The season is winding down. With only a handful of races left, you are looking to make one final push in the standings. Or maybe you have yet to win a race this season and are willing to take a few more chances than before to finally grab that brass ring. After all, you almost certainly will have the engine refreshed during the off-season, so if there was ever a time to gamble this is it, right?

I have had a lot of experience lately with teams who for one reason or another lack that tad of performance needed to move up. It may be in the setup, maintenance, or driving style. The following are 10 tips that will help us finish this season on a winning note.

The reasons many racers are unsuccessful in finding sponsorship support is that they never start looking or they are ill prepared for the adventure. And looking for sponsorship-serious financial support-is an adventure with many downs and only some ups.

Drivers and teams sometimes find themselves wanting to change venues and switch from their current form of racing to another. The most common change is from asphalt to dirt. Let's take a look at some of the differences and challenges we may face when switching.

A 16-second pit stop used to be amazing 10 years ago. A low 13-second or 12-second time is almost expected these days. The reduction in time is due to many factors, which include the incredible athletes that make up the pit crews, the efficient choreography designed by the pit crew coaches, and the technology utilized by these teams to make the pit stops smooth and consistent. The technology can apply at any level of racing. For a racer leaving the weekly wars for the traveling series, the pit stop becomes critical.

The journey to racing fame and racing mediocrity begins at the same place. At some point, all racers, whether they end up in the hall of fame or not, began their involvement in the sport with the decision to give it a shot.

Which part of your race car talks to you more than those four blackdoughnuts? They may not look like much, but they have a lot to say abouthow your car is handling. Teams that know how to take advantage of thefeedback the tires provide have a distinct edge over those teams that donot.

The basics of an automobile engine require lubrication. This means the role of the oiling system is critical to performance and especially critical for high-performance applications. To help you keep your engine in its best condition, we called some experts, who shared their advice based on daily experience in oiling system work.

Technology has proven to be the key to unlock better performance. As methods are tested and found to be beneficial, the supporters line up to take their programs to the next level. Advantage is the universal element sought by all racers.

We have lightened the block, cleaned it up, and done a thorough inspection. Where do we go next?

Answers provided by Senior Tech Editor Bob Bolles (unless otherwise noted)PCV PrimerQ I was wondering if there is any information on the use of PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) on circle track engines. I know it's been used on high-horsepower drag engines, but was wondering if anyone has used such a system. What would be the advantages to a 400hp engine? If there is no horsepower gain, would there be any other reason to use such a system?Darrel BauerDenver, CO

An overheated racing engine can mean, among other things, an increased rate of failure. When you fail at racing, it means you don’t make money. The same holds true for the brake system on your racing car. When the brakes are applied to slow your car, friction is created. One of the by-products of friction is heat, and excessive heat can and will destroy your brakes.

Overheated brakes are hot enough to boil the brake fluid, increasing the chances for brake failure. As a function of their use, brakes are one of the most stressed parts on the car and they need constant attention, both from the driver on the track and the crew in the shop, to keep them cool.

With an eye toward reducing your heat-related brake problems, Circle Track went to Butch Stevens at BSR Products; Jeff Smallwood at US Brake; Mel Kluhsman at Kluhsman Racing Components; Bill Swiderski of Outlaw Racing Disc Brakes and Herb Bellmore at Dan Press Industries for some tips to help you keep your car’s brakes in their coolest form. Check out their comments in the sidebars below.

Having a durable engine that will run strong throughout the entire racing season is important to any racing driver for some very simple reasons. First, not having to fix an engine after every race helps keep your costs down, and most important, if you’re running at the end of every race, your chances are that much better that you’ll win more.

Engine durability is not an accident. Plan your engine combination for the type of racing you do, how many races you will run and what you can afford. A Winston Cup engine may have the power you dream of having, but it is designed to last one weekend before a rebuild and requires maintenance every time it runs. This is not the engine for a Saturday-night racer who needs to run an entire season.

In order to give you some ideas on what you can do to your engine, Circle Track went to a few experts to get their ideas on what you need to do to stay in the hunt for the long haul. We talked to Dave Pletcher from Pletcher Racing; Charles H. Jenckes, formerly the engine engineer for Joe Gibbs Racing and now an engineer for Barry Grant Inc.; and Marc Boni, Wheeler Motorsports’ performance specialist, to get some answers. Check out the tips over the next few pages to help you through the season.

Quality Parts

Start out with high-quality parts. Starting with better parts means your engine will be built better, which in the long run ends up costing you less. Using the latest, trickest part that doesn’t have the track record of a proven part will most likely let you down. Let someone else be the R&D department. Valvetrain components are the most highly stressed parts in the engine and have a huge impact on performance. Work with a manufacturer and make sure that all the valvetrain parts are designed to work together.

