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I saw an add for a titanium bolt kit to put a sprint together with, it was almost $500. How much weight would you save using this bolt kit?

Ray

I heard a story a few years back where an owner told his driver just to lay off the Big Macs during the off season and it would be cheaper than buying the bolt kit. LOL

Scotty1n , It is definately cheaper that way for sure, if I had lots of loot , get all the Ti I could but if they said can only have so much money for Ti , then the Bolt kit be the last thing on the list, would get Ti Inboard Brake Rotor and Clamp , Ti Front Direct Mount Hubs, Ti Driveshaft ,Ti Rearend lower shaft and Pinion, the rotational stuff would come first cause it matters more and then get the non rotational hanging stuff like Ti Wing Tree, Bolt Kit ,Ti Spindles and if I had any left over after that , a full Carbon Fiber Body which I heard runs about $4G's now for the whole Body on a Sprint, what I like about the Chili Bowl with the Midgets coming up,the ol Carbon Fiber bodies are on many a Midget at the Chili Bowl and you don't get to see much Carbon Fiber on Sprint Cars around here during our race season.

That Carbon Fiber is some lite weight trick/nice stuff.

J.D.

If you can get a complete ti bolt kit for $500 buy all you can get , most are $900 & up

In this months Sprint Car and Midget there is n add for Kreitz on page 39 for a kit for $489.95 there are 169 pieces.In the same magazine there is an add on page 83 for Ti bolt kits for specific builders and they go from 244 parts to 342, no price is listed. Back in the old days we just went to a hardware store and bought aircraft bolts and did not care how much they weighed.

Does anybody out there like the story "The Best of Times" that is in every issue? Just curious, I think it is a waste.

Ray

j.d , i can't figure out why racers go to the expense for carbon fiber body parts. there is no advantage because carbon fiber is the same weight as aluminum. now if ya use it for strength thats another story, for carbon fiber has the strengh of steel. i have some knowledge as i worked with it on aircraft structures in wichita ..

I have racing friends that seem to add more panels to their Sprint carss every season. I still enjoy seeing the driver in full view.......like when Ferkel used to use minimal stuff. Back then the crowd could tell if his firesuit was zipped up or his shoes were laced. If you want to hide under sheet metal, drive a stock car.

I can see your point Scotty1n , but I'll defend the body panels some, use them to enclose my motor up bottom, Sides ,Front, seen Gary Wright do it for a while now , he told me once that it cleans up the Aerodynamics with out having to hang a pieces of metal out on the nerf bar to protect plug wires on right side and it also protects oil pan from getting a hole knocked in it as well as the Radiator as an example after a couple of nights racing at Lawton Speedway, it can test your sheetmetal and when you look at the sheetmetal you realise just how many rocks are in that red clay at the place,just try to do it to help save me from any issues that can be created by unforseen things like rocks etc.and cost me a DNF.

Also helps you get a few more Sponsors on the car as well , allows you to display your sponsors in bigger letters , which most of them like that these days as BIGGER is better and those folks help keep me racing.

Hey I'll be the first one to say that "Bullet" Bob Ewell #18 white Stanton in 1977 & 1978 was one of my favorite cars of all time , nothing flashy all white body with black #18 with yellow/orange outline and open cockpit and you could watch the Bullet in his office show why he was a wheelman.

Hey I'll be honest and say I see something interesting and or creative and that monkey see monkey do metality steps in with me as well, BUT I try and think it through before I do it and wonder what it will cost me and then will it help me out and make my stuff better etc. and I felt with adding body panels it was a better deal, I feel it has kept me from having issues which usually cause a DNF.

J.D.

Full body containment for protection of the internals isn't new, but yet the driver being covered up has done the hurt on visibilty for the entertainment dollar.

Roll cages were needed, and in the supers- tops were mandatory., yet in the new ages the driver was being closed up to the point all we could see was the top of his helmet, which many times is now secured to the point that these cars are taking on a 'look' of being large scale remote controlled cars.

There is no doubt that overall, TODAYS cars are the fastest, lightest, most efficient, and most reliable dirt track racing has ever seen-when you look at the entire big picture.

Somewhere there is a compromise waiting to be found. Butts in the stands pays for race cars one way or another.

scotty i agree 100%, most folks in the stands would like to see the driver.and all those panels on the sides of sprint cars make em look like modifieds. id like to see rules limit the placement of side barn tin on sprinter's i'd like several car owners remove that tin and outrun guy's like sammy ect, then we might get sprinter's looking like sprinter's of old.....

It's a tough situation now , we are all so politically correct and worried about folks getting hurt/killed and so on, that "danger" is a bad word , unless you can show that safety and all the innovation can make it a not so bad word, perfect example is Nascar, Cars all the same , near bullet proof cars in crashes and did testing some 3 yrs. on safety issues alone with that "Car of Tomorrow" which is now "Today" to make it where they would not lose another racer to a crash like when they lost their icon of the sport in 2001 and so far they have been successful. Indy Cars with Wheldon death recently are fixing to go through the same thing Nascar did after Earnhardt death,Sprint Cars are in the same mode ,probably just not as known on safety stuff as Cup and Indy Car, I know since Brad Doty's paralyzing crash at Eldora in 87 cage wall thickness and bracing/angles have changed which over time have produced the safety features but in the same time made a cookie cutter looking frame and was really hard to tell who built this car or that and it is what you have to get today if you want to race, but like most race teams today which are family ,Parents own it and son/daughter races it , want the safest and the fastest thing money will purchase and that is the bottom line.

Butts in the seats is a tough deal to get today, most tracks in the Midwest except for maybe a few have lost their edge on getting the entertainment $$$, perfect example Devil's Bowl Speedway an iconic midwest sprint car track ,started the WoO in 78 and have ran weekly sprints since the 60's and up until 2009 and since then run only specials with Sprints ,no weekly sprint show and now even hear this upcoming 2012 season will be no weekly racing at all and ONLY specials shows throughout the season.

They had no cars in ALL the CLASSES in the past several yrs. they ran and no crowd to watch them, you hear a 100 opinions why and all probably have some validity , whether it was promoters fault , economy , or whatever??, just not the same as it once was and never will be again.

Funny thing is I kind of feel fortunate to have been able to see it evolve from when I started going to races in the mid 60's and watching and growing up and seeing the end of the end of the Jalopy era to the narrowed bodies springer front ends to the 4 bar car and that evolve to the downtube chassis of today and from garage built motors that put out 300-400 HP to the all out Aluminum motors of today which can put out up to 900-950 HP and I say that in the part of the innovation of the sport, sure the way racing is now is much different than then and in most ways it has declined and not as much fun, but it is still memories ya remember from your era whatever era it was , just the way I see it.

J.D.