Tabla de contenidos para July 2017 en Circle Track

In a past column, I mentioned the blurred line between marketing and sales in the world of shorttrack racing. For the sake of this column, I’m going to throw in PR (media relations), too. Many race teams through social media are now starting to become their own PR people. Even though we’ve hit the time of the year when most sponsorships are already settled, it’s important to remember the chase never really stops. Plus, it might be helpful to keep these things in mind when you make your next sponsorship approach. When I first started to take on more responsibilities at racetracks, it was mostly mediarelations work. From there, the term marketing was thrown my way. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If I could talk and write about the product,…

Power Steering Among the Elite Manufactured in Kennesaw, Georgia, KRC’s allnew Elite Series Pump with bolt-on aluminum tank is packed with affordable technology. It carries KRC’s standards, along with many of the features developed in the company’s Pro Series pump. While many power-steering pumps on the market may be a rebuilt street-car pump, KRC builds its Elite pumps from the ground up. The pump uses sealed bearings, press-on pulleys, and mounting that bolts right on the standard GM configuration commonly used in racing. The Elite Series Pumps are fully adjustable for enhanced driver feel. Plus, KRC Changeable Flow Technology offers nine levels of feel to create the perfect driver-preferred steering from firm to light. For more information call (770) 422-5135 or visit www.krcpower.com. Superior Safety in Cells In light of…

Racing is not a gentle sport. Unlike golf or baseball, where a golfer may be able to keep several sets of clubs tucked away in a closet, or a baseball-loving dad who may be able to hand down an old mitt to his kid, many racers struggle to keep a single car running for an entire season. Lots of things can go wrong on a race car during the heat of battle, but most racers will tell you their biggest worry—outside of injury—is a blown engine. And the reason is pretty simple. Engines are by far the single-most expensive component on the race car. But hey, most will tell you that is simply the cost of racing. We race for wins, and if that means the occasional blown engine, then…

I was fortunate to have known George Hurst, having met him in the mid-’60s while on the staff of Hot Rod magazine. He was intelligent, very market savvy, and willing to step out of the proverbial box to sell high-performance aftermarket products. Perhaps best known for his shifters and motor mounts for engine swaps. He traveled the country promoting his wares, not the least of which were his creation and use of the Hurst “Golden Shifter” girls. The most notable GS girl was probably Linda Vaughn. Truth be known, George had a passion for the ladies, particularly the variety who hung out around the Indy speedway during the month of May every year. Unfortunately, at virtually the peak of his career, some personal issues drove him to take his own…

Here’s a problem I have encountered many times during my consulting career. Teams just cannot be satisfied with what they have, which many times has been very successful. Either they misapply new technology or apply it to cars that do not need to have it. At any rate, the car’s performance suffers as a result. Early on in the ’90s, teams whose cars were loose off tried to make them tighter, until the cars pushed like a dump truck so to speak. No one understood dynamic balance, meaning if they solved the tight condition first, the car would naturally exit without being loose. Then we began to see the big-bar and softspring setups along about year 2000. This got out of hand in a hurry. Teams that experimented with those…

The use of stacked springs has become commonplace among many top dirt Late Model teams. Although, it wasn’t always that way. As far as I know, the first test using stacked springs in a dirt Late Model occurred during March 1998 at Eldora Speedway. Coincidentally, I was there, and I was surprised. We went there, I assumed, to test a new setup arrangement I had developed for the upcoming Dream race that seemed to work out very well. My friends at the test wanted to see how stacked springs would work, so we tried them, too. Though the stacked-spring concept as it was arranged then did not work well at the then high-banked Eldora track, it would eventually gain traction for use at lower-banked tracks. The stacked-spring concept began with…

Those of you who have been frequent visitors to this monthly column will recall not long ago (at the suggestion of then-publisher Rob Fisher) we contacted a range of geographically separated and notable circle-track engine builders. The purpose of this exercise was to obtain responses to the same set of carefully selected questions about a variety of topics. Some inquiries were current for the day, and others attempted to reach out into the future. By design, one of the questions sought to collect responses on the possibility, or even probability, that electronic fuel injection (EFI) would find a niche in circle-track racing. Whether you had an opportunity to note the comments we received or not, some time has passed, and we decided to reflect on some of them and insert…

It is Speedweeks again here in Florida. There has already been testing going on for the dirt races at Volusia and Bubba Raceway Parks, as well as asphalt racing at New Smyrna Speedway. This year I will be helping an old friend get his asphalt Modified up to speed for the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing championships. The track testing we will do in a couple days will be a test of the changes we have already made to the car. I evaluated what the team had been doing and made suggestions for changes. Now, we’ll see how those changes worked out. During the past year, I have seen trends that disrupt the order of a balanced setup. Teams will apply methods to their cars in incomplete ways,…

It’s been a little while since we here at Circle Track orchestrated an engine build. In fact, it seems like forever since we put together the world’s most versatile engine, which ended up being one incredible power plant under the hood of a Street Stock. Thanks to a little encouragement from our friends at World Products and Erson Cams, that time has come again. When we spoke to Dick Boyer at World/ Erson, he helped us spark the idea to get another build together. We discussed building something versatile and popular. With that in mind, it became pretty clear which direction we should go. First off, we decided it was time to head to the dirt for an engine build. While our last engine could have been used on either…