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

Random thoughts in a random reply:
-You spelled stoopid wrong!!! You know it all's need to work on you're grammer. FACKT!!

-The look of winged sprint cars is distinctive, but it's also evolving. A 1984 sprint car has the same overall look as a 2024 sprint car, but there's been a lot of evolutionary changes.

-Related: the midgets racing at the Chili Bowl all look like they started life as a refrigerator box. To me, winged sprint cars look more and more like that

-I don't think details like narrower wings or narrower tires would even be noticed by most fans after the first couple of races

-Sprint cars can change, can back up things a bit, and the sport will not die. Some years back the late model classes were turning into sheetmetal wedge doorstops. That got changed.There was a time when people wouldn't accept wings on sprint cars. Before that it was cages. "Those things will ruin the sport and ruin the look of the cars".

-I don't think that limiting the RPMs or horsepower is the way to go. Husets once had an entry level sprint class like that. They just seemed to accelerate up to the governor speed and then form a line around the track. The cars we "so equal" that nothing happened.

-How does limiting the compression affect engine cost, wear, horsepower and how difficult would it be to check and enforce? I read somewhere that after Bobby Allen won The Knoxville Nationals, technology developed that allowed higher compression without blowing up the motors. I bet that made engine costs go up a bunch.

-It seems to me, that what's needed is cars that the average driver can't make go as fast as the excellent driver can. Dryslick tracks, for example, do that. Instead of hold the peddle down and steer, the drivers have to speed up, slow dow, and generally not overdrive it- you know, race.

-The major sprint car sanctioning bodies don't like to talk about change because they view themselves as the elite group. Since they need the local guys in order to be 'elite', some thought should be put into making the sprint car world better for all levels of racers.

-Yes "going fast costs money". Saying "stay home if you can't afford to race" attitudes will slowly kill off the sport. If the big money owners have so much money to spend, maybe they should field multiple teams- maybe in multiple series?

-How 'bout something like this:
+Raise the weight a little bit- 25#? to allow for more safety equipment, more safety bars, etc. It shouldn't affect anyone adversely as the high-dollar teans are still going to spend money on lightweight parts. 
+ Narrow the wings to 4' wide.  Maybe do something with the sliders, wicker bill, or wing angle aspect?
+Narrow the tires a couple inches

-I know there are some people who are diehard naysayers about anything they feel is a step back, or a limit. I have 2 questions for those people. 1) Where can I race my rear engined, 4 wheel drive, 1100#, 500+ cubic inch, 6x6 top winged, nitro powered sprint car? 2) Wouldn't The Dihard Naysayers be a good name for a band?

-I didn't proofread this for gammar or spelling errors- FACT!


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As I understand it some cars are adjustable while on the track.   Not just the wings.  As I understand it not all groups rules allow chassis type adjustments on the track.

Some motors are just plain better (faster) than others even built with the same parts by the same builders.  Ask the NASCRAP teams. Build a dozen to get a couple faster ones. Sell/provide the others to the lesser teams.

I like dashes and some inverts. Having two dashes, one for the inside and one for the outside is more interesting I think.  I wish that all the races were longer. Gives the drivers in the back more chance to pass.  I have mixed feelings about restarts and/or caution free races where the leaders have to pass the back of the field often not knowing who is coming. Restarts can make for interesting races too.

I think increasing the minimum weight 25 to 75 lbs would be a good idea.

What about the Toyota motors?  Unfair advantage or disadvantage?

Are you talking about a weight jacker?  That's the only device I'm aware of that changes the handling but I could be wrong?  And I think those are outlawed in most series?  But I could be completely wrong.

I would be ok with taking wing sliders away.  But I'm not sure if it would help with heat races being more entertaining?

You're correct about the top wing punching a big hole in the air.  I'm not a rocket scientist or aeronautics engineer but this is my understanding.  When the lead car goes by, it's not like the air disappears behind them.  As I understand it the issue is the air that's behind the lead car is turbulent air, which doesn't make for good downforce and in some cases can have the opposite affect.  NASCAR has battled this for years but their new car has helped with this.  So when I say a small redesign of the wing, what I'm talking about is changing how the air leaves the wing or what happens to it behind it.  This is why NASCAR has that rear diffuser thing that looks stupid but is having some results.  Again, I'm not saying I have the answer, I'm just saying someone much smarter than me out there does have some answers that could help.

I apologize for my gramr err but truss me im rilly smrt nd thts u fack.

If the look of a sprint car changed AND it improved racing, I would be ok with it IF it produced better racing.  I'm just not sure those changes are needed.  

