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

....in a booming Tom Carnegie voice. 20 year old track record broken after morning rain leads to fast track. Racing was just OK. First time I have been to Cedar Lake in like forever where I didn't eat dust for dessert. 

Pretty amazing the record lasted 20 yrs..... I thought the modern technology was supposed to be so much better!

I started watching it after the high limit show but like most IRA shows with too many support divisions - that they run first, it went into the wee hours. No wonder there was about 50 people in the stands. Run an efficient show with fewer divisions and run the headline feature first, especially when it's a late show. I did think the old timer divisons 60's and 70's LM's and cars that looked like the super modified "bugs" were a pretty cool blast from the past. 

A

I think those tires were pretty sticky back then. TMAC broke the record at the Jerry Richert Memorial race in 2004 after Travis Whitney broke it earlier that summer. Thram was 10 months old when TMAC set that mark!

It was a very late start and the track was difficult so we need to cut them a break. Two classes of sprint cars as support is just fine by be me and most folks. Those vintage cars that race around here aren't even old I don't believe. Just old looking bodies on somewhat modern cars.

The UMSS winged and Traditional Sprints between the two are out there most weekends all season except for their big Late Model and Modified shows.  Northern Vintage cars run there a couple times a year along with Sprint shows.  It has been wet up here for a couple weeks and that delayed the start by an hour plus we're in central time zone so that makes it two hours for some.

i took photos out there for close to twenty years and don't recall them racing when the grounds were that wet.  Those soft spots in the turns were impossible to pack in and only got wavier as the night went on.  Brooke Tatnell who races out of Forest Lake was fast all night in the Nelson 14, led the Feature, hit that rut and ended his night.  Ryan Bowers, another local in the 199 and Brady Donahue in the 34dd UMSS winged car met the same fate.  Our neighbor Luke Nellis made his first 410 Feature start and managed to finish tenth and keep the car in one piece.  I just wish it hadn't been so cold and damp or I'd have gone and watched it live.

Those were the usual classes that support IRA shows at Cedar so the biggest surprise to me is that they didn't call it due to wet grounds.  

Stan Meissner

It's a tire thing I'm pretty sure.    Devils Bowl had a similar thing with the track record.   Bobby Allen set the track record at 14.20 back in the late eighties.   That one stood for many years before Mark Kinser eventually broke it.   I don't remember the exact number but I believe it was by a pretty wide margin.   Mark Kinser's record also stood for a pretty long time, then Jason Johnson set it for the final time several years ago.    You'd think with more horsepower and lighter cars that the records would have been broken more often.   

The mositure stayed in the race track, the cushion never moved up from the bottom and didnt dry out, the air density was 5-7% better than in when the outlaws visit in the middle of the summer and the engines today are far more advanced. Thats what Thram had going for him and why the track record was broken. Nice job Christopher, I love seeing track records fall. 

TMac's advantage 20 years ago was a car that was 100+ pounds less than today, good air and floppy tires. 

I caught a photo of McCarl in the Big Game #24 setting the 2004 track record.  The track looked dry in comparison to last Saturday.

Stan Meissner

I don't mind support classes. I actually enjoy most of them but I think they should be limited to 2 classes and their features(A Mains) should be run after the headline division. Now for a big sprint show that's going to draw a large car count and have time trials, I don't think there should be any support divisions. 

I like the IRA and try to catch most of their races on flo, but one thing I've noticed the last few years is that their shows frequently run very late even accounting for the 1 hour time difference from where I'm at. The NARC races in CA are sometimes over before the IRA A Main.

A

some of the old track records set before tire rules I womderes if they would be beat.  They used to use qualifying tire that were real solft.  Also you could use a dish wing or a flat wing.  I think tires were 20 inch wide/  When they no longer want a tire they throw it out in front of hauler.  I picked up a L rear that looked almost new.  I carried it down to crew chew and asked him if he really wanted to throw tire away.  He said yes, he did not like the way they had grooved it.  I ran it for 3 weeks in a 360.   What would track records be now if they ran 20 inch wide soft tires and different wing rule?

Cedar Lake does a good job moving the show along and only had three support classes and the vintage car races are generally wreck free.  The weather here has been extremely wet.  They started hot laps over an hour late on Saturday night and deserve a medal for just getting the show in.  

Stan Meissner