Tabla de contenidos para December 2015 en Circle Track

Last month I mentioned that I would tell the story of a certain meeting with a certain sanction regarding a certain project car. The origins of the story actually started back in 2008. Late in the year, I had interviewed Herb Fishel for a story on the future of motorsports and the subject of green racing was a big part of it. Herb was the driving force behind the green racing concept and the story, which actually ran in early 2009, was met with a significant response, most all of it positive. At the time, the idea of racing environmentally friendly vehicles was the hot ticket in the American Le Mans Series. Teams were not just making the move to ethanol (most of those cars ran EFI systems already), but…

Author’s note: In Part I of this little expose’, we discussed Smokey’s conception and follow-through on the 40th celebration of this engine at the 1995 PRI Show. This month we expand the horizon a bit to include some related events, both prior to, during, and after that extravaganza; so many of those events seem like they occurred last week. Of the 23 remaining engineers that Smokey and I were able to contact and speak to, the principle one was not available. Even so, I was fortunate to have landed a conversation with his son, David, who was most helpful. Born on September 17, 1909, in Marne, Michigan, Ed Cole served GM over a career spanning 40 years. As a transfer from GM’s Cadillac division (where he was chief engineer), Cole…

Late in the season, you are trying to finish the season as high in the points as possible and the car is just not right. It might have been causing trouble all season and the frustration builds as the year winds down. Now would be a great time to find and fix those nagging problems and make the car work again. This is a very common theme. I still get calls late in the year from teams who are having entry, middle, and exit problems, and have been fighting them all year long. It takes a bit of time and effort to sort these things out, but when you do find your jinx, the rest of the year and your start to the new year will be wonderful. Here is…

At 21 years old, Wisconsin native Reagan May has proven herself as one of the top female short track racers in the Midwest after just five short years in the Super Late Model ranks. Her family-owned race team not only runs on a smaller budget than most, but they have an all-volunteer crew. Still, week in and week out they deliver the goods on the track. May is a third-year Mechanical Engineering student at Michigan Technological University where she is a member of the suspension and chassis team on MTU’s SAE Mini Baja Enterprise, a studentled organization that designs, builds, and tests a single-seat off-road vehicle to compete in the Society of Automotive Engineer’s national competition of the same name. In addition to being a 2015 Kulwicki Development Driver, Reagan…

In many areas of the country the racing season is over. We are getting many calls about getting started on sponsorship efforts for 2016 and beyond. In fact, I am giving myself a pat on the back; we have had more calls this year than during any other from readers seeking advice and having questions answered about sponsorship and marketing of their sponsorship. That shows, I guess, that more are reading our monthly efforts and trying to put some of our ideas into practice. Those starting now are running way behind and will have to work harder to attract serious sponsorship support. Unfortunately, most of the racers we talk to have not really finished up their season the way it should be finished, and yet they think they are ready…

In one of my past jobs before coming to Circle Track I told someone where I had just begun working. His question was, “Do you love it?” I thought to myself, “Love it? That’s a heck of a commitment to make.” It was a stinging realization that there is a question we should ask ourselves in this sport. When you’re at the racetrack … do you love it? In my last column I urged you to try something different to see if it made your race team better, or if you could find something that you didn’t know was there. I was hoping you’d find a new sense of love for what you’re doing at the track to go along with it. Sometimes getting away from the routine helps refuel…

Soak Comments Hello Circle Track, I am a long, longtime reader, but this is my first time writing in. Your magazine helped me build a DOMINANT Street Stock when I was a teenager. I have a question regarding the anti-tire soaking rules within G.A.R.S. What prevented CT from going with just a punch rule or directly allowing treating? I have raced off and on since I was 16 (now 32) and always hated when something was illegal just for the sake of being illegal. Bob hit the nail on the head in the Q&A section of the June ’15 issue when he questioned an official for disqualifying a racer for treating a tire, even though it punched the required hardness. This type of stuff kills me … and our sport.…

We have completed the build of our Great American Racing Series Street Stock motor and we now need to run it on the dyno. For this final installment, we will show you the actual horsepower and torque numbers, tell you something about how the car ran in it first race, and provide details about the parts that went into the engine. I can tell you that the engine has been run as of this date in the second G.A.R.S. race at Illiana Motor Speedway. Will Kimmel could not be a part of the qualifying for the race because of a prior commitment to the ARCA Racing Series race at Chicagoland Speedway. So, the car owner, Scotty Earl, qualified the car. Will subbed in for Scotty at lap 44 and then…

This crash was so unfortunate, but yet so appropriate. We had just provided an article in the October issue that as of this writing has not yet hit the streets. In that piece we provide information and analysis of frontal impacts and how a race car can be constructed to better provide protection to the driver. Now we have an actual event that is so perfect for this purpose, it’s almost exactly like we would have designed for a crash test. On the night of May 28 in the Super Late Model race at Wisconsin International Raceway, Jeff Van Oudenhoven was on the inside of another car exiting Turn 4. As they were about to enter the dogleg, the outside car’s rear end snapped right and then that car came…

Cometic Gasket presents a full solution to gasket kits for engine builds and rebuilds. The StreetPro 2007-present LSX Bowtie 41/8-inch Top End and Bottom End Kits (pictured) are perfect for applications to LSX Crate Engines with a carburetor. Cometic also presents full gasket kits for other sealed options, as well as open and built engines. The StreetPro 2007-Present LSX Bowtie 4.125-inch Top End Kit includes: two 0.051-inch MLS Head Gaskets with 41/8-inch bore, one valve cover set (center bolt style), one intake manifold set, one exhaust manifold set, 16 valve stem seals, and one carburetor base gasket. The bottom end kit includes: one oil pan gasket, one timing cover set, two water pump mounting gaskets, one water pump backing plate O-ring, one rear main seal set, and one thermostat housing…

As we are preparing for a new season, competing during the year and trying to make the car better, and the push for late-season success, safety gets pushed down the list of priorities. We seldom take that much time to evaluate every aspect of safety until something bad happens, like we describe in our crash evaluation story in this issue. I hope you will read that in its entirety because there are some features of the outcome of this particular crash that may help you better prepare your car when it comes to safety. For the most part, cars these days are much safer than at any time in the past, but we don’t need to be complacent either. Here is what I propose. At some point in the pre-season…

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PRESENTED BY BEST VALUE IN SAFETY SINCE 1975 Order Online at www.racequip.com All Star Circuit of Champions www.allstarsprint.com Sept. 11-12 Port Royal Speedway; Port Royal, PA Sept. 18-19 Fremont Speedway; Fremont, OH Oct. 1-3 Williams Grove Speedway; Mechanicsburg, PA Oct. 10 Eldora Speedway; Rossburg, OH American Modified Series www.americanmodifiedseries.com Sept. 25 Route 45 Raceway; Flora, IL Sept. 26 Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway; Calverty City, KY Oct. 24 Florence Speedway; Union, KY American Canadian Tour (ACT) www.acttour.com Sept. 12 Autodrome Chaudiere; Vallee-Jct, QC Sept. 26 New Hampshire Motor Speedway; Loudon, NH Oct. 3 Airborne Speedway; Plattsburgh, NY Oct. 10-11 Thunder Road Milk Bowl; Barre, VT Oct. 16-17 Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park; Thompson, CT ARCA (Automobile Race Club of America) www.arcaracing.com Sept. 19 Salem Speedway; Salem, IN Sept. 25 Kentucky Speedway; Sparta,…