Who Actually Pioneered The Lifting of Left Front And All The Rear Steer

[CIRF]

I'm curious as to who actually pioneered the evolution of laying over to the right side, the right front being way wider than the right rear and all the rear steer with the left rear half disappearing forward into the bodywork.

The first guy I ever saw hike the left front way up in the air was Tom Rients back in the early to mid 1990's at places like Fairbury, Kankakee and Farmer City.

I'm curious as to who should get the credit for this.

[formercrewguy]

When they went to 4 bars I noticed it mostly. In my area it was the GRT's first. We were running Rayburn's at that time, mid 90's is correct.

[cmmg42]

I always thought Skip Arp was the one

[PRCKartRacer9]

I thought it was Around as well. It seemed like Masterbilt, Rayburn, Swartz, Warrior, etc. tried to stay on the ground for as long as they could but they couldn't keep up

[PRCKartRacer9]

^^^^^Arp^^^^^

[Hoosier_Dirt]

I thought Larry Phillips came up with the idea, then Skip Arp mastered it?

[Krooser]

I've been told Skip Arp was the one that moved the LR shock behind the axle... that was the game changer. I believe it was around 1988... didn't take long for others to see what he had done.

The soft right front is relatively new... once the chassis builders went to a raised right side chassis rail and front crossmember things really looked different... that was around the mid-2000's.

Here's 1999... look closely how the cars 'lift' the rear on acceleration and drop when they get off the throttle. Good comment early on about the #32 modifying the Rayburn he's running...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKwWhjwvcOY

[golddirt]

Tom was th first I saw too. He said if he said set it to stay on the ground it wouldn't run.

[MI Dirt Fan]

GRT here also. I remember one night I can't remember who was driving but they were carrying the left front so high I thought the car was going to tip over. Dominated the event though. lol

[CIRF]

The soft right front is relatively new... once the chassis builders went to a raised right side chassis rail and front crossmember things really looked different... that was around the mid-2000's.

Krooser, since I haven't been involved with anything regarding dirt late models other than enjoying watching them since around 1992 I'm obviously far removed from the loop in regards to chassis and shock dynamics. Given my lack of technical knowledge my question is this. Approximately when did the right front wheel get moved so far to the right and when did the dramatic rear steer become universally applied to DLM's chassis make-up?

[TheJet-09]

I know Pierce often ran clamped up on both sides, so he had a lot of lift on accel and a lot of drop on decel as it basically dumped the rear of the car.

I see those old videos now and think of how boring the racing looked, even though you could never get enough back then. Cars just skating around, no grip, and looking like weight transfer hadn't yet been discovered (yes, even though it obviously had been). I think the racing was better back then (or at least more cars capable of winning, guys coming from the back, etc.), but I sure like the way things look now. Of course, many think we need to go back to the way things were, so who knows...

[highspeeddirt]

Surprising how much different the attitude of the cars are now compared to 1999 time frame. I guess over time it was less noticable but when you look at old videos it is really noticable. Those cars ran pretty flat compared to all hiked up now.Not related but man did the lighting suck at some of those tracks back in the day, lol.

[PRCKartRacer9]

The lighting wasn't as bright as the new LED but the video taping was also very poor quality in comparison to today. Cell phones capture better video than speedvision ever had

[a25rjr]

It was Skip Arp in June, 1997. Skip was driving the GRT house car and shared a lot of info with our team.

Im not 100% sure when it was available for sale though.

[davis2902]

Skip Arp and GRT pioneered it but I think Steve Francis mastered toting the LF.