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

I was trying to get some idea how fast the sprint cars are going at Huset's. For example last night Brook Tattnell's lap of 11.0 seconds equates to 122.7 mph.  Is that correct or is my math wrong. I figured it out for a 3/8 mile track 

It is closer to 1/4 than it is a 3/8's use .28 or what ever 

 Using that size is comes out to 91.6 mph. That seems more realistic. Thanks. 

I know they always say a cage fight at a 100mph. Back in the day an old school guy walked it with a wheel, and i had heard what he came up with but can not remember

Cant somebody just shoot them with a radar gun coming down the backstretch headed to 3 and 4 as that would seemingly be where they are the fastest

They used to say "a cage fight at 130 mph", but they haven't said that in a while.

If you go to Google maps and measure it, you'll come up with about .28 miles in the upper groove, about .27 in the lower groove where the groove is during time trials. That works out to 88 to 92 mph average. Average- faster on the straights, slower in the corners.

Note:I measure 1652 feet around, if a car was driving on top of the wall all the way around. 1652 feet equals just shy of

3/8 mile.

Interesting.  About 10 years ago I did the same thing and came up with .3 miles on the bottom groove and .33 miles on the wall.  I wonder what the difference is?  Also not to nit-pick but 1652 feet is between .30 and .31 of a mile.  3/8 of a mile would be .375.

I see what you're saying. .30 or .31 is more than a little bit shy of 3/8 mile.

Using GPS, I measured Husets at .272 miles (1436 feet) at the mid-point between the inside and outside walls (infield berm in the corners).  We use this measurement for average speeds at World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series events.

Thanks for the input.

Some years back, in reference to Husets advertizing that it was "The fastest 3/8 mile track in the upper midwest"  some of the locals used to joke that Husets was the fastest 9/32 mile track in the upper midwest. 

9/32 = .28125

That was quite close, actually.

Easily over 100

When I was a kid in the mid 90s, my dad had tickets in the turn one suites. There was a guy that also had tickets that brought a radar gun and if I remember correctly the 410s would go about 125 down the front stretch. I think the guy was Archie Beal and he owned the Budweiser distributor in town. He was quite the character and a huge Marty Barber fan. 

Sorry I wasn't trying to nitpick, I was really double checking myself.  But does anyone know how it came to be that they claimed it was 3/8 of a mile?  My theory has always been that tracks want to exagerate their size because it makes the speeds faster.  But I don't know of any other tracks doing this.

No worries. I didn't feel like you were nitpicking. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can recall a time when Husets had a uniformed law officer radar checking speeds at the end of the front straight. I think that was maybe mid to late 80's? It was probably a Minnehaha County sheriff's deputy. They used to have off-duty deputies work security at the track.

I tried sending you an email through the HH email server, but apparently its not working today.

But your comment about exaggerating track lengths is correct, either some tracks have tried to use that tactic in the past, or simply didn't measure it and guessed.

This subject comes up about every year on the HH forums - and it's a good topic.

A lot of details on this subject can be found at this previous HH post:

http://hoseheadforums.com/forum.cfm?ThreadID=115447#thread575986

Have a great racing weekend to everyone out there!