Safety equipment and accident question involving Eldora fatality

[JustAddDirt]

single leaf spring. with coil overs, and a lift bar.

or I saw on an old Rayburn once in the 90's
4 link or swing arm (cannot remember) with a single leaf mounted right of pinion center to control side to side movement of rear end

[Stede Bonnet]

Okay...I'll play...
If j-bars/left side straight bars were banned, one would likely need to raise the VCG of the car in order to get side bite back. Or run less static left side weight. With either of these workarounds, we're back to the same problem that you tried to solve by banning the j-bar.
And finally I'll ask the best question of all...
What is your solution to achieving side bite equal to that of a j-bar that prevents a car from have a chance of rolling over?

I promise I'm not trying to rile you up, just to get you to think away from the known. I have my own solution, actually 2 promising ones, but I don't want to share them with the world just yet. Sorry if that sounds like a dodge, I don't mean for it to be. There are several things that are accepted as norms in dirt late model, that may not be 100% true. Prior to the J-bar, shock behind, FDAU setups I was always told you can't or shouldn't use a sway bar on a dirt car. I was told it was a crutch and since beginning my career in 1986 I've never seen a dirt late model with a sway bar outside of an old book I have from 1982. I accepted this as a proven fact and then Bloomquist got a ride driving a Nascar truck in the Mud Summer Classic at Eldora.

Bloomquist is arguably one of the best to get around Eldora and I remember them making a big deal out of him insisting the team remove the sway bar from his truck. So then the Dirt Track Dominator set out to show the Nascar engineers and crew chiefs how we do things on dirt...

Top notch equipment + Hall of Fame driver - Sway Bar = A No-Go.

He ran terribly and to this day every truck, to the best of my knowledge, at the mud summer classic runs a sway bar. Now I don't mention this as the answer to side bite, I don't believe it is, at least not on its own. I only mention this to demonstrate that some of the things we believe to be hard and fast rules about what it takes to be fast in a dirt late model, aren't always so. I've seen a leaf spring car out run a field full of the best 4 link DLM's driven by the best elite drivers in the country, at 2 different tracks on back 2 back nights. I've seen a 4 link, spring in front car with a home built 358 outrun the best equipment money can buy in "on the hook" cars several times on the Southern allstar tour. I saw Jonathan Davenport outrun a field full of FDAU cars with a Rayburn swing arm on a dry slick flat track using a bud-bar... So seeing all these things first hand that I'm told shouldn't or couldn't happen makes me question the validity of the assertion that an FDAU setup with a j-bar is the absolute best and only way to accomplish better traction. I make it a point to study the history of the sport, to observe trends and to ask the questions on how we came to be where we are and could there be another way. In the end, all race cars still work in an "X".

[Matt49]

I remember when I heard about the Bloomquist incident with the sway bar thinking that surely they didn't just take it off and that was the end of it. Surely they compensated with other areas of the car. Apparently not or at least not nearly enough.
Speaking of sway bars. I actually think that the trend of tethering the LF is accomplishing much of the same thing as running a sway bar on the front end...but that's an entirely different discussion
The topic of the evolution of the dirt late model is certainly an interesting one. I just don't want a bunch of rules limiting innovation in the area of suspension. It takes us straight down the path to NASCAR. I've always said that the amount of money it takes to be competitive in a class of racing is directly proportional to the size of the rule book.
As it pertains back to the j-bar discussion, I don't think it is the j-bar per se that is causing more rollovers. I think it is a combination of an overall "softer" setup (less overall roll rate) and the increased VCG associated with the extreme hike of the LR. But these things are what is causing today's dirt late models to be so much faster than the cars of 30 years ago. People give me the argument all the time that lap times aren't that much faster but they are usually just going by qualifying times and track records and such. But if you look at lap times in dry slick conditions, the cars of today are far superior. It is an evolution. That isn't to say that there is not value in revisiting "old technology" to see if it applies within the new parameters that we're operating.
I'll be interested to hear what you come up with.

[Stede Bonnet]

Oh I agree on the rules, my suggestion of no J-bar was just a thought experiment. No, definitely not in favor of suspension limiting rules. As to Bloomer/Sway bar, to my knowledge they set it up how he wanted and it was a dud. The tether deal in regards to being like a sway bar is not 100%. Without having the LF connected to the RF thru the bar, it won't experience any wheel rate change from roll. The tether in my understanding would just tend to tote the LF and put all the load on the RF, which to me is counter to what you'd want from a steering stand point.

Matt49, clear out some room in your message box, I'm trying to send You a PM.

[Matt49]

I agree it isn't 100% the same (tethering the LF). But it actually is not promoting toting of the LF. When the tether catches, the car suddenly is trying to turn unsprung weight into sprung weight. It has a tendency to stabilize the roll center migration and pull the LF back down to the track. In that regard (and only that) it is doing what a sway bar would do.

[RacerX10]

My old rayburn swing arm car had a right side mounted panhard bar. It was terrible in the corners (couldn't ever get side bite on a dry track), but it did go fast in a straight line

[MachineMasters]

" I've seen a leaf spring car out run a field full of the best 4 link DLM's driven by the best elite drivers in the country, at 2 different tracks on back 2 back nights."

