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

Looking back at the one lap records for sprint cars at Knoxville, Eldora and Williams Grove. One thing stands out. The record for Knoxville  and Williams Grove was set in 2002 and Eldora was set in 2006. I would have thought with all the high tech stuff on cars and the greater horsepower these days  the records would  be more recent. Anyone care to comment on this.

The 2002 Williams Grove record by Paulus is pre weight limit, the current post weight limit track record is Hodnett in 2015 at 16.152.

It would be kinda cool to have a little contest to see who could break the speed records at these tracks. Lightweight everything, swiss cheese seats & steering wheels, lose the radiator, the whole deal. 

How light were some of the cars years ago.

I remember hearing that Joey Saldana's Volcano Joe's car in the mid 2000's was 970 pounds with driver. That's back when teams were spending ridiculous amounts of money to cut weight off of the cars. 

I dunno. That almost seems too extreme to be plausible.

You have to understand that rules  have beeen changed that have slowed cars down.  You could give every car at Knoxville 1000 HP and they could not  set a new track record.  Main reason is tires.  They by rules are junk compaired to old rules, or lack of  rules.  Tires now are 16 inch wide RR,, used to be 18 inch.  Used to be able to use soft gumball tires in TT.  Now you have to use same tire all night.  Sidewalls of tires are ALOT stiffer now than before Back then you could use a dish wing, now has to be flat. A driver told me that with tires to day you never get the feel lap after lap like you used to.  

I doubt this very much.

For some reason I am thinking Knoxvilles (Brook Tatnells)  track record was lowered but it didn't stand because the show was rained out shortly after the record was broke... I may be wrong (probably am) My Oldheimers kicks in every so often.

The night Brook took it, I thought the record was broke multiple times that night. Track was very heavy, maybe even a very fine mist is the air

I probably don't know my ass from a hole in the ground, but tires would be my guess too!

Does anybody have a picture of Joe Gaerte's car from around 98' or so at Knoxville? I think they took the tank completely off and they also removed the radiator, lines and brackets. They may have remvoed the nerf bars and bumpers too and sure enough he set quick time that night.

According to this post the banking at Eldora was reduced in 2007:

https://www.hoseheadforums.com/forum.cfm?pageNum_qGetThread=1&ThreadID=4286

Same with I55 stevie smith set the track record there in 2002 I believe and it stood untill last year when logan broke it. That's a long time.

Devils Bowl's track record was old enough that it was actually held my Mark Kinser for years.   It was broken a few years ago by several drivers, but I believe Jason Johnson had quick time that night and is the official record holder.   

Tatnell's 14.407 is from 2006, I believe this was the night that 20-25 were under the old track record. 

Bingo!

Changes to the tire and wing rules are the main culprit of less speed.   They also have brought about better competition for the most part.

As for weight, they used to get downright silly trying to cut weight.   Small fuel tanks, notches cut and holes drilled in every peice that could be.

IIRC, there was a year that Joe Gaerte took the radiator out of the car for TT at the Knox Nationals.

Somewhat ironicly, some of the drivers that were prolific at winning races could have easily lost 50 lbs off of their own frame but never did.

I do remember seeing this on one of the televised races. Might have been his Hemsaw car but I know it was Joey Saldana. They were so anal about weight that they would cut off unneeded parts of sponsor decals. I remember seeing that when Brian Paulus was putting graphics on a new car in Fargo. But in that time period Knoxville had the 1200 pound Nationals for a couple years and some of those cars had to bolt on plenty of lead to make that weight. Most cars ran around 1050 pounds back then, but that was only based on their word as cars weren't weighed at the races.

Terry McCarl broke a track record there one night but they eventually got rained out, not sure if it was Brooke's or not....

I was at the grove the night Paulus set the record. From what I remember there were some issues with the timing system that caused some delays and confusion in time trials. I'm not sure if they were even using transponders yet. His lap didn't look like anything special and when it registered several 10th's faster than anyone else, everyone was just looking at each other in confusion wondering if they were gonna let it stand. 16.14 was a ridiculously fast lap at WG in 2002.

A

That's what I was thinking Mike because McCarl was coming to mind when I was thinking it.