Came across this at a local shop. I wonder if more Americans will see this car race than will watch F1. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
"This thing doesn't excite one bit." The only motorsports I really pay any attention to at all is F1, and GP2. OTOH, though I've never been to a dirt track sprint car race, the idea of huge hp in such a little package is interesting to me. Would love to try a few laps. This stuff is very, very popular, and you can win real money in the right series. US road racing should be so lucky.
bill wood of willwood engineered products told me once that he always made a point not to get too close to the sprint car drivers as the sport was so dangerous and he always worried about having a friend killed. those are the bones of a real race car!! if one truly watches a saturday night thunder battle and comes away umimpressed with the speed and talent...one needs to take a second look.
Ooooooh, cool. One of those high speed farm tractor things that only turns left. Seated bolt upright straddling a propshaft must be a hoot. Race car designers figured out how to avoid that problem back in the 40's. At least thay have consented to using fuel cells. I actually have been to a sprint car event at IRP and these things are too fast for what they are and where they race. Center of gravity is up too high, making the roll cage very necessary, as they fall over with some regularity, often rolling over and then going end over end, much to the delight of the "fans" swilling beer and tucking into piles of fresh pork rinds.
Net hit the nail on it's head. I've been to these races and they are fun to watch: demolition derby in the mud But when it comes to precision racing I rather go with a Formula car on a paved roadcourse
That supprise me. One drive would change your opion...these things are like champ cars with no wings... They are over powered under engineered suspensions...out of control. You steer with the throtle... Not the glamor of other series, but it will put hair on your chest if you can master it. Still love the idea of racing for cash.
One of my all time favorites was the USAC support race at Nazareth...The worlds fastest "paved" tri oval. The cars had almost as much HP as the champ cars ...but no wings. Watching is not what makes these cars great...sliding them around the track over 100mph is what gets the blood going. Takes allot of the BS out of racing. The drivers and the machines will test you unlike any other. I still think this is what made the old american drivers legends.
Ok, let me rephrase that: It would excite me to drive one and watching the races is actually fun. But if I want to see clean precision roadcourse racing, this would be the last place to go. A while ago there was a racing game based on these cars for the Playstation and I enjoyed that. It is as you say, you steer with the throttle. Fun in its own way.
in the mid 1920's a miller rear drive indy car and a bugatti t35 grand prix were basically the same car in concept and practice [tho millers were better engineered and fabricated]...bugs even raced at indy and millers in european venues. so like it or not this charming weldment of tubing has direct ancestry to a modern f1 car. give it some respect.
And of this "precision road racing" is driver or car? At least with a sprintcar you can certianly say the driver CAN carry a bad car. Even anything other than qualifying in roadracing is very seldom "precision" in a solid 45 minute or better session an extreme few driver's will have the exact same lap times .... they will spike and fall as conditions of track or car go. I'd really like to see less driver aid's in all series , take ALL wings away and see whom can really be a wheelman!
Coming from Ohio, not far from a place called Eldora and the old paved Dayton Speedway, I grew to appreciate sprint car racing. I don't see how one can compare this to F1, or any road racing. Just like I don't see the frequent comparison between NASCAR and F1. They are all very different. There is a skill required to race F1, and there is just as intense of skill required to race sprint cars. In fact, the word "precision" might better apply to the the intentional loss of traction, "edge of destruction", needed in driving a sprint car. Kind of like the days when Gilles would drift his Ferrari in a controlled drift around a corner. Anyway, sprint car racing is amazing to watch. Photo I took at the old Dayton Speedway, "World's Fastest Paved Half Mile", many years ago. Image Unavailable, Please Login
"drive" being the operative word here. Would I love to drive one? You Bet! Nascar? You can bet on that too. Watch them drone about in a circle? Nah.
+1 The snobbery and comparison with F1/road racing started with the OP: Personally I couldn't care less about dirt racing and have no need for bashing it, but when somebody makes a dig trying to compare it to the crown of motorsports, I feel the need to chime in.
What the heck ! F1 is becoming quite the training series for the NASCAR truck series enroute to 'cup!!!
"Personally I couldn't care less about dirt racing and have no need for bashing it, but when somebody makes a dig trying to compare it to the crown of motorsports, I feel the need to chime in." Why do you take it as a "dig" towards F1? I was musing about motorsport in the US. Dirt track racing is very popular here - F1 isn't. I wish we had US equivalents of all the incredible GT, touring car, rally and open wheel series in the UK and Europe, Asia and Australia, but we don't. I'm not sure if it's cultural, or attributable to the incompetence of those who run US motorsport.
