sopwith21

I have a new avatar. I think its cool, therefore, I am convinced that everyone else should think the same thing. Besides, this forum has been too quiet lately and we need a conversation piece. This was taken at the Hallett Motor Racing Circuit outside Tulsa, OK at mid-summer of our 2004 championship season. The tightest turn on the course is known as Dead Horse Turn, where, on an unrelated note, a horse's skeleton was dug up some 25 years ago during construction of the track. There's no good line through this corner... you can only hope that your groove is not quite as bad as the other guy's. Whoever is the least bad wins. Don'tcha love those corners? You stomp the gas coming out of the turn and - if you have a new suspension like me that really hooks up - you can lift the front right tire off the ground as you head uphill into a 100 mph straightaway. Fun stuff. Good photo from track photographer Clyde Comen.

Yup... I'm hearing ya. I'm from Indy, so of course, for the first ten years or so of my driving career I was solely on ovals. Last Sunday morning during practice, I told our crew chief to take off the tires and measure them, then stagger them. He wasn't too happy about it since he had just torqued the wheels down... but I knew no one had staggered the car properly so I insisted. 1.75" of potential stagger is just too much to not have an effect. So they swapped the rear wheels and quit. I had to jump in and measure the fronts and move them around myself... my road racing crew apparently didn't realize the effect that the front stagger has on the car's crossweight in the corners (what you would call "wedge" on your circle track cars). Two sessions later, we were taking tire temps and noticed that they were very even all the way around, indicating that the car was riding better in 9 of the 11 corners. Further, the tires had grown exactly 5 lbs each, except for the outside front tire, which grew 6 lbs. That is absolutely PERFECT. All tire temps consistent and nearly equal tire pressure growth on every corner. That's equal pressure on every corner of the car. We lost nothing in the two left handers and were flying through all 9 right handers. One of the new guys on my crew - a lifelong road racer - had never heard of staggering tires. But if your tires aren't right, everything else you do is just putting a band-aid on a broken arm. All of your other adjustments are fighting the tires, which have the car trying to turn the wrong way. Did you - or anyone else - ever try this on a road course before? BTW... love USAC racing. Good stuff.

We tried something last week that worked pretty well and I wanted to see if any of you guys had ever tried the same thing... we staggered our tires and strut settings for right hand turns. 9 of the 11 turns on the course were right handers, so we measured the tires and found 1.75" of available stagger. Since the diff on my car is welded, I figured we could use it. So we put the largest tire on the LR, next largest on the RR, next largest on the LF, and smallest on the RF. Then, in a series of practice sessions, we tested different strut settings (I've got Tokico 5-way adjustables on all corners). We started with the front and found that a pretty stiff setting (4) was just right and kept the nose stable without diving in the corners. Then we worked the rears from 4, down to 3, then 2 and 1. We found that 2 was the softest setting we could use (softer in the back gives more grip, which we needed because of the welded diff). That tightened the car up and gave us far better grip off the corners under throttle. We then stiffened the RR strut back to 3, to transfer a bit more weight to the outside rear tire in all right hand corners. Man, did the car ever fly through the fast right handers after that! We had already set our coilovers and ride height and were satisfied with it, so the only thing left to manipulate was tire pressure. We made some changes there but the car didn't notice the difference that much. The struts and the stagger were what did the trick. We were so busy testing that we just tested right through qualifying without ever trying to make THE hot lap. We still qualified third of twenty and went on to win our class and the overall race with ease. I was super happy... not just with the win, but with the way the car responded and our progress in practice. I've come to believe that so long as we have the welded diff, the car will always be a bit loose no matter what we do. However, the car now bites far better off the corners and we only get the tiniest push only in very tight corners going in, and it is manageable. We noticed after adding the stagger that the car just plain flies through the high speed corners. The difference was amazing. Does anyone else do this, and were your results as good as ours?

