Freshen Your Race Car

Finally, it’s the off-season. The car is resting comfortably on jackstands under a tarp in a corner of the garage waiting for next spring’s call back to the track. Meanwhile, you plan to get reacquainted with the other side of life. You’ve got a few things you want to do, but there’s no hurry. A new season is a couple of months away, after all.

Whoa! Remember around the end of June when you read about a safer way to mount your seat and decided there was too much going on in the middle of the points chase to try it? Remember putting it off until after the season?

And there’s that pile of parts in the corner, the parts you hurriedly replaced when you were trying to make the show after that heat race accident. You were going to inspect them in the hope of salvaging a few for the future.

Well, now’s the time! No, you don’t have to give up all your cozy nights by the fire with your significant other. A few hours a week now will save a bunch of scrambling around in the final weeks before 2002’s opening races.

“That’s when stuff gets forgotten and left undone,” says Jim Cramsey of Hamke Race Cars and Parts. “Then it shows up at the first race.”

A smart racer budgets his time, as well as his money, to accomplish the things that will advance his program to the next level.

We went to several racing suppliers— Hamke, Brett Miller of DirtCar.com and Jeff Spraker of Spraker Racing Enterprises among them—for their thoughts on some areas you should make a point to inspect and repair during those winter snowstorms. These are not the only items, mind you, just some of the most important.

Dismantle The Race Car

Cramsey says that first you should follow the lead of racing’s top teams and take the entire car apart from front bumper to rear. This will allow you to take a long, careful look at every part you didn’t have time to inspect during the season. An additional benefit is that this familiarity with each part will greatly assist you when something bends or breaks in the heat of battle. If you can readily recognize what a good piece looks like and where a bad one breaks, it will be much easier to spot a slightly damaged part hindering performance or a part on the verge of breakage.

Attack one mechanical system at a time and your progress will be easily visible until it comes time for final assembly.

Now that you have removed everything possible from the chassis, hand scrub the entire car—bodywork, suspension, engine, fuel cell and especially the frame, says Miller. Looking carefully as you scrub off the grease and mud will allow you to spot unusual things like bubbling paint that might indicate a slightly bent tube, or small cracks in relatively hidden areas.

This also helps expose some of the damage caused by the water and chemicals used on dirt tracks, says Spraker. Mud also tends to get packed inside the framerails, particularly in the stock chassis used in some budget classes. This retains moisture, promoting rust, thinning the metal and causing weak points from the inside out, which are difficult to see without close examination.

Now that the chassis is clean and looks like it could go another season, get it to a chassis specialist who can jig it and make sure it’s as good as you think it is. Especially in stock chassis cars, handling problems can be hidden in compound bends and curves that will allow a tweak without visually showing it. That could result in some pickup points being very different from where your carefully crafted suspension geometry says they should be—meaning you could be chasing a chassis problem halfway through next season before having to get it repaired on the run.

Safety First

Now that you have the basics exposed and the chassis is OK for the coming year, we get to the really important stuff: your safety.

Recent racing deaths and subsequent investigations and studies have uncovered a wealth of information about how to make drivers much safer than they were as recently as last year. Despite the tendency to think about safety only as far as your specific track or series’ requirements, safety should be at the forefront of any racing effort.

Spraker points out a common attitude among weekly racers who don’t give enough attention to safety. “I’m not racing for the kind of money those Winston Cup guys are. Why should I spend that kind of money for safety gear?” Spraker says.

For starters, the inevitable crash at your track will involve the same dangerous levels—or even more damaging levels—of energies the professionals encounter when they crash. And fire dangers are just as real. How you survive a crash depends on how much thought, effort and professional help you give to safety.

“I would rather not sell a guy a car than let him outfit it unsafely,” says Spraker. “I don’t care where you get the safety gear, here or across the street, I just don’t want you to get hurt in a car I had something to do with.”

Some drivers complain of the discomfort of certain pieces of safety gear. But that complaint has been made about virtually every device ever implemented; yet somehow, sooner or later, they gain wide acceptance. If you make a habit of using the latest equipment now, it will become second nature and won’t get in the way.

Seat and restraint system manufacturers are continually changing their products to keep up with the data they are receiving. Request their latest information and follow it precisely. As in every other aspect of racing, even small variations can make large differences in performance.

Also the seats, belts, helmets, head restraints, etc., need to be thought of as a complete safety system. One small error in one area can result in another supposed safety device turning deadly.

Personal safety areas on which to concentrate are:

The Seat: You need the most substantial, professionally built seat you can buy. A seat built of thinner material poked full of holes may save you all of 3 pounds and then will deform like an egg carton at the first opportunity, allowing your body to slide all over the cockpit under the belts.

