2018 fastrak rules update – new shock/suspension rules

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

It's not about lowering cost of being competitive... It's about lowering the amount of intelligence needed to be competitive.

That appears to be the attempt. But it will backfire. You can buy the current deal from any good shock guy.

[onlyfacts]

[I’m gonna have to agree with a couple other people on here that at least some of the problem lies in the layout structure. The payout drops off too fast, if you want more people racing give the 20th place guy more than $150. Everyone here knows that even the smallest budget race team can’t even come close to racing a late model for 150 bucks. Pay $300 to start the feature and lower the winning purse a little if you must. Most of the people contending for the win aren’t there for the money anyway and spend enough on motors, haulers and new equipment every year they can’t break even either way. Likewise most people who have quit racing is because they can’t afford it not because they can’t win.]. What your looking for is club racing. It does exist not sure how many people shows up to watch. Mostly in vintage cars.

[fastford]

Please feel free to call me if you have any questions about FASTRAK. I have zero issues with post that are made with facts but I do take issue with lies. I am more than glad to talk to you about what we are trying to do and why. Who knows you might be able to teach us something and that we look forward too. Like any business, when people spread false rumors they can damage a company and especially when the words like extortion enter the arena. Thats very serious business. I honestly thought it was ok to ask for a meeting with the shock companies, when things were getting out of hand and you all know they are. When that didn't work a face to face meeting. Yes after than I sent a letter asking them to support the very people that bought their products. SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT? All any of them EVER HAD to do was call and state their case if they didn't like the letter. So they didn't have time to meet via skype, didn't have time to come to a meeting, didn't bother to call AT ALL, but they had time to let you know about WRONG FIGURES? Its all about communication folks. Sure would have be easy to do in this case.

Oh just FYI: 4 of them did decided too but that put us in the position of allowing some manufacturers and not allowing others, so we decided to drop it all together. Not fair to those that were going to support it and make our teams junk what they already had for the companies that did not support it. Yes several companies offered to do a spec shock. My letter to the current shock companies was in reference to us, the series and shock companies to come up with a solution but we see what happened. People spread complete lies to damage us and some people fell for that. We are the last crate late model series to support the shock companies for 15 years, but this is an unfortunate reply to that effort. ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS FIX IT BEFORE IT GOT WORSE. "Lesson learned".

FASTRAK has paid back over $4.3 million dollars in point monies alone to crate late model teams in the last 14 years. I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of.

Stan Lester
678-935-7304 ext 1

I always take calls or return calls. I don't always have time to look at message boards.

Just curious , did you send TNT one of those letters , I know there not a shock manufacturer , but they support your series pretty heavily from what i understand and just wandering what tony,s thoughts were ? I,ll try to call tony first of the week and find out if you dont know.......

[let-r-eat]

There are common sense rules that should be made from time to time. Without a decent driver, the engineer is pissing in the wind. I actually see little problems with the deck height rule or spring rubber/bumpstop rules. The guys that win are going to win anyway no matter the rules.

[dynotimeonly]

All this "No air shock" BS is driving me absolutely NUTS!! Does anyone even know what an air shock is???? The spring is inside the shock tube! BIG freakin' deal. It's perfectly fine to dump thousands into integra ($5500) or Penske' ($8000). But oh my god, spend $800 on a LR air shock is a big no-no. Get over it, move on.....

[blncfn57]

All this "No air shock" BS is driving me absolutely NUTS!! Does anyone even know what an air shock is???? The spring is inside the shock tube! BIG freakin' deal. It's perfectly fine to dump thousands into integra ($5500) or Penske' ($8000). But oh my god, spend $800 on a LR air shock is a big no-no. Get over it, move on.....

There is an actual spring inside the shock??? I think you may be mistaken. Also, from what I understand it's not just a LR deal.
I will agree with you on the cost aspect tho, $800 for that piece isn't going to cause the class to become extinct.

[Kromulous]

Actually it will make it worse and not in a financial way. Adding all these options to your racing team can hurt in regards to adding to much complexity to the already complex race car. I seen it many times, i have done it many times. We ran a base set up last year, simple, car ran fine, started chasing bump stops and other things, and not necessarily struggle with it but it wasn't the all the speed you would think. Then you find yourself chasing the wrong thins, and then end up in left field somewhere. Once you figure that out, usually you end up putting a simple base setup on the car and go, and ask yourself why i changed it in the 1st place.

Let-R-eat is right on thou, a winner will win. Put Bloomer on a bar stool racer in a bar stool race and he will still win, that's just how it is, if you want to beat him you will need to do your homework and hone your driving skills, no magic devices are going to do it.

[Mike]

Huck's point isn't lost, but it also highlights the problem. You can dumb down the cars with rules like this, but if you allow the bodies to remain the way they are currently your only compounding the problem further at the end of the day.

Rules are needed, see Wedge cars of the mid 80's, but smart rules are hard to come bu currently. Anytime to deal with a "Limited" class of any kind you invite manipulation of some sort, it is what it is to some point.