As far as the motors go I was making two different arguments and only one of them pertained to this thread (the lowering RPM is a cost saving argument which doesn't pertain to this).  I don't think that lowering horsepower is a good idea because that just makes the cars easier to drive.  So for the sake of this argument lets say they continue to run where they do now.  My suggestion is to narrow up the power band (I'm sure everyone knows this but this is the RPM range where the engine makes the most power) say right now that range is 1,000 RPMs what if you narrowed that to between 3-500 RPMs?  I'll admit that my take on this comes from listening to NASCAR drivers talk about why short track racing sucks in the new car.  I forget who it was said it used to be that if you missed a corner a little bit it would cost you a lot because you were out of that power band but nowadays they just shift to a lower gear and it doesn't really affect anyone much so there's no opportunities to pass because everyone goes the same speed.  Obviously there's no shifting in a sprint car so I would think to narrow up that power band would help a ton with making it harder to drive faster laps.  It wouldn't necessarily make the car harder to drive but it would make you have to be more precise in the corner.  Now I fully admit this could have the opposite desired affect because it would be much easier for leader to make good clean laps where a guy starting in the back would have more trouble making clean laps because they're racing other cars.  But it's something to think about.

As for your suggestions;

-I don't think a weight rule is needed at all.  I think all that's needed is outside of safety things, outlaw titanium and carbon fiber parts.  I've said for years those exotic materials have done nothing but drive up the cost of sprint car racing.

-As for narrower wings, I'm sure you remember the IMCA sprint cars at Husets with the 4x4 wing.  I never liked the way they looked.  Maybe if the sideboards were the same size as they are now, it might be ok.  But I didn't care for those IMCA wings.  But you could be on to something with a wicker bill but I know they've been outlawed.  But maybe something on the car that causes a lot of drag?  This way the leader would have the disadvantage of all that drag where the cars behind them wouldn't have that disadvantage?

-I think narrower tires are ok as long as fit on the same wheels.

I also don't think it's necessarily the sanctioning bodies that don't want rule changes to the car.  I'm thinking every time they propose a change to team owners they get lots of push back for example.  "Lets do smaller wings", team owner "Fuck that, I've got 50 wings on order are you going to tell me I just have to throw those away?" or "Lets change something with the engines."  "What the fuck, I've got a million dollars in motors sitting in my shop, are you telling me they're worthless now?".

I completely agree with you though that the cars need to be harder to drive to make for better racing.

These are just my facts and that's an opinion lol.  

The easiest change to make is the weight of the cars. Making them heavier would make some of the light weight componets needed less it seems.

_My thought is that a higher weight affects several things. 1) It allows the builders to add some more safety into the chassis & driver area without having to rob the weight from somewhere else. 2) Allows for any future mandated safety features like fire supression systems, added bars, etc..3) It would negate some of the advantge of titatium parts. For example, a low dollar tram could use the "heavy" bolts to hold the alminum brake pedal instead of the "light" bolts to hold the titanium peddle. Some of the lightweight parts in engines and suspension would stiil give the advantge to higher dollar teams using lightweight parts. 4)It would allow teams to put real nerf bars on their cars. See the phpto of Swindell above. That would make the cars safer. 5) Heck, maybe the teams could put on a front axle that doesn't have to be replaced during a long red flag. 

-The 4x4 IMCA wings were ugly. They were scaled to fit on a Fischer Price Cozy Coupe Car. A 4x8 top wing would look just about the same as a 5x5 except for that brief second when you are looking at it straight on. I thought I saw where somebody- WoO(?)- was researching 1" wickerbills or some such.

-The sanctioning bodies wouldn't change a thing if they didn' have to. They'd like tomorrow to be just like yesterday. That's fine, I suppose, unless it means local racing dries up and there's no one to fill out the field when the big guys come through.

-Sure, the teams spending all the money don't want to change things. Their money is helping them go faster. You have 50 wings on order? Call and tell the manufacturer that you want the new ones to be 4x5. Some enterprising person will figure out how to narrow down an exisitng wing. That million dollars worth of engines won't be worthless. Some of the parts inside will need to be changed, so there will be a cost to the high dollar teams with high dollar inventory. A case could be made to say that less wear and tear on the engine and other equipment should more than make up for the thrown out parts.

-In the long run, what I think is needed to make the cars just beyond the point of anyone being able to just drive them hammer down all the time. When you get to that point where all that power isn't just glued to the track, 1200 hp shouldn't be any faster than 900 hp. .

Adding weight is not a good way to slow the cars down.  If you take a 3' pc of rope and put a 2pd weight on the end and twirl it in a circle. The 2pds will feel with momentum steady and there should be no slack in your rope. Do the same but this time put 5 pds out on the end. It becomes uncontrollable.  Adding pds to a car that bicycles in a corner it is going to make it snap roll and hit much harder.  Ever watch a slm or big block mod get over ? because of there added pds the drivers take a lot more pounding.

I don't know if you're referring to me or not, but I am not in favor of solving problems by increasing spending.  I'm just stating that no one is going to decrease spending-----owners and teams will continue, as they have for decades, to increase spending and it's never going backwards.  Just observing. 

