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

Why can't cars be weighed before the feature? Pick an appropriate number and say all cars have to be XXXX pounds before firing up for the feature?

They need to be weighed after the feature.  Who cares what they way at the beginning of the feature.  Make the 1,425.00 pounds and you are good.  If you weigh them before the feature - streching the rules will be more likley.

Let's go Sprint Car Racing!

Rico - 9 wins
Donny - 0 wins That is right the big fat zero!

Knoxville - Best Track In the USA!
Eldora - 2nd Best Track in the USA!

Who cares what they weigh after the feature? If they all weighed the same before the feature, they would all start on a level playing field. Run across the scales and then get pushed out to line up. It would be hard to stretch that rule.

That is when they have to meet the weight requirements.  Not hard at all.  They would find a way around it.  To make sure no one is cheating they need to be weighed after the feature is over.  It would be stupid to weigh them before the race.  That doen't matter......after the race it matters if you are light or not.

Weighing them before the feature is like throwing the checkered flag before the race goes green.  

Let's go Sprint Car Racing!

Rico - 9 wins
Donny - 0 wins That is right the big fat zero!

Knoxville - Best Track In the USA!
Eldora - 2nd Best Track in the USA!

I think you're missing the point. They all need to meet a minimum weight in order to comply with rules that were put in place for safety and competition reasons. When they are weighed doesn't really matter as long as they are all weighed at the same time, under the same rules. Whether before or after seems irrelevant. Doing it before eliminates problems with forgetting to go to the scale, etc...

I'm trying to imagine how teams could stretch that rule. Can you give me examples of what you're thinking?

It probably would make more sense to weigh before which would remove the unknown variable about how much weight would be lost in tire wear and fuel consumption. Everyone would start "legal" and not have to worry about where they're at after running an unknown number of laps. The problem I see would be slowing down the show having to weigh every car before every race.

Simple way to cheat. Unbolt added weight if there is a red flag.  

I know why Nascar changed to postrace weigh in years ago.  Darrel Waltrip was a guest on Dale Jr.'s podcast a year or 2 ago.  He said they used to only weigh cars before the race, and they watched them put the scales away.  Because of this, teams came up with numerous ways to lose weight during the course of the race.  The method DW's team used was loading the tubing with steel shot and giving the driver a trap door to release small amounts of it during the race.  Some guys would find a way to load up tubing with extra fuel giving them 2 advantages------more fuel for the first run, and if the car was full of fuel at pre-race weigh-in, eventually a lighter car.  I also think of Scott Bloomquist driving through the mud post race because he knew he was either underweight or pushing the envelope.  

How would teams do this now in a sprint car race?  They'd figure something out.  I was at an orientation in a federal prison once because we had to teach manufacturing courses to inmates.  You'd be amazed at the enginuity of some of those inmates and the crap they came up with when they have nothing but time on their hands!!  Now imagine giving sprint car teams all off season to figure something out! 

Best way would be get rid of weight rules altogether. Have they really saved cost or evened up the playing field?

I guess there's really no way to know if they have saved cost.  Leveled the playing field?  The playing field is as level as it's ever been as there is not near the disparity in cars throughout the field as there has been in the past.  Is it because of the weight rule?  Pretty hard to tell that.  

My first idea would be to fill the rollcage with water and pull the plug after weighing. Not sure how much weight that would be but if Sammy Swindell spent all winter trying to rerun hoses and lines to save a few ounces I'm sure a cage full of water would be an advantage. 

As one other said, give them a winter to think about it,the options would be quite interesting.

    I see your point about the time required to weigh all the cars. But given the amount of time they spend dinking around before they line up and race, it really wouldn't add too much. If it was organized, they could run them stright through like a train, one after the other. 

That would be a way to cheat, but I'm not sure how simple that would actually be. How much weight can a pit guy unbolt and hide in his shorts during an open red?

Simple answer that no one wants to think about> maybe don't have open reds. 

Response to BStrawser, jz77, egras, and Rodneyin canad collectively, as you're all pretty much saying this would open up the door for teams to cheat the weight after the scale:

-The same minds that are going to mischieviously set about cheating around a pre-race weight rule are the same ones that are working full-time to work around stretching other existing rueles. I don't see anybody making great strides in the change-o / prest-o world of secret weight shaving

- wouldn't any kind of weight shedding apparatus have tell-tale signs of secret trapdoors ans such that would be obvious during a pre-race inspection?

-How much water could you actually hide in a sprint car frame? A gallon?

A couple of closed-circuit questions:
-egras, where did your screen name come from? I keep reading it as egress, like a basement egress window.

-Rodincanad, what happened to the 'a' on the end of Canada? 

I think they have, but it might not be apparent in straight-line thinking. As I understand it, the weight rule was to slow down the expensive race to the lowest weight possible thing that was going on. For example, if a well fininced team was going to spend a lot of money to use expensive light weight Dzus buttons and it made them 1/2 pound lighter, all the other teams would have to do the same to remain competitive. This kept every local team from having to have a WoO budget in order to race a 410 sprint car when the WoO came to town. So, that saved money to some teams and helped keep the number of teams in operation from dropping out, thus helping car counts.

The high dollar teams will still be faster than the low dollar teams, but the low dollar teams will still be able to be there on race day, and during the regular season.

Research Darrell Waltrips bird shot cheat. Then you will know why they need to be weighed after. 

That sent me down an interesting rabbit hole. A couple things jumped out. The NASCAR teams at the time figured that everybody was cheating- and getting away with it- and if they didn't, they couldn't keep up. The other thing was that they said it was during the 70's when NASCAR wasn't as sophisticated at looking for cheating as maybe they are now. Thinking about the second part, I recall that WoO officials were able to figure out that Aaron Reutzel was running an illegal car with (I think) thinner tubing walls than the current rules allow. That makes me believe that the WoO has stepped up their game on inspecting cars.

Related question: If the rule says your car must weigh 1,425 # after the race, why wouldn't you build the car so it weighed 1,426 # with an empty fuel tank and not have to worry about it?

My name was RodinCanada but I got tossed out and when I returned it gave me this old name I thought I deleted because of the incorrect spelling  I figured I'm famous enough now I can live with it. I still identify as RodinCanada with an eh!

A gallon of water is over 8 lb. I'm sure any team would be happy to be 8 lb lighter. Teams will spend hundreds of dollars to save a few pounds on  lightweight fasteners. I'm sure anyone would be willing to be 8 pounds later for free.