Supers are a beast of there own, any sort of specific limiting of items can lead to expenses increasing, but you still need to keep a lid on it. Otherwise you end up with NHRA, overpriced mega machines that eat $$ by the dumb truck loads. Biggest impact i still believe is Aero, cut the spoilers down!!!

I would argue smart rules are not hard to come by. What’s currently hard to come by is actual rule enforcement. If the rules were actually enforced we would have never seen the evolution of the #ModernDayWedge. We got rid of the Wege once. How did it find it’s way back if we are actually enforcing rules? We currently have selective rule enforcement. If a rule makes the right people money it gets enforced if it’s not making money there is a blind eye to that rule. IE..You better have the right tire or you don’t race.

[Matt49]

So if the consensus is that the crux of the problem is the ability to make a wedge car dynamically, simple solution: Min and max clearance from nose to ground at ride height. Then ENFORCE THE BODY RULES!!!
Outlawing bump stops and spring rubbers is about the most ignorant thing I've heard of in a while.
But so many people seem to think that rules limiting the amount of aero and mechanical grip are going to cause the spread bore motors to disappear. They are wrong. Those that can afford it will always have the absolute most power available. The cost of having more HP than you need when it is slick is FAR outweighed by the speed of not having enough HP when the track can handle it. You could take the bodies off the cars and put Afco twin tubes all the way around and this problem would STILL exist. Why people don't understand that is beyond my comprehension. I'd love somebody to explain to me when in any form of racing you wouldn't want the most power allowed by the rules and then tune it DOWN when it isn't needed. You absolutely cannot ADD power to a power plant that doesn't have it. But taming down one with too much for the conditions is very achievable...especially with a good driver.

[FASTRAKPR]

The one thing I do not understand. So we didn't cut the point fund, didn't cut the purse, but people just want to insist on paying more for shocks? I know somehow that makes sense to people but honestly it just does not add up to me.

I thought it you could accomplish the same thing, in our case win the same money, but do it for less money spent, that was called common sense???

[FASTRAKPR]

Sorry but for some reason I am having trouble replying to a post with that post quoted. Just keeps going round and round likes it trying too but never pulls the post up.

Post
All this "No air shock" BS is driving me absolutely NUTS!! Does anyone even know what an air shock is???? The spring is inside the shock tube! BIG freakin' deal. It's perfectly fine to dump thousands into integra ($5500) or Penske' ($8000). But oh my god, spend $800 on a LR air shock is a big no-no. Get over it, move on.....

Well we for one have never allowed it because to begin with we didn't know anything about it and not one company ever gave us any information so naturally until we learned we said no.

Since that time I have learned that some of the air shocks have as much as 1100 - 1400 lbs of pressure in them and thats why we banned them for good.

[FASTRAKPR]

Pos[I’m gonna have to agree with a couple other people on here that at least some of the problem lies in the layout structure. The payout drops off too fast, if you want more people racing give the 20th place guy more than $150. Everyone here knows that even the smallest budget race team can’t even come close to racing a late model for 150 bucks. Pay $300 to start the feature and lower the winning purse a little if you must. Most of the people contending for the win aren’t there for the money anyway and spend enough on motors, haulers and new equipment every year they can’t break even either way. Likewise most people who have quit racing is because they can’t afford it not because they can’t win.]. What your looking for is club racing. It does exist not sure how many people shows up to watch. Mostly in vintage cars.t

Not really sure if you are referring to FASTRAK here, but our minimum races pay $250 to start. Have for a long, long time.

[FASTRAKPR]

POST
Just curious , did you send TNT one of those letters , I know there not a shock manufacturer , but they support your series pretty heavily from what i understand and just wandering what tony,s thoughts were ? I,ll try to call tony first of the week and find out if you dont know.......

No I did not ask any of the chassis manufacturers about shocks. Nor would I throw Tony under the bus if I had and he agreed or didn't. Not our way of doing business. Our sponsors entrust is with private conversations and I think thats the way they should remain, private.

[fastford]

POST
Just curious , did you send TNT one of those letters , I know there not a shock manufacturer , but they support your series pretty heavily from what i understand and just wandering what tony,s thoughts were ? I,ll try to call tony first of the week and find out if you dont know.......

No I did not ask any of the chassis manufacturers about shocks. Nor would I throw Tony under the bus if I had and he agreed or didn't. Not our way of doing business. Our sponsors entrust is with private conversations and I think thats the way they should remain, private.

I agree with the privacy thing 100% as well , and would not post anything he told me , I dont participate in crate racing but I do applaud your efforts to at least try something........

[a25rjr]

The one thing I do not understand. So we didn't cut the point fund, didn't cut the purse, but people just want to insist on paying more for shocks? I know somehow that makes sense to people but honestly it just does not add up to me.

I thought it you could accomplish the same thing, in our case win the same money, but do it for less money spent, that was called common sense???

Common sense/racing is an oxymoron! lol