Warm Your Oil

Before you start racing around the track, use an oil heater or let the engine run to warm the oil up to normal operating temperature. Cold oil is thicker and will not flow through the oil filter as easily, minimizing the lubrication of the engine.—Dave Pletcher/Pletcher Racing, Inc.

The next time there’s a NASCAR Winston Cup short-track race on TV, watch the action through the in-car cameras as the cars enter a turn. Note how the drivers seem to wait an interminable time—right until the center of the corner—before they get back on the throttle and drive off down the straight.

At this stage of your career you’re probably not quite as good a driver as Jeff Gordon or Dale Jarrett, so learn from them and copy their techniques. It’s very easy to be impatient and overdrive a Late Model, but if you do so you’ll burn out your tires, spin or hit the wall, and wreck your confidence.

Late model racing on pavement forms the backbone of American circle-track racing. The cars are relatively inexpensive, yet they look like Winston Cup and Busch contenders. A Late Model will typically have a 360-cid engine giving around 500 hp, but the car is heavy at around 3,000 pounds and its tires are only 10 inches wide. Let’s look at the techniques for getting the best out of one.

Be Smooth

This is your first priority. Be smooth with your throttle, steering and braking inputs. A stock car has very little tire compared to the weight of the car, so saving and managing your tires is very important. If you’re not smooth, and you like driving a loose car, you’ll be fast for 10 laps until you burn your right-rear tire up. Then you’ll drop to the back of the field.

Again, watch the top NASCAR guys. If a car is pushing or has bad tires, the driver who deals with this in a smooth manner will lose less time than a rough driver will.

People who come to Late Models from lighter cars—maybe Dwarfs, Legends, or quarter-midgets—tend to over-hustle a stock car. They want to get on the throttle before they reach the apex of the corner. But a Late Model is a big ol’ heavy thing, and once you get it pointed in a direction, it won’t turn very fast.

Entering the Turn

The way you present the car to the entrance of the turn is the foundation, the building block, of everything you will achieve thereafter. If you present the car properly, you will have all the latitude you want to do whatever you wish through the rest of the turn.

Many people who come to the Race Training Center here at Irwindale Speedway are overconfident: They think driving a Late Model will be easy. They run into the corner too fast and get up into the gray stuff near the wall. Then they have to concentrate on saving the situation rather than working on the exit to the corner. They’re over-extending themselves instead of learning.

You’re at the track running a few practice laps and you find your race car isn’t sticking to the track quite as well as you hoped. What can you do at the track, away from the chassis shop and all its tools, to help improve your lap times? Circle Track magazine went to Hooters Pro Cup driver and shop owner Mario Gosselin to find out. Here are six tips we recommend.

From the lowest class of stock car racing all the way up to the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, wiring is an important aspect of getting your race car to Victory Lane. One bad connection or exposed wire can ruin your chances of finishing the race. Circle Track spoke to numerous experts who deal with wiring systems in race cars to come up with some hot tips on how to install and maintain your race car’s wiring system.

Many of our experts manufacture and install wiring systems for the upper levels of auto racing, such as the Winston Cup Series. Though their products may be at the higher end of the racing spectrum, their tips on proper wiring cover all classes of racing.

In regards to weatherproofing and fire prevention, Dennis Overholser of Painless Performance supplied us with a great many tips, while Wade Brown of Brown & Miller Racing Solutions gave us some pointers on connectors, terminals and switches. Last, but not least, David Hatfield of Hatfield Ignition let us in on some of his tips for batteries, battery cables and ignition wires.

In the world of race car setup, the frontend settings can become downright confusing. But there’s much to gain by understanding caster, camber and toe settings, and how they can work together to make your race car go faster.

Caster

A side view of the car shows an imaginary line runs through the center of the upper ball joint to the center of the lower ball joint. This is known as the pivot line. If this line is absolutely vertical, then the caster measurement is zero, or no caster. When the top of this line is leaned toward the rear of the car, we now have positive caster.

Try pushing around a chair with casters on it. You will find it has no directional stability. This is because the casters have negative caster and want to follow the slightest force in any direction. Your race car should have

positive caster to achieve that directional feel.

Being prepared is the biggest advantage any racer can have when the green flag drops. One of the best ways to be prepared is to complete a thorough inspection of the car. The idea is to stop trouble before it starts.

We spoke with a group of racers in various types of racing for their top post-race inspection tips. The common ground in their advice is safety. A good inspection is not only about being ready, but being safe as well.

