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

I was seeing numbers of 137-138 for Hodnett at Hagerstown last night and that's haulin some tail. 

My question is, what are the fastest speeds the dirt track winged sprint cars have gone?

I remember years ago at Syracuse they were fast, don't remember the numbers but curious as to how fast these guys and gals are going?

The track record at the 5/8 mile Rolling Wheels is 15.952 seconds, or 141.048 mph average speed. I would say 150+ there is common early in the night.

Though the Volusia record is 12.569 seconds at 143.209 mph average speed, this is assuming that Volusia is a true half-mile, which it surely isn't.

Swindell turned a 13.86 second lap on the dirt Bristol (.533 mile) average speed 138.44 mph.

I had a Billy Pauch shirt from back in the mid-90s that had his average speed around Syracuase at just over 144mph.  With that being average speed, and Syracuse not having a ton of banking, I'm guessing his top speed way probably at least 15-20mph above that number.  And that was 20 years ago....

There are tracks out there that advertise their actual length. Then there are about just as many that state a length that's quite a bit longer than it really is. I haven't plotted Hagerstown at this point.

That being said, you can get a lot closer approximation of an actual track length by utilizing Google Earth (free software version available at www.http://earth.google.com ).

(This conversation is actually from a while back, but posts like these resurface from time to time, so the following is a copy/paste, which also provides the formula to calculate MPH - once you know the actual track distance):

PART 1:

I pulled up the Google Earth views of various race tracks; then used their 'ruler' tool to determine the actual length of each track I visited.

Again, this in no way is meant to be 'the' actual length if you were to hire someone to go out an do it, but it uses some pretty cool science to provide you with the information.

It's actually really easy (and fun) to use too.

Here's what Google Earth determined the following tracks I plotted out measured (and each was measured basically in the center of the racing surface all the way around, NASCAR measures theirs by 15' from the outside wall according to online sources (which would make their lengths slightly longer in most cases below)...for whatever that is worth):

Knoxville Raceway - .51 miles
Jackson Speedway - .50 miles
Devil's Bowl - .44 miles
Eldora Speedway - .43 miles
LoneStar Speedway - .40 miles (pre reconfiguration), .33 miles (post-reconfiguration)
KSP - .28 miles
Cowtown - .26 miles (I was surprised by this, I thought it was a tick smaller)
RPM Speedway - .25 miles

Anyway, if you find yourself needing a break and want to create your own or check out some of the cool features of the software, just click the link above. It's a quick install...again, and free. Plus it has a cool 'tour' button that gives you an animated sweeping view of the property mapped.

It could also be used to provide an assist when trying to figure out gearing for a racetrack - as sometimes what you think the track length is, might actually be different.

Then, to take the analysis a bit further, assuming you are running in the middle of the track (which is where I plotted the points on the maps above), you can then plug in your lap times into the following equation to figure out your average MPH:

(Lap Time) / 3600 = X

Now divide your track distance in X (above) to get your average MPH.

In other words, using the Jackson info above (since it's easy = .50 miles), if your lap time is 15 seconds, you divide that by 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour) and you get = .00416667; then take the track distance of .50/.00416667 = 119.999mph.

PART 2:

Furthering the discussion, based on the formula above and documented track records* on select tracks that I've plotted, here's how it translates into MPH:

Knoxville Raceway - .51 miles 14.407...Brooke Tatnell May 6, 2006
Jackson Speedway - .50 miles 15.795- Track record by Terry McCarl in time trials on September 23, 2005
Devil's Bowl - .44 miles Joey Saldana 13.366 (WoO)
Eldora Speedway - .43 miles Craig Dollansky 12.707 4/13/02
LoneStar Speedway - 13.05- Track record established by Danny Lasoski in 2002 (.40 mile configuration)

*note these track record documents were as of 2013, not 2014; so if there was a NTR in 2014 at any of these tracks, it's not adjusted for that.

Again, based on those Google Earth plotted points around the center of each track; here's how the numbers above shake out on a MPH basis:

Knoxville - 14.407 / 3,600 seconds = .00400472; so .51 miles / .00400472 = 127.35mph average speed.

Jackson - 15.795 / 3,600 seconds = .0043875; so .50 miles / .0043875 = 113.96mph average speed.

Devil's Bowl - 13.366 / 3,600 = .00371278; so .44 miles / .00371278 = 118.51mph average speed.

Eldora Speedway - 12.707 / 3,600 = .00352972; so .43 miles / .00352972 = 121.822mph average speed.

LoneStar Speedway - 13.05 / 3,600 = .003625; so .40 miles / .003625 = 110.44mph average speed (again, old configuration).

Obiously, on any given night, the cushion at any track can be lower or higher than the middle, which would affect the distance plotted; so again, this isn't a scientific conclusion. Just more less for comparison purposes.

PART 3:

And here are the results from the Dirt Track at Texas Motor Speedway.

It's always been advertised as a 4/10 mile track...and the Google Earth plotting would tend to agree with that, as it came out at .40 miles around the middle groove.

That being said, the track record was set by Daryn Pittman on March 29, 2001 (the night I was referring to in the last post) at 12.276 seconds.

Texas Motor Speedway: 12.276 / 3,600 = .00341; so .40 miles / .00341 = 117.30mph average speed.

htown is a true half mile,  .5 mile from the inside guardrail around

Once you have the software, it literally takes 2 minutes to plot out a track. So, I went and plotted Hagerstown and it shows in the middle of the racing groove (for consistency purposes to the above referenced tracks) to be .48 miles in length.

Now, you can take whatever your lap time is there, and plug in the length to figure out the average MPH using the above formula. (Of course, that isn't going to tell you 'top' speed around a track, just average speed.)

Have a great racing weekend everyone!