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

A 410 will use about 950 pounds per hour of fuel on average between 7000-8000 rpm.  That equates to .26 pounds per second (950/60min/60sec).  If the average lap time is 17 seconds it will burn 4.42 pounds of fuel per lap. (.26 x 17).  If a gallon of fuel weighs roughly 7 pounds, 4.42 pounds divided by 7 pounds equals .63 gallons per lap.  In 25 laps you would burn 15.75 gallons of fuel (25 x .63).  By the time you add start up, idling, warm up laps and a couple of cautions it averages out to be about 1 gallon per lap.  Better to have too much than too little as you won't get paid if you run out of fuel.  A 360 burns about .5 gallon per lap.

The days of being able to transfer through to the A main from the non-qualifiers are pretty much over as far as I am concerned.  This is no dis-credit to the Dunkin family - they did an outstanding job all weekend long (as usual).  But when you a preparing a track for a 50 lap feature, it is just too wet early to allow for enough passing through the D, C and B mains.  For example, lets take Donny Schatz's best lap being .5 seconds better than the field and stick him 21st in the C main.  We have to deduct .2 seconds for clean air.  He then has 15 laps at .3 seconds faster than the field to make up 7 spots and get a transfer.  If he made every lap perfect and the race ran non-stop his performance advantage would gain him 4.5 seconds.  (15 x .3)  Better get a good start!

Moving on to the B main with the same .3 second performance advantage is even tougher.  22 laps at .3 seconds gets him 6.6 seconds on the race track.  It would pretty much take a miracle to get through to the A from the back of with today's level of competition.

The equalizing factor is still the race track.  If I had it my way last Saturday night, they could have started earlier and with less water to give some guys who had tough luck on their qualifying nights a shot with a trickier race track.  Then, during all of their pomp and circumstance, driver intros and drawings re-work the track for the A main.  Anymore, you pretty much have to have a perfect qualifying night to get into the big show Saturday.  This is no discredit to the teams who did so accordingly either.  When the lap times are still in the 15-16 second range in the C and B mains it just makes it a lot harder to pass when the track still has that much speed in it.

$.02

MB

Rome wasn't built in a day......but they sure didn't
waste any time burning it down!

If we go to the time frame and late start, we didn't have a certain Cappy whipping the boys on!

Sprints rule

I wish they wouldn't have reworked the track between the afternoon 'A' and the Trophy Dash World Challenge race.

I have to think that by having to re-do a rubber-down surface and the fact it was an hour between those races, the track could have been worked in to get the night show started closer to the regular time.

And why wasn't the cushion pushed out further before the main event?  That seems to be the most space between the top groove and the wall I've seen on a Championship Saturday in my 20 years of attending.

Don't want this to come off as criticism of the Dunkins (who worked their asses off last week) just asking.

Is this heaven?  
No, it's Iowa....Knoxville, Iowa.

Mark,

I appreciate the math. It certainly paints a more clear picture of the amount of laps they can run.

I fear the days of alphabet soup are gone because the D,C, and B are too short when the track is heavy. Sure we saw some great side by side racing last week, but passing was at a premium. Most was done after a caution where the field was bunched up, we did not see a lot of guys running folks down using different lines. The couple they had were blazing fast.

From my 35 years of watching sprints, heavy tracks usually mean fast racing and less passing.

It was my 1st knoxville nationals. I drove from so cal. Put 3,841 miles on the rental car. I appreciate the way they made all efforts to complete the program. Now why the tire change ?. Throw the red add fuel and turn them loose. I'd bet that if they had to manage tire where it would be a different show. If you change a tire you go to the back. I'm sure every team out there can go balls out on 25 lap sessions. Try that shit on 50 laps. Also it could be a 3 day show. Thursday qualifier, Friday qualifier. Saturday early show and Saturday night extravaganza. Just a thought from a newbee to knoxville. Had a blast.

We need more sprint car racing at our home track.

With the old format it is true that not as much is riding on the Friday night show which we saw due to rain delays. The new format makes it worth alot to nearly every driver. With that said we still saw good racing this year and usually do any other year. The racing was excellent really by day show standards. I truely like having a 4 day show. Its another night of racing. If we all keep hating on the four day show format will we lose that 4th day and itll be condensed into a 3 day show and we will complain about that.

I like the format and understand Mark's perspective. 

with a heavy track it's obviously harder to pass with more cars running at top speed. 

Would anyone be against adding a few laps to the B, C, D ???

Keep It Real

Knoxville ran a horse shit show all week long.  There are people on here that will say Knoxville can do no wrong, but that was the poorest week of racing I have see in a long time.  That shit almost made Jackson outlaw show look racy.

It blows my mind when people bitch about a sprint race being too long. It's downright laughable. Get up and leave after 30 laps then or else enjoy all 50! I gurantee nobody is just riding around for the first 25. If the track was too heavy for much passing the first 30 laps, then how does a shorter feature remedy that? Personally I can't remember the last time I left the track wishing the feature was shorter. They used to have 150 lap sprint features back in the day. Now that may have been too long. Me, I love a 40-50 lapper!

A

Not that often you see fans complain about the track being too good but that was the case this year. I expected Thursday night to be tacky and fast but figured it would be better Saturday night. With the day show on Saturday and reworking the track prior to Saturday night I expected the track to burn off quicker and be dry slick by the end. I do give a lot of credit to the Kville track crew, they had that thing bad fast and about perfect. Trouble is perfect doesn't really make for good racing.

  I   respect  your  opinion  as  well  as  everyone else's  on this  board   ,  I believe   all  fans  should write   Brian  Stickel and   give  him  your  opinions  on  all that is discussed  regarding   Knoxville  .They   were  considering  lowering  the numbers  of laps but  there  board  decided  against this . I believe  many valid  points  are made  by  fans , including  you  Mr.  Caulfield . I want to tell  you  I  saw many  longer  races  in my  day  including  100 , 150, 75 .50 lap races  and they  were  pretty  exciting  way back when  , but  due  to many  variables  , rules, tires , light weight , bigger  wings , etc   has  changed  racing  dramatically  . You  would not  believe  the racing  long  ago  !!!! but  that  won't happen because  everyone  likes  these  locked  down  cars  , if  they  were  freed  up more  the racing  would be great but  the drivers , the costs  and  WRG  love  it the way it is  because   the tracks  are packed ,and speed  of these  cars seem to draw  in more  new  fans  . Then  alot  of the drivers  don't want to  change  these  cars  for various reasons , but   as  long as fans  don't  speak up things  won't  change  for  the better  , to get  more  for your money , a  faster program , and other  things mentioned  in  these  responses  from  fans .  A shorter  race  may make  a better  race  unless  things are  changed  but it doesn't look like it  will  happen  , TAKE IN  A   NON-WING RACE  AND SEE  FREED UP THEY  ARE !!! 

Agree 100% with Mr. Mac and always enjoy the educated input by the best racing accountant in the world, lol.  I had hoped for a double on the Thursday and I think the track could have held up enough.  I would have liked to see the two shows run together so as to not give either night any advantage.  I've been to Eldora most of the night a few times to see the show finished and this wouldn't have been nearly that late.  Wishful thinking from an old-timer.......

Hi Mike, good to hear from you. We need to get you on Twitter to stay current...technology, what can I say,lol! Not a bad show, the rain certainly was a hinderence for Dave and I. The older we are the sooner we want to be enetertained and then go home!

Good to hear from you, waiting on hockey and it won't be the same without Don Cherry and Ron Mac on HNIC...

Yea, it was slow but I enjoyed it anyway. Seemed like a lot of time spent on track prep before heats, but I'm sure they know what they're doing. Legends are a total waste of time.

I don't buy Dirtface's suggestion of going down to 3 nites, previous 2 years Friday's racing was excellent, under "semi-new" format of fighting for 4 A-Main spots. Saturday morning show was kind of a waste too, 11th in C-Main best possible outcome....

However, if not for Blackjack" Brian Brown's shortlived challenge for 1st., I might have been disappointed...

Looking forward to my 1st Kokomo Smackdown soon.... hope it doesn't R%#N!