Dirt or Asphalt

**Axis Racing** · 02-06-2011, 11:09 AM

Which type of track to you race on? Anyone try and race the same car on both?

**Racedad** · 02-06-2011, 12:31 PM

We used to race asphalt and now the same S10 pickups on dirt.Metric front and leaf rear.Raised ride height for more suspension travel and way higher on the crossweight.If we used our dirt setup on tar it would be undrivable tight.

**dannyracer6** · 02-06-2011, 04:10 PM

We took our little pro4 dirt car to asphalt and had to really change a lot on the suspension. Lighter springs on the front end, lower the ride height, and change the cross. Also had to go from 15 to 13 tires and tred to slick. Car did really well. all tube chassis with jacks on front and leaf/sliders on rear. Was a lot of fun.

**racerman** · 02-06-2011, 05:12 PM

Didn't know you could race on asphalt. I've seen alot of riding around.

**Wrencherer** · 02-07-2011, 08:44 PM

Dirt is for Racing! Asphalt is for getting there!

**RACEMAN** · 02-08-2011, 01:00 PM

Agree with Dannyracer6. Usually a bunch of changes needed to go from one to the other. My MOD 4 was originally a dirt car, now asphalt. Took a bit of work to make the change. I've been trying to keep mine configured that if I needed or wanted to go back to dirt it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

Years and years and YEARS ago there was an article in either Stock Car or Circle Track about a modified driver that had a combo car that worked pretty good for him. Didn't take long to make the changes and I think he was doing it about once a week.

**PitManArm** · 02-08-2011, 08:47 PM

I ran a whole season on Dirt Friday, Asphalt Saturday. It was totally backwards because 60% of my prep time Saturday morning was spent cleaning every single piece of dirt from the car. The race director at the paved track was also the pit steward at the dirt track so he knew what I was doing and swore he would black flag me if I ever got dirt on his blessed blacktop.
As far as changes, I couldn't make many anyway since both track had "strictly stock" rules. Other than tires the only change I made was to unhook the left end of the sway bar if the dirt track went dry slick(usually only if we were the last feature). Tire pressures were a big difference, and of course driving style. I was a midpack car at the time and mainly did it to get seat time and learn as much as I could in different scenarios. Often I would have damage to repair and would miss practice on Saturday, arriving just in time for my heat race. Of course the 'tarheads' wouldn't believe it was possible to race like that, but unlike the dirt track, asphalt doesn't usually change from one week to the next.
This is with 2.3 Mustang, stock suspension and engine, just a good solid cage and went racing. I think I finished top ten in points at both tracks that year. The next year I switched to running dirt Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
I still run the paved track on year end invitationals, but now the setup is a little more involved and I spend about three weeks switching it over after the dirt season ends.