Well Oiled
Another item upon which the champions agree is the weekly engine oil change. "Change the oil and nut and bolt it," says Kevin Love, 2001 Late Model Champion at Concord.
Changing the motor oil can be one of the smartest investments you'll ever make in your engine compartment. Aside from saving the engine from a failing oil or lubricant contaminated with track dust, observing what comes out of the oil pan with your oil can alert you to damage you might not hear over the roar of the engine at speed.
"I always cut the filter open and look in it and see if I find any metal shavings that would lead to a problem with the motor," says Chad Call, 2001 Hickory Motor Speedway Pro-Cup Champion.
You may have seen Winston Cup engine men in years past sawing open their oil filters. They were looking for any small pieces of bearing or other elements that might have been washed through the oiling circuit, lodged in the filter and could signal an impending failure. These days, the better-funded teams use a special filter that comes apart for the same purpose. Although sawing your filter open (wear heavy-duty gloves) is grimy work, it still enables you to have an inexpensive, deductive peek at the innards of your engine without taking the motor apart.
Other engine parts to receive weekly attention are the air filter and the spark plugs. "They're not very expensive items, and I think they save the motor and it runs better," Call says.
Sizing The Setup
Another major piece of work is to check your setup. "Make sure of anything that may have changed on the truck during the race," says Mike Bolick, in charge of the machine driven by Johnny James, the 2001 Hickory Pro-Truck championship. "Put it back on the scales, measure all the heights, and measure all the certain measurements that you take." Then you can start adjusting from where you were the week before, Bolick says. "If, toward the end of the race, Johnny feels like he got a little loose or something and there's some changes we can make before we get to the track that might make the truck better in the long run, we go ahead and do that from Saturday to Saturday."
"Check tire stagger," Newton says. "I usually check the tire stagger and have our stuff on scales Sunday morning, weighing everything out again to see what kind of cross (weight) you've got in it. That'll give us a reference on what way to go with it and how to make our adjustments for next week." In other words, make sure all the wheels are where they should be in relationship to the rest of the chassis and rolling in the direction they were when you left the shop before the race.
"Visually check the shocks," Call says. "Take them off of there every once in a while and check and see if they're still working properly. Some people have access to shock dynos but I don't. I always just check them to see if they're warped or check the shaft to see that it's not burred up or leaking oil in any way."
"I always check my shocks because if one goes bad, it'll mess up the whole car and you'll have a shock go bad just from wear and tear," Whitley says.