Some like to think the seat just holds you in behind the steering wheel. However, recent crash testing has shown the likelihood of serious injury is greatly reduced if the movement of the hips and torso are limited as much as possible. If the seat is built of thin material or fits too loosely, it won’t keep your body in position for the restraints to properly do their work. Padding will not help. Under crash loads, commercially available foam just compresses, so you still move under the belts and hurt yourself. Replace the seat with a substantial one that fits. If it is a properly built seat but has undergone a severe impact, send it back to the manufacturer for inspection and repair.

The seat mounts: Check their location and condition. Make sure they are not in a position to spear you if the seat deforms. Use wide-area washers to sandwich aluminum between nuts and bolts to spread the loads. Mount the seat under your thighs at the front, in the back, under your posterior and high on the back behind your shoulders.

Seat belts: Inspect the condition of the belts. Do they simply look ragged? Have they been through a crash? Do they get wet with water or solvent every week when you are cleaning your car? Carefully check the mounting points and where they are in relationship to where you sit. (That means if you moved your seat, or if you are sitting where somebody else once sat, you will probably need to weld in new belt mounts.)

The mounting locations are absolutely critical if the belts are to successfully operate under the unpredictable parameters of a racing crash. Refer and adhere strictly to the manufacturer’s directions.

Head restraints: These devices are not for “resting” your head, which is the heaviest job most can accomplish. You can use it to rest your head, but its real job is much more important.

This is a hot area of development. New research has surprised experienced crash engineers with how little the bolt-on side head restraints —previously considered the most advanced device— were doing. In fact, testers found they could actually be dangerous in many circumstances. Their purpose should be for keeping your head over your shoulders in a collision without adding to the trauma. Few do.

A horsecollar, while perhaps maintaining a position between your head and shoulders in some illusion of head support, is substantially less effective. You need a substantial, professionally designed, built and tested “head restraint” system that keeps your head and neck protected from both left- and right-side impacts and a rear hit.

Talk to your seat manufacturers for all the particulars and follow the mounting directions.

Specific Maintenance

Once safety is addressed, it’s time to move on to the mechanics of the machine. The overriding thought here is that while some of the stuff may seem like overkill, it sure would be a shame to have to fix $2,000 worth of parts when a $20 rod end broke and sent you into the wall.

Here’s a list of some of the other checks Miller, Cramsey and Spraker suggest:

Suspension and steering

• Before removal of springs and shocks, and after reinstallation, lift each corner of the suspension through its full range to detect any tendency to bind or stick, which can cause inconsistent handling problems and make diagnosis at the track very difficult.

• Jig front spindles and rear housing and check them for straightness.

• Check the A-frames for square and make sure all the rod ends are undamaged and subsequently lubricated.

• New ball joints are cheap and offer good insurance.

• Carefully check your shock absorbers and have them dynoed, if possible.

• Unbolt the steering gear from the wheels and turn the rack or box from lock to lock, feeling for tight spots or hang-ups that could indicate broken teeth.

• Check the steering U-joints.

• Clean and thoroughly inspect hubs for cracks and wear.

• Reinspect the bearings while you’re at it.

• If you have spares, assemble them into pre-setup units you can bolt on in a hurry.

Brakes

• Replace the master cylinder, especially in a dirt car. It’s cheap and helps mitigate the effects of header heat, water and dirt.

• Install new caliper O-rings for the same reasons.

• Replace the brake fluid. It tends to absorb moisture that corrodes or rusts everything.

• Check and lube the brake balance adjuster. Could be a surprise.

Cooling System

• Drain it for the winter. Spraker says he can’t believe the number of people he thought knew better but had to replace the block in the spring because the cooling system wasn’t drained.

• Take out the radiator and spray the grunge out of the cooling fins from the back. Gently straighten the bent ones.

• Inspect the hoses and replace any that raise doubts.

Fuel System

• Drain the fuel. Over time, it damages the foam in the cell.

• Disassemble and clean the fuel bladder, filler and check valves.

• Check the foam for reusability. If you squeeze it between your fingers and it recovers its shape immediately and doesn’t flake away, it should be OK.

• Clean and inspect all hoses.

Engine

• If you are running on dirt, it is probably a good idea to do a full rebuild while you have the time. You can run all the filters you want but dirt of some description (a prime ingredient of dirt is silica—very fine glass) will make its way into your oil. The dirt causes wear, and increased wear means diminishing power in little increments you may not notice until the 14th or 15th time the competition pulls you on the green flag.

• On asphalt, if it is running strong, compression and leak down are good, and no unusual noises are emanating from unseen places, clean it off, put it in a corner and cover it up after the usual pre- and post-race maintenance.

• If you have a dry sump system, now is a good time to clean the oil tank and flush the oil lines.

• Drain and inspect the oil for foreign material, then change.

• Inspect for leaks.

• Remove the covers from transmissions and visually check the gears, forks and synchronizers for wear.

• Remove the differential or rear cover and inspect for wear and heat discoloration of tooth faces.

And there you have a pretty good list of things to do to your car before next season. Budget your time and have that baby ready to fly for next season’s first green flag, and racing will offer a new level of enjoyment and accomplishment for you.