The event is as great as its ever been... some people just haven't figured that out yet. They're too busy buying Earnhardt Jr. bumper stickers. Before that they were all wearing "Intimidator" hats and black leather jackets. Before that they were wearing gold chains and buying Bee Gees records. Be patient with them. The Indy 500 was the greatest race in the world fifty years before they were born and it will be fifty years after they're dead. Don't expect too much from them. Its not fair. They'll figure it out eventually.

I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy. It is absolutely sincere. And I believe I am uniquely qualified to make such a defense. I raced from '85 to '98 before I ever got my first good, brand new racecar. That's a LONG time to get run over. I've heard the same snickers as you. I've been told that I was just "in the way." I've been embarassed and laughed at, and I swore that when I became a successful driver that I would NEVER belittle others and I would defend those who struggled. After getting my first new car in '99, I shot straight to the front of the pack. Since then I've won races in every year but '03, I've won two championship titles and raced on national television for over a hundred thousand dollar purse. I'm not famous and have never driven at the highest level of the sport, but at least I'm successful on the track now... and I remain a staunch defender of those who aren't. As you might imagine, those experiences have made me a passionate defender of people like Vitolo and Jack Miller, and every other driver at every level who worked and sacrificed for what he wanted. Those experiences have made me realize that its much more difficult to drive a bad car than it is a good one, and that the real test of driving is not where you finish, but what you do with the hand you've been dealt. Those experiences have shown me that if it weren't for the slow guys, the fastest guy would have no one to pass... perhaps he should be a bit more grateful. And most of all, those experiences have taught me that cheap, Monday-morning, second rate armchair critics are the lowest and most self-absorbed form of life on the planet.

Rant mode "ON." I liked Vitolo from day one. I like anyone who sacrifices that much to achieve his dream. I don't care if he finished dead last in every race he ever entered... that sort of man has more guts than a mountain lion and his critics aren't worth the oxygen they waste. Vitolo put up with all the criticizm, all the pundits and all the naysayers. He had to pick up the newspaper every Monday and read how awful he was and watch while every self-appointed racing expert in the country made fun of him. On the wall of my racing office where I sit now as I type this, I still have a newspaper article on Dennis from May of 1994. The title reads "Perseverance, Sacrifice Find Spot on Grid." Vitolo truly sacrificed to achieve his dream and I respect that. The same goes for Jack Miller, who was personally targeted by motorsports columnist Robin Miller. For three years - until even the Indianapolis Star got so sick of his mouth that they fired him - Robin did everything in his power to destroy Jack Miller's racing career. I had lunch with Jack a while back and he commented that he had all of his official Indy 500 portraits on his wall, and that every time he heard more criticizm he would look at the wall and remember that no matter what they wrote or what they said, he had been in the Indy 500 and they hadn't. I think that CART was eventually stupid enough to give Robin Miller another job... Robin is living proof that - unfortunately - you can still make a nice living in journalism by hacking up other people. Working in the media and in motorsports, I can assure you that Jack, Dennis and others like them are personally hurt when they spend their lives in pursuit of a dream only to have everyone criticize them when they finally make it. No matter who you are or how well you try to hide it, when others talk about you publicly in such a way, it is very painful and it leaves a mark. I tip my hat to Dennis Vitolo, Jack Miller and all the other drivers who had to work for what they got instead of having it handed to them on a silver platter, and I again express my utter nauseating disgust with those who make a living by criticizing them without the burden of ever laying it on the line and actually doing it themselves. As Robin Miller has proven so many times, talk is cheap. I have more respect for someone who tried and failed than for those who did nothing more than run their big fat mouths at the expense of others. Rant mode to "STANDBY."

Keep talking, guys. This is really helpful and appreciated. I'm still researching, but I'm leaning toward the Kumhos or Toyos... probably the latter though my mind is still open. The Hoosiers are expensive and wear so much faster that I'm a little scared of them. I do need a full slick if possible. Dropping from 10 inches of rubber down to a DOT will cost me a considerable amount of time... more than two seconds off my lap times and I'm not going to be competitive in this class. So a full treaded tire may not be the thing for me.

