Watkins Glen NASCAR follies...

[Zvoiture]

Was just catching some HOT Neck-car action on SPEEDVISION. One of the only two real NASCAR races per season. It's so funny to see these guys navigate Watkins Glen! It's like these great, soft slugs or station wagons or something wallowing over the hills and around curves. They use EVERY POSSIBLE inch of the track. Still, it beats left, left, left, left......

steve77

[owenk]

I go to the NASCAR Feather Weight race the day before the big boys and it great fun to see these guys lean all over one another. My favorite spot is turn 2. The track is wide and it is a right hander with drop at the top so into the dirt they go and then back onto the trackROFL . Lots of fun. By the end of the 100 laps you have cars with out any body front body panels running around the track! Then after the race you can go back in the pits and look at the sheet metal with rubber up and down the sides.

[Ed]

I've never been able to get a liking for the left, left, left, left, kind of track. When these boys do use a road coarse things sure get interesting.

[JEFF]

Hey ED--

You might like 'left turns' if you see 1/8 mile (not 1/4) DIRT TRACK

Sprint car races! Those hillbillys can wake up the croud !!

- jeff

[Zvoiture]

1/8 mile (not 1/4) DIRT TRACK >>>>

Yeah, there is one of these tracks a few miles down the road! I have never been, but I met a gut the other day who own/drives one of these sprint cars--they look ike flattened stock cars with really bad body work. I can't imagine what it would be like...the track is SOOOO small. It's like a football field! These guys are pretty serious, though. The car he has is BUILT. As I recall, it is a Mopar built out to about 500 inches with mechanical FI--no battery, electronics, starter--nothing.

steve77

[hmsports]

My first experience with racing was as a crew chief on a 72 Camaro that we built to run at Colorado National Speedway -- a 3/8 mile paved oval. Talk about fast! It was pretty exciting to see some of those late models crank around there.

But, my true love is road racing. With oval racing its... gas, lift, left, gas, lift, left ... repeat ad nauseum.

At least with road racing you have to be able to shift and heel-and-toe and think about more than just four turns.

[Ed]

Is that 1/8 mile sprint car, open wheel? Those boys are nuts! Don't they have some kind of leash for there arms so that incase of a crash your arm doesn't go flying off.

[hmsports]

Ed,

Even in road racing for open cockpit cars you are required to leash your arms to your harness. This is to keep them tucked in just in case you turn over.

[Zvoiture]

I interviewed for a management position in LA for Marco Fireplaces ('zero-clearance' sheetmetal firplace inserts you see in all new construction--at least here in CA) and the owner took me to this horrid part of LA to tour the assembly plant. We walked along this elevated platform and looked down on HUNDREDS of mexicans working to stamp out the multitude of sheet-metal pieces that go into one of these things. All of them wore heavy cuffs around their wrists attached by long straps to the wall behind them. They were set to exactly the right length so their hands would not reach the jaws of the machine. Way off topic, I know, but the image was kinda burned into my eyes...

Sorry about that!.....Back to racing!

steve77

[JEFF]

Zvoiture

To see a 750 hp. GO-CART come out of turn 4 with both front wheels off the ground ( one a little higher than the other from frame twist ) is way to cool. THEN they reach 115 mph. in less than 50 yards !!! Good thing that thier arms are straped in because when they DO rollover it's pretty bad.

They say that there are two types of sprint car racers--- those that have rolled it over -- and those that are going to roll over!

Keep the shine on the top side and the nose between the ditches.

- jeff