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

I have a friend who is new to sprints.  He thinks he can just build a wing himself for his car.  I keep urging him to just go to a wing builder and have tried to explain what will happen if he enters the corner and the left sideboard collapses.  Does anyone have a video or can you point me in a direction of a video of a left sideboard collapsing causing the car to crash that I can show his goofy a$$ to help convince him to just buy one.

Thanks!

The video of Kenny Jacobs flipping the Weikert car out of Eldora years ago would suit your purposes.   I think the car inside of him lost the sideboard and came outside slamming him.   You should be able to find that pretty easily on youtube. 

http://youtu.be/ZJ3EKnahMIY

Cheers!

See more racing videos at
http://www.youtube.com/user/dagunner

It wasnt that many generations ago that everything on a sprint car was homemade. I applaud your friends creativity!

Jeff Kristensen

If he's hellbent to build one tell him to order the precut "assemble your own" kit from speedway motors...that's going to be as cheap as buying all the different aluminum to build his own...there's lots of waste in a 5x5 wing with 6ft sidepanels if you are buying aluminum in 4x8 or 4x10 sheets... plus you need 2-3 different thicknesses...exploding rivets,  plus entire sticks of angle, flatbar and tubing when you barely use any of them. And you need an aluminum welder and a machine shop to build internal runners. Plus you have to have something to make an accurate template/form of the core shape or you end up with a wing that doesn't work or doesn't meet the rules. When you buy the DIY kit you get to see exactly how one is made, you still feel like you did it, you don't have any waste, you don't have to buy the tooling to countersink the rivets, you know it will hold up to the crazy loads it will see, and most importantly you don't have to worry about it being illegal on dish or dimension. 

I built wings for 5 years but I stopped when I got tired of people waiting until the day before a race to call and tell me they need a new one....and I really got sick of guys telling me I charge too much because "There's only about 40 bucks worth of metal in that thing". I can assure your buddy that if he wants to scratchbuild a wing he will end up with at least 50 hours in it, probably more, and will spend more money than the kits cost. The kit can be completely assembled in 5-8 hours by a rookie.

As for the safety aspect....Dion Hindis driving career came to an abrupt halt when the wingmounts detached from the front of the cage at the end of a straightaway....the same thing would happen if the internal runners or front mounts broke at speed...that would be WAY worse than having a sideboard collapse.

Loose is when you hit the wall with the rear of the
car, tight is when you hit the wall with the front of
the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall and
torque is how far you move the wall.

I saw a video last summer of a car taking a really wild flip during qualifying at Ohsweken Speedway. Didn't lose the side wing, but looked like the wing posts came our of the chassis. Anyone else seen that video? Its on YouTube somewhere but I can never find it, or remember what the video is named. That would be a good one to show what wing problems can do to a sprint car

Real race cars don't have fenders...

It was Jack Sodeman, Jr. and the third post on this thread is a link to it. Pretty ugly crash, for sure. 

Yup thats the one I was thinking about. Thanks for sharing! I didn't even have the right track. Not at Ohsweken. Doh!

Real race cars don't have fenders...

if he wants to build wings, mI!d buy one of the wing kits that all the parts  have

rivit holes already punched.  Can get these from speedway motors.  You could also get  a HRP wing that the airfoil is all together, and youn  have to assemble side boards..This would be quickest way to assemble one.  we built 2 top wings and 2 nose wings when we were young and dumb, but they did work well but weer on the heavy side

Back in 91' Lasoski's wing mounts broke heading into turn 1 at Eldora in the Casey Luna car. I have that vid somewhere on a VHS tape but that'll take some digging.