Getting Through Tech

Getting through a technical inspection comes down to a fact of racing life we all have to live with. In general, the purpose is to ensure that all cars are safe and follow the rules. But much like an IRS audit, those involved are on two separate and distinct sides.

Any track, be it a NASCAR superspeedway or your local bullring, needs to maintain a high level of safety. That means safety equipment on all the race cars is strictly inspected for accuracy, proper installation, and overall workability.

Tech inspectors, as agents of the track or sanctioning body, are instructed on what issues are flexible; safety is not one of them.

Joe Wells, competition director for ARCA, says safety is the “first and foremost” priority of a technical inspection. “All the body modifications, ride heights, and everything else are secondary,” he says.

Wells tells his inspectors to look at seatbelt location, seats, brackets, welds, and rollbars. “We check the thickness of the rollbars on a spot basis. We look at fire-extinguisher locations, charge, and we’ll look at uniforms, helmets, and the driver’s safety equipment.

“Going underneath the car, we’ll make sure that the suspension parts have been magnafluxed. At the speeds we run, it’s important to make sure you have good parts under your car. The window net—we make sure that when it’s up, it’s good and tight. We’re looking at recommending the guys get those cage nets on both sides.”

Clearing Hurdles

Once the required safety equipment has been approved, the next level of an inspection is for the legality of the cars’ construction and components. That’s when the owners, drivers, and crew chiefs take a closer look at the process. Mark Stahl owns and drives the Autobell Car Wash, #32, in the ARCA series. For him and fellow owners, technical inspections are a learning experience.

“The main thing we look for in inspection is when they check the engine, to see what the compression ratio is,” Stahl says. “To make sure that if we’re not up to the maximum, when we come back for the next race, or the next time we rebuild that engine, we get it to the maximum. We try to see how their cubic inches rate against what we have figured out.

“We have to see how all the templates fit on it to know if we are within tolerances and taking advantage of everything we can. We check the weight of the car to make sure we’re not more than 5 pounds overweight. We check the tread width to make sure we are to the max. They have a rule for the width of the front fenders. We want as much downforce as possible if we get the front fenders out as far as possible.

“You pretty much know what you can get by with before you leave your shop. You try and get the car to those limits and see if they come up with the same measurements and conclusions as you do.”

Bill Kimmel is the crew chief of the highly successful Advance Auto Parts Chevy in ARCA. His viewpoint is focused: “The biggest thing is the body. We can make the car legal, weight-wise—that’s a given. The hardest thing that bothers me on the tech more than anything is to get to the template part of it. If I’m 10 pounds light, I can put a piece of lead in the car. If my template’s off a whole lot, it’s hard to change the body that much, that quick.

“The Daytonas and Talladegas are even worse than the Atlantas or the Charlottes because air means so much there. You don’t want to give up anything you don’t have to. A short track like Salem or places like that are not as big a deal because air does not play as big a part as it does at Atlanta, Charlotte, or Talladega and places like that. The biggest concern for me almost every day is rolling through that hole over there and getting through the template part.”

In NASCAR, Penske/Kranefus crew chief Joe Dan Bailey describes the drill. “The first thing you do is get the car in here and put it up on for jackstands,” Bailey says. “Inspectors roll up underneath it and make sure everything is safe on the car. There are no illegal parts nor aluminum parts where there are supposed to be steel parts. Another inspector goes inside the car and makes sure the safety belts and all the equipment are right. They just do a thorough check of the car.

“Then you take it and run it through the templates and the sticks. The sticks are the high sticks, to make sure the valance isn’t too low and the spoiler is not too low or too high. To make sure the body configuration is pretty close to stock, we run tolerances of .060-, 1/8-, and ¼-inch on the templates.”

On the local scene, the emphasis is on safety for the same reasons. Often, it comes down to not knowing. Many first-time racers or builders don’t know what forces take place when a car is in a wreck. Building a car has just as steep a learning curve as driving it. Unfortunately, there are no national rules or tips for first-time builders.

That’s where a tech inspector becomes a teacher as well as an enforcer. One tech inspector we know looked over a car that was built by a first-timer and said the car was not yet ready to race. The rollcage had only been tack-welded, so it would likely collapse in a wreck.

Solid inspection basics include a driver’s personal safety equipment—seats, seatbelt and harnesses, window nets, and padding. When broken down, each of these is checked for not only the quality of the item, but also the mounting and installation.

One tip involves mounting a harness. If it is mounted higher than the driver’s shoulders, then that driver has a greater chance of becoming strangled in a rollover. Simple basics go beyond buying a better helmet. The driver can sit in his car and see what parts his arms and legs can hit if he crashes, and make sure those surfaces are padded or at least dull to any sharp edges.

To go one step further, loosen the belts and see what new areas can now be touched. Belts stretch under pressure—another reason to replace them periodically. Welding is an area where safety inspectors look closely, and if your welding skills are not up to par, get someone who can.

Locally, race car bodies are checked only minimally, and then it’s only a matter of spoiler heights and widths more than the NASCAR-like series of templates all over the car.

When a car goes through tech, most crew chiefs carry a notepad to jot down any discrepancies for or against their car. These can come in handy later when the team finds out that maybe they can work their car a little harder and still be legal.

Tech Tips

This is another one of those stories in which we can’t name names.

A junior crewmember making his first pass through NASCAR inspection was watching officials check the clearance under the front valance. As the inspector’s gauge went thunk, indicating not enough clearance, the crew chief, a grizzly veteran, started yelling at the rookie. The yelling got louder and louder, and the rookie still didn’t know what he had done wrong.

The car was waved through and approved.

Back in a garage stall, the rookie approached the crew chief to apologize for whatever it was he did.

The crew chief started laughing, saying, “You didn’t do anything wrong. When I started yelling at you, the tech guy figured he didn’t want a piece of me and forgot about the front valance. We fooled ’em.”

House Calls

Getting through tech doesn’t have to be difficult. Like racing, it’s all in the preparation. And one of the best ways to be prepared is to check items before you reach the racetrack.

When in doubt, teams both big and small call their sanctioning body and ask for the competition director. Many of them will make house calls to pre-inspect a car while under construction or if it’s been extensively reworked.

It sure beats spending valuable time at the track trying to get your car into compliance, or just as bad, spending a bundle on new parts that don’t pass inspection.