Charlie Armstrong, of Alexander, Arkansas, is an IMCA Modified dirt-track racer. He has thought much about safety, especially since breaking his foot in a multi-car racing accident.

“Safety is not only a priority, it is a must,” Armstrong says.

Keep It Safe

Getting good results means more than mounting a tire and racing off. Knowing the tires are the only link that comes between the track and your perfectly set-up race car, we at Stock Car Racing talked to a few of the tire gurus to compile some helpful information.

Tire Storage

First, keep your tires away from direct heat sources and direct sunlight. Torches, welders, and heaters will deteriorate the consistency of the tire. Tires are best stored in a dark, well-ventilated, temperature-controlled area ranging from 65 to 75 degrees.

Second, remove all loads/weight from the tires. This prevents flat spots from forming if the tire is left in one place too long.

Third, to maintain consistent sizing, tires should be stored inflated at race pressures. Bias-constructed tires can shrink with age creating a sizing change if stored uninflated.

It is easy enough for us to tell you to send your engine back to the builder when it is not running quite right. But that’s not always an option. Of course, there will be times when you absolutely need to send the motor back to the engine builder— catastrophic failure or anything remotely close would probably be one of those times. However, when it comes to tuning the engine at the beginning of the season, or freshening it up midseason, Circle Track is here to help.

This month’s Tech Focus is obviously about engine timing, jetting, rebuilding, and tuning. Circle Track spoke to several engine experts across the country to see what they had to say about engine tuning. We received so many great ideas that we had to narrow it down to the top 15.

Which part of your race car talks to you more than those four black doughnuts? They may not look like much, but they have a lot to say about how your car is handling. Teams that know how to take advantage of the feedback the tires provide have a distinct edge over those teams that do not.

Do you start a race with lower pressure in your tires, in hopes of building heat after a few laps? If so, will you experience excessive wear in the process, and risk a failure? Understanding the tires’ role and how to manipulate it to your advantage is critical to the setup and overall performance of your race car. Circle Track spoke with Shanon Rush and Craig Cowan of Hoosier Tire, and Drew Banas of Race Tires America to find out their top tips on what every dirt track racer must know about dirt tires.

What is the best way to get your dirt Late Model to stick to the track and perform in a winning manner? Circle Track Maga-zine went to Keith Nosbish’s race shop in Valrico, Florida, to find out. Nosbish races a dirt Late Model in the Southeast Motorsport series in Florida and at East Bay Raceway in Tampa. He comes from a family of racers, including his father, two brothers, and nephew. We also spoke with Mark Richards, manufacturer of Rocket Chassis, to learn some tips that will help every dirt Late Model racer.

“The track goes through different stages—from being heavy, loose dirt, to being packed with an asphalt- like feel as the races progress during the day,” Nosbish explains. Because of this, there is a need for constant change to the race car’s suspension to keep it on the track and be competitive with the other racers.

Here are several crucial tuning tips supplied by both Nosbish and Richards to help you get around the track faster than your opponent:

Finding sponsorship for grass-roots racers may be getting more difficult. The economy has slowed, but the cost of auto racing isn’t declining. So for a lot of racers, this may mean getting out of the sport, or finding some serious sponsorship to finance their racing efforts.

Many grass-roots racers have no idea what they should be doing to attract sponsorship, and many aren’t willing to learn, or invest, in hiring someone to assist their efforts.

We want to share 20 key points that a grass-roots racer should keep in mind when going after sponsorship. In fact, these basics of sponsorship can be used by just about anyone seeking a marketing partner. They are listed in no order of priority, every one of these points can be useful in your sponsorship efforts.

From the grandstands, race cars may look the same regardless of the track. But a closer inspection reveals that teams build cars for certain styles of tracks, such as short, intermediate, road course, and the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega.

Perhaps the most effort goes into the cars that will race at Daytona and Talla-dega. Teams must find ways for cars to go faster and offset rules that greatly reduce horsepower. These “speedway cars” are more than just a particular chassis setup. They are purpose-built cars with one function—to go fast at only those two tracks.

Speedway cars are distinct from cars that run on tracks of intermediate size because of two basic elements of racing: aero-dynamics and downforce. Aerodynamics, or aero, is how the air goes over, under, and around the car at speed. Downforce is how that air pushes the car to the track, increasing traction and handling.

Rebco Racing Enterprises' line of Outlaw disc-brake calipers offers plenty of choices for racers looking to get the most out of their brakes. The Outlaw line currently offers seven different models of calipers with multiple sizes available for each. All but one is constructed from billet aluminum, which provides superior strength over a cast caliper. The lone exception, the Outlaw GM caliper, is targeted to the budget-conscious racer and is constructed from high-strength, cast aluminum.