Do you have a recommendation on an exact tire model? If not I'll check their site and maybe I can figure it out.

The manufacturer says that 225's can be run on a 9" rim. I'm sure that's stretching the tire a bit, but apparently it can be done. It might also help put an extra fraction of an inch of rubber on the pavement.

Thanks... that's helpful. Has anyone tried the Falkens at serious speeds for further review? Also, I tried to find Dunlaps and had a really difficult time of it. Their motorcycle tires are available here, but the 15" race tires are tough to find.

I've done some more homework and I'm looking primarily at three tires: 1. Falken Azenis 2. Kumho Ecsta V700 3. Hoosier R3S03 The Hoosiers seem like the fastest tire, but it doesn't look like they'll wear very well and they're very expensive. The Kumhos also look good, but I'm tempted to try the Falkens simply because they are such a good buy. Autocrossers give them great reviews, but I wonder how they'll hold up at well over 100 mph on a 2 mile road course? Anyone have any experience with Falkens at those speeds?

Yeah, I've been snooping around a little and that's what I'm finding. The only way to get an inexpensive tire is to buy genuine hi-performance street tires, which must then be shaved, plus they have too much tread and they're too hard. Otherwise, its the "DOT racing slicks" which are only about $100 less than the big Eagles we're already using. I wonder if there's a happy medium. Kumho's maybe? Toyos?

I'm considering a switch to a production class which requires DOT tires, most likely on 15 inch wheels. The only real technical requirement is that it must be DOT, tread pattern is up to the team. My current wheels are 15x9's. I've got four good sets and would like to avoid buying new rims if possible. I'd also like to avoid the $750 price tag that our team currently has to spend on each set of new Goodyear Eagle 10-inch racing slicks (ouch). Maybe DOT's are a bit less expensive? I need a fast, low profile DOT tire that wears reasonably well and is suitable for full road racing at speeds up to 130 mph. Your recommendations are solicited and appreciated very much.

I'm not a PT fan either, but I hear credible rumors from inside IMS that he did win the race. I believe your gripe may have some validity and if so, its inexcusable. That much I agree with. Of course, in fairness we must also remember that Ganassi did sweep the event in dominant fashion as a CART team. CART's official franchise teams had monumental advantages, and with rare exceptions they dominated the top 22-26 positions of the 500 for twenty years. The only difference is that they took the top 25 spots with self-granted internal advantages and massive finances, while the IRL just wrote it down. Let's not pretend that one is more noble than the other. Then why support CART? It was little more than a retirement home for washed up F1 drivers and a training ground for the wannabe's. If you're that picky, just trash all the North American open wheel racing and watch F1. And cut F1 in half... there's no sense in having Minardi around since they're not top flight. Jordan and Toyota can be dropped, too. For a real top flight race, all you need is Ferrari, BAR and Renault. Of course, we'll only want the number one driver... no sense messing with the second rate guys. So there we go! Sixteen three car races. Absolutely top flight. C'mon... be serious. We have more good, fun open wheel racing in North America now than we've had in decades. The races are good, the equipment is good, the drivers are good. How is this a bad thing?

Funny... no one complained when CART essentially did the same thing without the paperwork. 20+ franchise teams were allowed into CART. If you were rich enough to buy your way in, you earned the most money, rights to the Indycar monicker, the best sponsor deals, official series backing and a virtual lock on the top 25 spots in the Indy 500, and everyone else had to scrap it out for the last 8 or 9 spots. Nobody at CART seemed to mind as long as it worked in their favor. And the lock for the top 25 worked just fine and did precisely what it was supposed to do. It got the series on its feet and allowed the young teams with less money to survive long enough to establish themselves. When that was accomplished, the rule was no longer necessary. Now CART teams are welcome to fight it out for any of the 33 spots on an equal basis, which is more than they afforded anyone else when they ran the show. Maybe Tony is a good businessman, maybe he's lousy. What I know is this... we once had 16 top flight open wheel races per year in North America... now we have 32. Open wheel oval drivers once had only one option for their professional careers, now they have two. Once we could only watch open wheel cars on road courses; now we can see them on ovals as well. If that has ruined the sport, I say we ruin it some more.

