suppliers baseball cap before the weigh in, one certain driver used to fiddle with the adjuster of the hat and then a crew member would swap it with one that was already set up for his size. By the time of the press conference he would have a different hat again.
How many kilos of lead can you fit in a baseball cap?

They do have strong necks those F1 drivers (from the G forces of course)

Are you sure? Normally they are given the hats in the area just behind the podium; but always by an FIA or FOM person.

It was a few years back, maybe 6 or 7 years. I noticed that an official handed each of the drivers a new hat but one particular driver always seemed to make a show of not being able to adjust the cap to fit and a nearby team member promptly handed him a cap ready to wear.
I think if one was to look back at videos of the races they may be able to see it.
It does not happen any more.

Around 2002? Which driver? I wanna look!




Great story, I pissed myself laughing