The magic behind the shape and design of sprint cars
By Mike Dutko
For 8/6/04
Next Saturday night, August 14 from 6-6:30 p.m., the sprint cars will be pushed up to the concourse area for “Meet You Heroes Night”. It’s a chance for fans to get an up close look at the fastest of all the racecars that competes at Mercer Raceway Park.
Sprint cars are magical creatures. Their basic shape has not changed since the 1940s, but under that shape things have truly evolved. Here are some things to look for when the cars are wheeled up for autograph night.
Tire stagger – Take a close look at the rear tires. Notice how much larger the right rear is in comparison to the left rear. This is called stagger. It makes it easier for a driver to get his car through the turns. A good way to understand tire stagger is to try a simple experiment at home. Take a pencil or similar object and put cut out cardboard circles of equal size on each end. Roll it across the table. It should roll pretty much straight depending on how adept you are at cutting circles out of cardboard. Now cut a smaller circle and put it on the left side of the pencil. Notice when you roll it now how much easier it goes to the left. That’s the same basic principle drivers are looking for. The amount of stagger will vary with the size of the track, and how loose (sideways) the driver wants the car to be.
Cockpit – Take a good look at how close everything is inside the cockpit of a sprint car. See how close the driver’s knees sit in relationship to the steering box. Notice that when a driver is sitting in the car it’s not like driving the family car. The pedals are almost directly underneath them. A sprint car driver sits very upright. He almost pushes straight down on the gas pedal.
Visibility – There’s not much visibility in one of these cars. In fact, when you’re sitting behind the wheel of a sprint car you can not see the front wheels. Now imagine judging exactly where those wheels are as you race inches away from another driver at 100 mph or more.
Wing – One of the questions I inevitably get when I go down south for vacation and wear one of my sprint car shirts is, “Why do they call it a wing, if it can’t fly?” The top wing on a sprint car is controlled by hydraulics that can move it forward and backward. During the course of a race, if a car is getting too much bite in the corners a driver can move the position forward to lessen the down force on the rear tires making it easier to break the car free in the corners. Just the opposite is true if they are not getting enough traction in which case they will move the wing backward. A sprint car wing usually measures 5’x5’. It can cost at least $500 for a good one. They are relatively light and when a car gets upside down the value of that $500 wing can go to about $5 for the scrap weight of the aluminum that’s left.
Roll Cage – It was back in the late 1960s that roll cages started popping up on sprint cars. Before then the driver sat there pretty much wide open to the perils that would assail him as he wheeled his car around the track. An accident at the Reading Fairgrounds that claimed the lives of USAC National Champion, Jud Larson, and promising young driver Red Reigel, who was my racing idol, and was racing before his hometown fans in July of ‘66, probably led as much as anything to the appearance of the cages. They offer the driver protection when he has the misfortune to get upside down.
I shudder to think how many drivers would not be alive today had it not been for the advent of the roll cage. I only wish they had been more common back in the day as they say, so my childhood hero might have survived his horrible crash at Reading. Notice too, that as formidable as the cage is, the driver has virtually no protection from a side impact. Some drivers will weld an additional bar from the front support to the rear, but most do not.
Last but certainly not least, notice is the array of sponsors who put their name on the car for advertising purposes. The next time you need a product or service, remember those sponsors. For our sport to survive, the businesses must also survive. Patronize the people who support our sport and make sure you tell them you are there because you saw their ad on a sprint car, or some other type of racecar, for that matter. As dollars become tighter, it is our obligation to make sure the sponsors know we appreciate what they do for out sport.
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