Stock Car News

Turbochargers and Circle Track magazine aren't usually four words that you'd find together. After all, there aren't too many oval track sanctions that allow turbochargers. However, put that little metal donut on your truck, and you're talking about a whole other ball game.

Things have been going along nicely with our Project Dirt Late Model. Each time we race, we get better, faster, and more consistent. We have numerous advertisers who have supported this project from the get-go with the latest and greatest racing products on the market. We've featured many of those products in the articles, everything from radiators to seat mounting to the chassis setup. Focusing on the critical items for performance on the track, such as setup and motor, has gotten us to the point where we're ready to give our black Pontiac GTO a whole new look.

It's a spinoff rule that came from trying to make racers use stock components. Engines in street cars produce a lot of vacuum in the intake manifold because they are designed to spend the majority of the time at rpm levels barely above idle. Puttering around town. Looking for the best parking place at the grocery store. Stuck in traffic on your way to work. That sort of thing. The result is a cam with short intake and exhaust durations and very little valve overlap.

Dart's new Special High Performance (SHP) small-block meets the need for an affordable, precision-machined cast-iron block with superior features. Designed for high-performance and heavy-duty applications producing up to 600 hp, the SHP block is the ideal starting point for circle track competitors, hot rodders, drag racers, off-roaders, and high-performance marine enthusiasts. Two part numbers cover the vast majority of small-block engine combinations: 31161111 (4.00-inch bore) and 31161211 (4.125-inch bore).

The art of creating great cylinder heads includes many different things, but a large portion of it comes from lots of time spent with a grinder in hand and in front of a flow bench, determining just how effective your changes are.

Take two old T-shirts and cut seven pieces of cloth to make the pockets according to the drawing on the right. The pocket size will be just a little bigger than the Kool packs you purchase. Sew on the pockets as shown in the illustration. Purchase seven Kool medical gel packets, which are used for injuries like a sprained ankle. They come in different sizes, but you'll need the thin ones. The gel packets freeze and stay cool for hours. I freeze them overnight and put them on ice before the race. Be careful to try it first in practice-sometimes they get too cold. Add a blower to your helmet and you have it made in the shade in hot weather!

We have been getting our Dirt Late Model car dialed in at dirt tracks such as North Florida Speedway in Lake City, Florida, and Ocala (FL) Speedway, and we have been getting faster. Then up comes a special promotion by Charlotte County Motorsports Park for a race on its asphalt surface especially for Dirt Late Model cars as a part of the United Dirt Late Model Challenge Series. The race date was August 16th. To say we were excited about the prospects would be an understatement.

Racers don't often agree with each other or perceive their world from the same point-of-view, but if you gather together a dozen of them from any category-stock cars, road racing, dragsters, motorcycles, go-karts, lawnmowers-and ask them to name the single piece of equipment that can quickly and dramatically change their on-track performance, for better or worse, without adding nitro or nitrous to the mix, you will get one answer: tires.

Quite simply put, the Supermodified racecar is the ultimate open wheel ground pounder on the American racing scene and once you see one you will never forget it. When the words Supermodified are mentioned, most people think of the New York based International Supermodified Association, better known as ISMA. However, there is a fairly new group based out of Northern Ohio that is making big strides with a great schedule of events, quality racers and equipment, and an enthusiastic fan base.

In this final segment of our explanation of racing dynamics, we will show how to apply the technology previously presented. We have learned that understanding racecar chassis dynamics helps us set up our stock cars. We have come to understand how all of the forces work in our suspension systems, and we can now adjust the components on the car to create a more balanced setup.

This month's Young Racers' Club winner comes to us all the way from the state of Washington. Bonney Lake, Washington, to be exact. Like most YRC members, Samantha "Fast Sami" Taylor has been around cars all of her life and had a father involved in the sport. Her dad put her in a car when she was just 3 years old, and by age 5 she was actively racing.