Don't blame them at all. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do to win and I do it myself. But its still bad for the sport. Absolutely. They let it happen and the teams are swept into the ever-escalating financial spiral of death. El wrongo. I'm closely involved here in Indy with all the above and that t'ain't the way it happened. CART - for whom my company was a former contractor - became an expensive road racing series for wealthy Europeans. Nothing wrong with that. But all the open wheel oval talent was going to Cup and the Indy 500 was becoming a pawn to CART's interests. Neither was good for the Hulman family. No businessman can permit control of his company to be wrested from him. To expect that of a businessman is sheer lunacy. So Tony did the only thing possible... he acted to save open wheel racing in America (not CART... open wheel racing from the ground up). He deliberately avoided stepping on CART's race dates and let them run their European road racing show. CART turned around and held the US 500 on the same date at the same time as the Indy 500, thank you so much. We all know how that one ended. They should have done their road racing thing and been content to live and let live, but they goofed. So there never was an Indy car "war." The only war waged was when CART tried to bury the IRL with their US 500. They picked a fight and bankrupted themselves trying to win it. CART spent themselves into the ground (they still owe my company money) trying to stay afloat. They burned over fifty million in '03 to keep the company in business and had nothing at the end of the year. Not until CART shot themselves in the foot and went out of business did Tony take any effort whatsoever to consolidate open wheel racing by making a fair bid for the CART name. A court jumped in and stopped the sale and OWRS was born from the ashes of CART's mess. Tony bid fair and square for the St Petersburg race. St Pete could have gone back to OWRS if they had wanted... they didn't. It was a business decision... don't blame Tony. The other IRL road races are at Watkins Glen and Sonoma - tracks that CART didn't run anyway - so there's no valid complaint there either. Sarah Fisher had a decent shot at Indycar and had she not been a female, she'd have lost her ride much sooner. Its a cold, tough business. She's not a bad driver at all, but she can't say she didn't have a shot. She did. Scott Sharp was in the exact same equipment that she was. She has enjoyed a fine career and was a good and very popular driver. Hundreds of men with equal talent will never be able to say the same thing. The IRL is still having a hard time stopping the mass exodus of open wheel drivers to Cup, a tough time getting sponsors, and they are far from perfect. But they never tried to kill CART or OWRS. That is patently false. Open wheel racing in America has a future... its not perfect, but its some kind of future, and its because of what Tony did.

By all means, spend the money if you have it (and my apologies if I misinterpreted a previous comment)! Its the nature of the beast. But its also bad for the sport (see "Racing Cycle of Life"). There will always be more poor people than rich people. Hence, the more expensive the sport gets, the fewer people who can participate. As participation dwindles, the sport dies. So we can claim that money is a part of this sport til we're blue in the face and be completely right... but it won't matter if we're right because we'll be racing alone. Anyone visited CART headquarters lately? (Bring your own key... I hear the door's locked). F1 gets too expensive, so CART goes road racing and European car manufacturers make a new series. F1 is lucky to get 18 cars in a field... pathetic. Then they begin cannibalizing their own as Ferrari now tries to prevent that bastion of racing greatness, Minardi, from entering a car this year. Brilliant. CART gets too expensive, so the IRL is born and NASCAR flourishes. No one is exempt... even the weekend dirt tracks. The Cycle spares no one.

Never mistake spending for effort, or a credit card for ability.