Please elaborate - would like to hear the winner's name and some of the drivers that were beat by a leaf spring car at two tracks like that. A story like that is great, but it means nothing if not less than nothing without proof (in my opinion). What tracks were they and approximately what year?

[Stede Bonnet]

The Shock package means a lot.

My old rayburn swing arm car had a right side mounted pan-hard bar. It was terrible in the corners (couldn't ever get side bite on a dry track), but it did go fast in a straight line

Rayburn(Swing Arm/Bud-Bar) cars do have a reputation for being that way, I've heard it said, "They'll slide till you hit something", but we had good success with ours. I worked for a team that sold Rayburn's and built a Rayburn inspired car in-house(KMRC/Yellow Jacket). We used the Right side pan-hard bar(Bud-Bar) on every car we ran or built and we never had an issue with side bite, but I had the advantage of my day job being that I worked for Carrera Racing Shocks in Atlanta, so I had access to the latest technology at the time. Its vital to see the whole package in order to achieve its FULL potential. Thanks for input.

[zeroracing]

I am not saying your wrong, but comparing results from multiple years ago to today is not apple to oranges, shocks and cars have developed more and more. That said, the answer is simple, racers will want whatever is faster, if you made a car that the right side hiked up and it carried the RF off the ground but was 1 second a lap faster everybody would buy one. I am looking forward to seeing what your working on, I like any advancement in racing so if it is faster or as fast but easier on parts it will get my attention as well as any other racer. Good luck and I am looking forward to seeing the new creation, just feel the 4 bar currently is king for a strong reason.

[MachineMasters]

to me, if you can make a rayburn/swingarm/budbar/outdated type of car work in today's age, congratulations - you're smarter than every other full-time professional team and chassis builder in the country.

the guys that race for a living, and build cars for a living, are going to race and build whatever is going to make them the most money (wins).

even with the trend of buying speed, surely some of the professionals can think for themselves..

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

to me, if you can make a rayburn/swingarm/budbar/outdated type of car work in today's age, congratulations - you're smarter than every other full-time professional team and chassis builder in the country.

the guys that race for a living, and build cars for a living, are going to race and build whatever is going to make them the most money (wins).

even with the trend of buying speed, surely some of the professionals can think for themselves..

I think we learned last year that intelligent, original, thinking has been missing in the sport.

[CCHIEF]

"I think we learned last year that intelligent, original, thinking has been missing in the sport." ............And was quashed by the powers that be. I believe it's not good for the continued, productive evolution of SLM racing.

[billetbirdcage]

On top of halo I've welded in expanded metal covering the top to keep cage from sinking into track surface during roll over in case roof becomes detached .

You might want to rethink that. I seriously doubt you will be able to get a containment seat in the car with the top of the halo covered with expanded metal. It's hard enough to get them in some cars with nothing on top as many won't go thru the side window in my experience and I'm not talking huge seats for large guys.

[Stede Bonnet]

Historical examples.

" I've seen a leaf spring car out run a field full of the best 4 link DLM's driven by the best elite drivers in the country, at 2 different tracks on back 2 back nights."

Please elaborate - would like to hear the winner's name and some of the drivers that were beat by a leaf spring car at two tracks like that. A story like that is great, but it means nothing if not less than nothing without proof (in my opinion). What tracks were they and approximately what year?

Pre-Hook:
1995 HavATampa races
Driver: Stan Massey Won $50K for the weekend
Tracks: Dixie Speedway & Rome Speedway
Competitors: Scott Bloomquist, Ronnie Johnson, Mark Miner, Freddy Smith, Skip Arp, Bill Frye, Dale McDowell, Wendell Wallace and all the other HAT regulars of that era.

I realize this is, "Pre-Hook" but the popular belief at that time was a mono-leaf/coil car was out of date and not competitive against the cutting edge 4 link & Swing Arm cars, especially on a slick track like Dixie was at that time. Rome the next night was the polar opposite, fast, high banked and tacky. My point is that this was not suppose to happen according to conventional wisdom of the time and he nearly did it at Cleveland Speedway against the same collection of competition as well, running second to the Southern Gentleman. So just because something is popular and the accepted pinnacle of technology doesn't mean it is "The End all, Be all". This is merely an example of conventional wisdom or popular belief being proven wrong.

Early Hook:
Another example was in the Late 90's early 00's, after "The Hook" became all the rage, a friend of mine had a Walter Newman car(1996) combo car that he ran conventional with a steel block/aluminum head 358. Buck Simmons and Casey Roberts both drove this car and both had multiple victories in it against the, "On The Hook" cars like Jack Pennington and Tim Headen and others. We took it to the National 100 @ EAMS one year with Buck and after our heat, Steve Francis came by to look under the car because Buck was pulling him off the corners pretty good. If not for an incorrect tire choice and a HP deficiency I believe we could have had a better final result. Later on when Buck changed teams to drive the John Deere car, I went with him and we started out with Rayburn's and won races, before switching to GRT's in late 2001. I've worked on both, won races with both.

[CCHIEF]

That is ancient history (pre hook), period!