Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I have noticed this for the last several years, but it really hit me this weekend while watching both Dirtvision and Flo. When you watch a DLM race, both in person and on streaming, everyone from the announcers, pit crew members, to the drivers themselves, talk about what kind of chassis the team is running. The cars are usually blasted with decals of the chassis manufactuers as well as thanked in Victory Lane....Now compare that to sprint car racing. Very rarely is it even mentioned by the announcers on what kind of chassis is leading a race. Even in Victory Lane, the winning driver rarely mentions his chassis manufacturer. I know some teams have stickers on the roll cage, but most national teams do not, if you stroll through the pits before or after the races you have to look real hard to see who is the chassis builder. .Wonder why such an emphasis in the Dirt Late Model world? 

I'm not in late model country, so I rarely see a late model up close. I have seen sprint cars up close literally thousands of times. To be honest, to me every sprint car chassis looks like a copycat of every other one. Maybe that downplays the difference and marketability of chassis brands?

Late model land, the competitors pretty much know what your running, sprint car chassis you hear a lot of, Yea I heard they went to x chassis.

Do late model chassis vary a lot from brand to brand?

Lot of Late Models in our area but I never pay much mind to them or the Chassis. Brian Birkhofer was our local Hot Shoe before he retired and I know he ran the Rocket Chassis house car for quite a while.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say they vary about as much as different sprint car chassis, prolly the same with modifieds and many other types of racing vehicles. 

Dumb question but how much do sprint car chassis's vary from brand to brand?  Years ago I know they had raised rail cars and I know they had like a max chassis or something where the cage was bigger somehow.  But anymore is there much difference between them?  Even those were just options that Maxim offered, which I would assume the other chassis makers also offered the same options?

Sprint cars by design look the same.  It's the tape measure that makes the difference. 86/41 to 86/39.  Centerline of motor plate to Torsion bar center.  Torsion bar height. For awhile a lot of guys experimented with reverse rack cars, stack bar cars.  So as you may think all the chassis guys out there have small differences on I call them pick up spots on there individual chassis. Bird cages today from one manufacture to another can totally change how a car handles. A lot of teams have jumped on the xxx bandwagon, and that is all about cost savings for the chassis. You still have your J&J and Maxim and a few others out there.  In my opinion the best chassis manufactures are all gone. Guys like Trevis, Ben Cook, Gary Stanton, Nance, they all were innovators each one could have been hugely popular but for  a variety of reasons choose not to.

I remember when late models often had "mustang", "charger" or "camry" on their front bumper. Maybe they finally realized how dumb they sounded in victory lane saying "my crew really had this Ford hooked up tonight" and just started calling them what they are !Masterbuilt, Rocket, or whatever.