Slow cars have their place on the grid. I've whipped many faster cars because their drivers couldn't handle the "traffic blockers" and "moving chicanes." Last year we won a championship because we didn't crash in the rain and the competition did. Racing is not constituted only of great drivers in expensive, flawless cars on perfectly smooth tracks on sunny days. The slow guys have a race, too, even if its not for first position. And many times the ability to handle traffic with skill determines the outcome of the race. I, for one, am accustomed to being fast, yet I salute the guys who aren't. The race would not be the same without you. If all you can do is fill the field and have a blast, more power to ya. As long as they drive with consideration for others I have no problem with them at all, and with each passing day I have less respect for the "fast" guys who insult them.

I must admit that the Midwestern Council appears to have some GREAT tracks on their schedule. Their 300 page rule book is a bit discouraging, but perhaps they have sensible people who take charge of the rule book instead of the other way around. Looks like a nice outfit though. Didn't see any Z's in GT3/4... what do they run in? IT?

SuperDave is right, and that is one reason why I don't race SCCA. There were a few nice people there, but most of them rated a 10 on the Smug Scale. They are so busy making new rules that actually running an automobile race seems like an afterthought. Its really a shame, and it seems to occur primarily in established road racing. In my fifteen years of oval tracking in both open and closed wheel cars, the Smug Factor was relatively low. I'm always in search of a new track or organization that does not suffer from SCCA involvement and relaxes the rules. Remember the Racing Cycle of Life: start cheap series, really fun, lots of people get involved. People want prize money, cars get more expensive. Expensive cars make it big time on TV. Expensive cars get even more expensive, then no one races anymore and everyone wonders why. That is the Racing Cycle of Life. No one is exempt... even Indycar and F1.

Does the G Nose require a special hood? I'd like to replace the front spoiler, add four flares and a whale tale... or somesuch combination of aero stuff. But since this is a racecar I'm a little concerned about weight. Has anyone put on a full aero kit and checked the weight and performance difference? 60 lbs equals about half a second in lap times on my car, so I need an idea of how much weight savings is necessary elsewhere to break even.

I think the drum brakes get a bad rap... YES, I wish I had massive Brembo discs all the way around. It would certainly improve my lap times. But the car stops reliably with only slightly modified stock brakes. We use Porterfield pads (part number AP 114) and Porterfield drums in back with Motul 600 synthetic fluid. All other fluids tend to boil on longer runs. I eat up brake pads every third race and I know it could stop faster, but it is a reliable set up. And this is on a 2-mile road course with speeds well over one hundred miles per hour. The only braking problems I've had came when my front right spring stopped working midway through last season. That caused a huge understeer that forced me to brake way too hard on entry, so it was no surprise when we started having brake fade and brake failure late in the race. Otherwise its been no problem at all. I'll certainly switch to a better brake system at the first opportunity, but we raced hard and won two titles with the stock setup. Its not preferable, but it can be done.

That looks fantastic. When people say "Motorsport Auto," don't they really mean The Z Store? Everytime I got to MSA and click to see their online store, I end up at The Z Store. Must be the same outfit... but I still can't find those fender flares. Here's where I'm looking: http://www.zcarparts.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=7APP

Those are 9 inch Goodyear R430 racing slicks. Tire size is 23x9x15. The best priced stuff I've found so far - while keeping expenses and labor to a reasonable limit - are as follows: 1. JSP Mecha 55" Double Plate Self-Adjusting Aluminum Wing from Spoilers4Less.com, $280... OR... 2. Fiberglass Turbo Style Whale Tail, The Z Store, $270, non-adjustable. 3. Xenon Aero Kit (front valance, side skirts, rear skirt and rear wing that I won't use cause its too small) $376 at www.impactparts.com 4. Fiberglass IMSA Fender Flares, $117 per pair The combination should put me at just over a thousand dollars (shipping, you know), and dress it up quite a bit. After that comes the paint and decals. What think ye so far? Additional ideas are still sought.