Dirt Late Model Project Update

It was now Friday, May 3rd, the day before that fourth race and we're determined to make it. We had installed the setup mentioned above and we were ready to complete our final punch list and scale the car. After working all day at our regular jobs we start working on the car at about 5 p.m. The final punch list we created took all night to complete, much longer than we expected.

On Saturday morning with no sleep and time running out we started to scale the car and make the final front end adjustments. Unfortunately, we have a long ride ahead of us and the car is not exactly were we wanted it but it's close so we decide to load and go. Arriving at the track late we have no time to prep the tires before we run hot laps.

We found out in practice that the car was extremely loose. Since I attended the Race Wise School, I went back to my text book and notes and started making changes that Mark Bush taught us in class. The first thing we did was to prep the tires like we should have already done. We grooved and siped all four tires because the track was drying out already and we hadn't even gotten to the B-Main. Grooving and siping together should have given us added traction.

The changes to the tires made a big difference in tightening the car, but it was not enough, as I found out during a two lap qualifying run. So we adjusted the springs by putting two turns in the RF and two in the LR while taking two turns out of the LF and two out of the RR. Making these adjustments in this fashion added wedge while allowing us to maintain our ride height.

The other thing we noticed was the car was erratic on the straightaways. I say "we" because the team could even see this from the backstretch grandstands. The car wanted to dart to the right and felt very unstable due to the wrong toe adjustment. We had set 1/4-inch of toe at the shop at Bob's direction, but once the car got on the track it now felt like we needed a 1/2-inch or so. We extended the right front tie rod two turns which toe'd it out. By the time we ran the B-main the car was a lot better, but still very loose and not fast enough to make the A-main. It was not a very good night but at least we now have a starting point to work with.

On Monday we were back at the shop. With the car cleaned up, we put it back on the scales. David Schmauss, driver of 105 Late Model and our local track champion, once gave me a great piece of advice. David said that you should always scale the car as the last thing before leaving the shop and the first thing when returning. Scaling the car without touching anything will show you a number of things including if anything moved and how your changes at the track affected your setup.

David is my mentor and friend who has taught me a lot through all my years of racing, so we took his advice to heart. After doing this we learned we were not as close to the intended weight distribution as we originally thought. We found that our cross weight was at 170 pounds of LR over RR. We were in "no man's land" as Bob termed it. He said that the two ideal cross weights were either a lower LR or a high LR. We ended up right in the middle of the two. In speaking with Bob, he explained that we could not run between the two, because that has never worked.

After sitting down with Bob and discussing where we were at and what we had done, he explained that in setting up a Dirt Late Model, you must be right on with numbers and percentages. With this being said we started working on the car for the next race.

The first order of business was to choose either a high LR weight or a low one. In our case, low was about 75 pounds over the RR weight and high was around 240 pounds over RR weight. We decided to go high and, as we would find out, this would make a world of difference. By adjusting our Integra springs we got to 239 pounds.