REQUESTING OPEN COMP FEEDBACK
Has anybody run the Open Comp rules? And if so how did it work for the racers and spectators? We would like to try running Open Comp but would like to hear some feed back on it. Thanks.
Mike Grunte
Sarnia, Canada
PULLING NO PUNCHES
(Jeff Burk's) and Dave Wallace's writng in (the May) issue are some of the best and hardest hitting I've read in years.
Thanks.
Pete Jensen
Sutter Creek, CA
ALL THE ANSWERS
Burk, I usually agree with you 100%. However, in this latest editorial you didn’t get much correct.
Wheelie bars: Larry Dixon’s car would have gone over backwards if he hadn’t have lifted. The wheelie bar would have folded up like tissue paper.
The mandate for 4130 QT tubing on the back half of the T/F cars may not be that good of an idea. Remember, the harder you make a material, the more brittle it becomes. Hadman pitched this argument to Ray Alley before the mandate. The tubing will just start snapping
instead of bending. The Cory Mac incident starts with a bumpy race track. The car hits the bump and it flexes more than normal, springs down even possibly hitting the race track and then rebounds more than normal causing an exaggerated arch. During this whole flex and rebound, the tire has stared to momentarily spin, increasing RPM, and then re-plants about the same time of the exaggerated upward and abnormal arch, and the rear-end then drives right underneath the car; instant failure.
The Catch 22 is, if you put a larger bottom frame rail then it will be harder to plant the car, instant tire spin. If you check some of the afternoon sessions you are currently only getting 4-6 four-second passes out of the whole field in T/F because of the new tire(race track temp above 100) and summer hasn’t even arrived. How many fans are going to come to watch 4 good passes and 14 tire smokers?
If you want to slow the cars, limit the blower overdrive, period. To make sure, you might have to limit compression ratio, also.
Effectively limiting the cylinder pressure will lower HP.
The rev limiter causes more problems than it solves; it pushes the head gaskets out or slings the rods out. I’m surprised someone hasn’t crashed because of an engine failure (slinging pieces and oil out at 300 MPH) related to the rev limiter.
When the summer heat hits the 2420 will be a bigger problem. The 1430 was a good tire to expand on, instead they mucked with the width, the design and the compound. NOW WHAT!
Here you go: Establish a smoothness criteria for all race tracks.(If you) pass, race; fail, no race. Tell Goodyear to go back to the 1430 and start enhancing that compound, design, etc. Limit blower overdrive to 25%, compression ratio maximum 7 to 1. Take the timing retard curve out before it causes a major accident. If all else fails, shorten the drag races to 1,000 feet.
Steve York
ON BRACKET RACING AS A HOBBY
"...Of course, if you have deep pockets and what you spend on racing is an insignificant amount of your annual income you probably aren't reading this far into this month's DEAD-ON column anyway. I am sure it would be tough relating to something you aren't concerned about..."
Hello, Jok? I bracket race. I do so close to home. I'm at the track every weekend. I don't have deep pockets by anybody's standard. If bracket racing were draining a significant chunk of my annual income, I'd quit...immediately!
At what point did it start to become "normal" behavior for a bracket racer to spend a significant chunk of their annual incomes on a hobby?! That is the real cause for the current decline in bracket racing popularity. It's the mentality that the hobby needs to help pay for itself and/or that you have to have the latest and greatest equipment to have fun and/or that you just have to travel long distances to have that fun.
Long tows, high entry fees/payouts, b*ybacks, and the belief that only the very best equipment is acceptable have killed the logic of bracket racing.
Last bracket racer to quit, don't forget to turn out the light. Personally, I'm in it 'til somebody says I can't enter my low-buck ride, close to home, and/or that I HAVE to buy (b*yback) my round wins.
Take care.
Tom Worthington
Rocky Mount, NC