Although I agree that the wings do have an effect on the racing I am not sure that reducing them will fix the problem. If you look at USAC stats they invert 6 cars for the feature and the majority of the winners come from the front row. Now, I am a fan of non-wing cars and I feel like the racing is better throughout the field but even without the wings it is tough to pass a guy in the open track. I like inverts and I think it works for USAC but it just doesn't seem fair in the winged series, Maybe have your inverts in the qualifing races along with passing points and then you can start your features straight-up, that way you get the best of both worlds and it promotes the drivers needing to go forward in every event instaed of just holding serve in the heat races.

Even current flat top wings set at 20 degrees with no wickers will help. Darin was doing this down south and it seemed to work. Guys were running up front with 305s and home built motors. 

I remember that some group was utilizing that rule. Do you know if they still do?

I guess I'm confused----can you please clarify----because maybe I'm completely misunderstanding your info.  I am in not opposed to a wing change, but it almost sounds like you're saying guys with inferior cars/equipment will be made to run up front as well?  Isn't that what everyone doesn't want to happen?  I feel like most want the inferior equipment to go back to being 2-3 seconds per lap slower, so they can go back to inverts and we can see faster cars be able to get by slower cars. 

(I do not want this, but there seems to be a big push by a majority of the "way it was in the old days" club)

They did that years ago but it's been offset with more development, and of course way more money(and shorter life) in the engine department - from 800 HP motors a decade or 2 ago to those pushing probably 1000 now. I think the weight rule aslo greatly benefited the smaller lighter drivers. Less weight under the driver seat means you get to add it where it's more beneficial. If you take notice, nearly all of the young top drivers are little dudes.

A

That is a very logical way to think.  I agree with everything you say in that it could allow them to do that.  In fact I heard many people say that 20-25 years ago when they first put in the weight rule on the WOO.  But teams continued to use the lightweight parts and just bolted lead on where they actually needed it.  If history has shown us anything, in any racing series, just implementing a weight rule isn't going to make them add any safety stuff if it's not mandatory AND it adds weight or would make them slower.  Perfect example, why aren't the bigger nerf bars on there anymore?  In my opinion if you want to get ahold of the expense of the light weight parts, they need to outlaw what I call exotic metals on the car and mandate safety things that add weight.  Also heavier duty front ends and all around suspension pieces would help a lot.  I think there's a lot of lightweight stuff in the rear ends too that could be beefed up.  Adding 25 or 50 pounds to the weight limit is just going to make teams bolt of 25 or 50 more pounds of lead, not use heavier parts.  I'd prefer to just get rid of the weight rule and outlaw the lightweight parts.  The nice thing is with a sprint car there's not much to them so teams are going to have a hard time hiding something.  But I don't think any of that really helps with making the cars easier to pass.

Your last paragraph says it best.  That's the real issue in my opinion.

I didn't see anyone say that they wanted the back markers to be 2-3 seconds per lap slower, unless I missed it?  I don't think most fans really care what a guy has spent on his motor?  Maybe some do?  If I go to a race and see a guy methodically work his way through the field, I don't say "It would've been good but that guy has a new car or too expensive of a motor". 

At least the point I got from this thread is that I don't think anyone puts the guy who's 10th in points at your local track on the same level as David Gravel or Brad Sweet (and nothing against the guy that's running 10th in points, he's probably working his ass off to have that car on the track) but if he would start in front of them in a heat race, he very easily could beat them.  The question Murphy posed was why?  If there better they should still be able to beat that guy that doesn't have near the experience or budget as a WOO regular.  So the question he asked was why or what could be changed but no where did I see someone say they wanted a 2-3 second difference in times per lap.

Best I can tell that group is in limbo right now. Controversy with the POWRI folks over using the same moniker and such.

I know that cars with less power won races in that series. Somebody in the know would have to give specific instances. I did find this from Darin in one of the videos:

I see what you're saying, but I don't think there is such a thing as methodically working though a field of cars in a sprint car race, especially a heat race, unless there is a tremendous difference between cars.  They have to be MUCH MUCH faster, or they simply aren't going to have the time to run down cars that got a head start on the field.  "Methodically working through the field" is really a thing of the past in most cases.  Every once in a while you get a team that hits on something after missing early in the night, and they march to the front.  Most of the time, however, the math doesn't work out catching the pole sitter from 8th or 10th starting spot if they're less than a second slower.  If you want cars to march through the field, there is going to have to be a bigger spread again between cars.  (I don't really want that, but that's the way it is)

I think that the track prep has a lot to do with the ability to pass with an inversion.  Last Knoxville Nationals one night of qualifying most of the fast qualifiers transfered to the A. The next night hardly any of the fast qualifiers transfered to the A from the heats.  It was all because of track prep.  There are times that a 360 could hold off a 410 because of the conditions of the track. The high limit series last year was trying to get the track better for the heat races so there was some passing. It is hard to do and not have the track one lane for the feature.