Tabla de contenidos para October 2015 en Circle Track

This issue of Circle Track is pretty indicative of what is going on with the magazine these days, and it’s a lot! Of course there is the normal compliment of great tech, such as Bob Bolles’ in-depth look at the history of stock car safety or Todd Ridgeway’s look at the cars of the Modified Lite STARS series, an interesting 5/8 scale alternative to traditional oval track racing. But I must admit the one article that I am really excited about is the Great American Engine Build. As you might guess this engine build has everything to do with our groundbreaking Great American Racing Series, as the motor is being built to the rule book and designed to be competitive at each of the six tracks that G.A.R.S. will visit…

Author’s note: As mentioned last month, your General Manager/Editor-in-Chief and I decided to take a slight departure from our monthly Enginology format and share a few memorable experiences I had with Smokey, throughout about a 35-year friendship. We’ll begin with how I met him and then spike the discussion a bit with some follow-up instances. We hope you will enjoy. Especially during the mid ’60s, brand manufacturer involvement in NASCAR was at an all-time high. Ford and Chrysler were providing various “means of support” that included engineering assistance and purpose-built products, often rough into their traditional parts distribution systems to provide the homologation that made them legal under NASCAR rules. And, believe it or not, some of these parts were “individually” modified for specific teams, if you can imagine such;…

In a day when affordable racing is a hard thing to come across, the Mod Lites deliver with full fields, a good and reasonable rule book, and hard on the gas racing that all adds up to racer enthusiasm with stability and direction, along with fan enjoyment and support. These are the little guys that could and are. Welcome to the Bilstein Modified Lite STARS, or Mod Lites as they are referred to by most. The Bilstein Modified Lite STARS group is a non-profit organization that was formed to fill a void and restore muchneeded stability to the brand of Mod Lite racing. Serving as a national sanctioning body, the Modified Lite STARS International Championship Tour represents an aggressively growing segment of motorsports and is recognized as the leader in…

It has become a common scene at your local short track—the young racer, the young crewmember, the racers’ kids roaming through the pits, only 10-15 years ago these young kids had to lie about their age, or hide from the dreaded pit gate overseer to make it into the pits. I know, because I was that kid. From there my story veers in an odd direction. I wasn’t sneaking into the pits to race, to work on a car, or even to watch everything that was happening. I was sneaking into the pits to help my dad inspect cars. Let’s face it, it’s easier for a 14-year-old to slide under a car with a magnet to check fuel cell plates and tail clips. Unfortunately, I don’t move quite as quickly…

Mopar or No Car! This is a picture of our new ’70 Challenger. This is one fine piece of work. My team and I would like to see it make your (Facebook) page. —Chastin Watts Chastin, That is one awesome car! Not only will we share it on our Facebook page but we’ll also share it right here in Pit Board. By the way, we’d love to get behind the wheel. Any chance of that? Mr. & Mrs. Late Model Rob, I thought you may be interested in a couple called Mr. and Mrs. Late Model. A husband and wife team who both competed in Dirt Late Model Racing. Kristen and Jason Flory gave up racing their late models weekly to become the promoters at Wayne County Speedway in Orrville,…

Maxima Performance Break-In Oil is specifically designed for breaking in engines with flat tappet camshafts, roller elements, or where elevated levels of antiwear additives are needed. A high-zinc/phosphorous formula is blended with highly refined, pure petroleum base stocks to provide optimum ring seal. Proper engine break in will produce an engine that achieves maximum power output with the least amount of oil consumption. A new engine should be broken in using specific guidelines during the first few hours. The focus of breaking in the engine is on the contact between the piston rings of the engine and the cylinder wall. When the piston rings are broken in or seated, they don’t allow combustion gases to escape the combustion chamber past the piston rings into the crankcase section of the engine.…

It is every team’s ultimate goal. It is the dream we all dream when we start out in this sport. Winning a race and standing in victory circle is very rewarding. If it is your first time, everyone is happy, including some of your competitors who are friends. But let it happen too often and those friends may likely turn bitter. The phrase “it’s lonely at the top” is no more apropos than in racing. Teams who win on a consistent basis are loathed by all of their competitors and even by the track management for stinking up the show. We were told by a track official once that on a particular night, after we had finished Second to a dominant team for three weeks in a row, they were…

Extreme Goggles The new Weld-Mask auto-darkening welding goggles from Miller Electric Manufacturing Company feature an extreme low-profile design that allow welding operators access into spaces where the use of a traditional welding helmet would be limited. This exclusive design is usable for gas welding and cutting, as well as light-duty MIG, TIG, and stick welding. It is ideal for maintenance, repair, and installation applications, and specialized welding applications where alternative welding protection is needed due to space constraints. The lightweight design significantly reduces neck strain and offers a tight-fitting eye covering to block out light from the welding or cutting arc. A flame-retardant head cover provides protection against UV/IR rays and light spatter, while the replaceable silicon skirt design ensures a comfortable fit for a variety of face profiles. Available…

As of this date, the first Great American Racing Series race ran successfully while this engine was still in the process of being built. This story is about that build. In this three-part series we will detail the preparation of the various parts, fitting the parts together, and making the final assembly and dyno’ing the motor. At the end we will list all of the parts and manufacturers we used and a spec sheet showing all of the sizes and clearances for the build. This is a Street Stock motor that fits the rules of Circle Track’s new Great American Racing Series and as such, may, or may not, be legal for your particular track or series. CT purposely left the rules a bit loose for the series in order…

While racing on the dirt has both good and bad points, and while this can be said of any race car on any surface, there are some unique drawbacks to racing on the dirt. One big problem is keeping the car clean. Every race car gets dirty and each type of car has its own form of grime. Cars that race on dirt or clay racetracks have some problems that are unique to this type of racing. Just how bad can it be? Every time you see a dirt car on television or in a magazine it may look dusty and have some traces of mud on the surface, but it just does not look that dirty. The pictures in magazines often show a car in the winner’s circle and…

Quick Performance offers a full floating Ford 9-inch rearend housing, axle, and hub package for circle track racing. The package is perfect for applications to Street Stock and Grand National–style cars on both dirt and asphalt. It is built for 58-, 59-, 60-, 61- or 62-inch wheel mounting surface to wheel mounting surface with a centered pinion. Different widths and pinion offsets are available upon request. The standard housing for the rearend assembly is set up for a GM Metric G-body rear suspension. Quick Performance also can build these 9-inch full-floating housings with brackets for GM A-body cars, leaf spring cars, and bare, with no brackets installed on the tubes. The housing piece is the standard “big web” piece. Quick Performance can customize (at an additional cost) to instead include…

We have managed to make sponsorship too complicated. At least that is my thinking. I have received sponsorship proposals that contain far too many pages of information, and when that is received by someone you are trying to sell on sponsorship, it is a turnoff. Some racers are spending (wasting) large sums of money in an effort to secure sponsorship, and it is not really necessary. Rich Plinke, author of From The Jaws Of The Dragon, wrote in a recent edition of Lehigh Valley Business, some people throw a lot of hocus-pocus and razzle-dazzle at the potential sponsor, all well-disguised under a heap of opaque misdirection and distraction. How many times have you heard the KISS method— Keep It Simple Stupid? After many years in this business and having put…