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

Charlie made those kind of frames too I thought. They used to say he was a welding engineer when he raced.

I agree I would like to see stronger cages and less lighter parts for safety reasons . We've got  into this weight rule too much . I rather see better racing, maybe less speed

the dirt sprintcars that chris schmelzle ran where built by chris at lejeune performance. Lejeune performance has been relocated to eastern washington and is now called CS fabworks. we are still building dirt and asphalt chassis with the funny car style cage.

Mount gun turrent on top just in case of ISIS takeover of Dingus!

Charlie Fisher was a welding engineer. You can see the car in the link below, I don’t know how to embed the link on this site. The cage was welded onto the rails that were slightly higher than a non-down tubed car, lower than a mid-tubed car. I think he only built 2-3.

 Everyone always talks about the body work Lasoski showed up with at Knoxville one year, this car had its fair share.

 https://racer1.smugmug.com/RaceCarsThroughtheYears/1995-race-season-pt-1/i-NgjmRc9/A

DA

Raymond Beatle built a "big tube" sprint car with safety in mind back in 1987. His Kodiak #1 that Sammy drove. The car was featured in the NSCHoF for quite awhile....I guess I didn't look last Nationals to see if it still was. The car was heavier of course than what everybody else was running and the chasis was stiffer. If I'm not mistaken it was tougher to adjust and maintain so they gave up on it and went back to the smaller tubing. I need to pull out my collection of OPEN WHEEL mags and see if I can find more info on it. I have seen an article on that car but not sure which mag or racing paper I saw it in. I'm not so sure larger tubing is the answer anyhow. Racing has taught us that breaking up and absorbing impacts is one answer to safety. Maybe in regards to the cage, larger tubing could be the answer. That's up to the experts.

IT is my undestanding that an increasesizofchrome moly tubing & step down 1 size in wall thickness & the cr/moly will be just as strong or stronger .I worked on an Eagle chassis that used oversize 1.675 tubing for its mainrails &CAGE it was one of the most predictable cars to setup. Just another observation why when they build the cages donot use gussets on all the cage meeting points . Also some one should look at the new cr/moly tubing being manufactured in europe in an article i read it said it was much more consistant i wall thickness variaton. The other thing that comes to mind was a sprint car chassis from Avenger welded like they did airplanes if memeory serves the welders were Certified AIRCAFT welders .They also purged the welds & sterss relieved the chassis after it was finished  it on a MetaLax Table which is practice in the Aero industry . Something to be Learned ???? Thanks for letting me rant  

They are building cars 2 inches taller to get the head away from the top of the roll cage more.  That does help somewhat, but I still see a lack of quality welds on certian chassis brands.  Some have gotten alot better. 

There was talk around 2012 about some manufactures testing a bigger diameter tubing, but I am not sure how far that went.

One thing that I would like to experiment with is rolling the tubing to create a curve around the cage area.  If you look at a J&J back bumper, it is rolled instead of bent.  This increases the strength of said bumper.  I am curious if doing the same with the frame for the back rails and above the drivers head would improve strength. 

A concern that alot of teams have then is creating a frame too stiff that has no flexability, so their mindset becomes that the car will not work.

Whats stopping from making frame wider?  At least up top...

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—	
I took the one less traveled by,	
And that has made all the difference.

Heaven forbid the drivers should have to be able to drive the car!