Legends Race Day Tips - Dialing In A Legends Car

Legends Cars have become wildly... 

   

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Legends Cars have become wildly popular around the country and have produced Sprint Cup regulars like David Ragan, Reed Sorenson, and Kyle Busch. John Gibson

Over the past 10 years, few types of race vehicles have produced as many Cup regulars as 600 Racing's Legends Cars. They have become wildly popular around the country, not only because of their vintage look, but because of the rules set in place by the Legends sanctioning body, INEX. The rules are written in such a way that setup is important, but the cars themselves are built in such a way that the driver is most responsible for when the car ends up in Victory Lane.

The list of drivers who have come through the Legends ranks is impressive: David Ragan, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Reed Sorenson, and Steve Wallace, to name a few.

Legends are designed with a small wheelbase, only 73 inches, and a short width at only 60 inches wide. Combine this with a Yamaha 1250cc sealed powerplant that produces roughly 130 hp, and you have an extremely difficult handling car. Add to this the fact that a Legends Car weighs just 1,300 pounds with the driver, and this horsepower to weight ratio makes it extremely difficult to get the rear wheels to grip coming off the corner.

A Legends setup is important.... 

   

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A Legends setup is important. However, the cars are designed in such a way that the driver's talent will be on display. These cars are extremely difficult to maneuver around the track. John Gibson

What racers need to understand is that Legends Cars are a whole new beast when it comes to the setup that goes underneath them. Many young drivers who enter the Legends ranks have a relative or car owner who has worked on a stock car at some point in their life. While some of this knowledge definitely transfers, the changes made in a full bodied car might not work as well in the Legends Cars. The following tips might seem simple, but they are vitally important and must be considered to experience any level of success in these cars.

Camber-Cut Tires
When compared to everything else you could do to improve the handling of your Legends Car, there is nothing as important as having a new set of tires camber cut. The guys at 600 Racing will cut the tires and groove camber into the rubber. Even with cutting the tires, you will still get 8-10 races on them, which is very reasonable.

One exception to this rule is at the Summer Shootout at Lowe's Motor Speedway. When the sun is out and the track is dry, you still want to run camber-cut tires. But Legends Cars are allowed to race in the rain during the Summer Shootout, and once the track starts to get wet, it's time to take off the camber-cut tires and put on an uncut tire, because wet conditions require as much tire contact with the pavement as possible.

This is also where some teams will be led astray by scaling the car at the shop with an old set of tires. After arriving at the track, the team will bolt on a set of camber-cut tires, but this will change the dynamics of the setup. Make sure you are scaling the car with the tires you will be using when racing. If you do have to change to another set of tires, make sure you know all of the numbers from when the car was on the scales.

A Legends setup might require... 

   

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A Legends setup might require a stiffer RF spring to give a car the stability needed while entering the corner. John Gibson

Springs
With Legends you cannot touch the shocks, which are spec coilovers from Bilstein. So the spring choices become extremely crucial.

"Take everything you know about a standard Late Model (spring) setup and do the opposite," says Jason Foxworthy, the parts manager for 600 Racing. Make no mistake about it: The same rules apply for diagnosing handling problems, though your baseline setup will differ greatly.

For instance, a typical Late Model spring setup will look like this:

But the Late Model has a large front sway bar that will allow you to run a large RR spring. A standard Legends spring selection will look more like this: