How to test your race vehicle at Speedweek?

[Richard Thomason]

Fortunately Pork Pie, this is still the home of the brave and the land of the free. Which really means that you can still dazzle em them with B*** S***.
Oh well, it was fun. Yes we did run on drag strips a few times, looked at running on airport runways, (insurance put a kibosh on those), but now there are no short tracks that will do us any good. We just need long courses at B-ville. Hopefully we will have all we need this year.

[PorkPie]

Fortunately Pork Pie, this is still the home of the brave ...

Wrong we are the land of the brave we are the size of Alabama and we got 85 MILLION people....it's so tide that I have to say always SORRY when I turn around and I still go 150 mph when I got the right car under my a.. ......this is BRAVE......  

6 days to go....I feeeeelllllll gooooooooodddddddddd

[edweldon]

There's a nice straight 5 mile stretch of scenic route 305 south of Battle Mountain NV where it crosses the Reese "river". Two lane road with good shoulders; good visibility in both directions.......
Ed Weldon

[RZ350]

Here's Jason McV doing some low speed testing, somewhere in Montana....

It's hard to shift in flip-flops!!!    

[joea]

John R others............

we have used the service road as seen previously.....
abit risky.........

this year......I didnt make it on dyno.....and needed to
test airshifter.........before waiting in line to see...........
...so we unloaded on the dirt in the vicinity of the bend
in the road.........away from all the campers.......and
went through the gears........checking shifting to our
satisfaction.................AND a gentlemen walks up
and says..........your Joe Amo arent you.........(saw the
team amo trailer).........he says you probably dont remember
me............but I remember you.........you helped take care
of me in ICU.....(he was in hospital for over 120 days, near death)
you talked to me about Bonneville..............this is my first
trip to the salt..........I saw you drive past my campsite...........

long true story short.........his specialty is forming fiberglass
and painting..........and has offered to do whatever I need
on my bike in our quest for better aero.............

gotta love it..............

[desotoman]

If the entries continue to grow at Bonneville, or even stay the same for that matter, I would like to see a short short course set up at Speedweek. It could be 2 miles. Its primary function would be for new drivers to license, and a place to make a test and tune runs only, not for qualifying for records.  I believe this year there were 200 new drivers-riders, that needed to be licensed. This would shorten the line down for the standard short course for the first couple of days, and after 2 or 3 days could be eliminated. It would be nice to have a place to test also. I know this is asking a lot but it might help with the lines in the first couple of days.
Just my thoughts. Tom

[hotrod]

Another possibility would be to do like some of the big drag events and find someone who would (sponsor) drag a portable chassis dyno out to the salt.

It is not uncommon at some of the larger drag events for them to set this sort of deal up.

Even a low tech roller system (no fancy read outs ) with a simple water brake load would work for simple tests like verifying belts stay on, or shifters work, is that vibration gone or data logging is working properly etc.


[edit] It would also cut down on wear and tear on the courses as the number of racers climbs.

For cars trying to solve overheating or leak issues, it would also keep crap off the salt, and cut clean up time if a not so healthy rig scatters a tranny or engine during a test run.
Larry

[RidgeRunner]

Desotoman:   Good idea but it would require a great number of people to supervise and control properly as well as another safety crew.   Major incident happened in the old, similar concept, "warm up" area in '72 [probably one of the reasons for it's no longer being available - most safety rules and regulations are written in blood with pain from a prior happening].

Hotrod:    Much better idea, I think it would accomplish  almost as much, require far less supervision, and be much safer for all concerned.

Just my 2 cents,

                          RidgeRunner

[desotoman]

RidgeRunner, thanks for your post. I was not aware of an incident in 72'. The reason I suggested a short, short course is it would be supervised just like other courses, and make everyone wear all safety gear required to make a regular run,  unlike the old warm up areas. I realize this would be an extra strain on the current support crews, but with the entries growing, eventually something will have to be done. That is why I suggest a 2 mile course, as it would involve less time per vehicle.  I believe we had 1200 runs on the short course this year. I also think there were 200 rookie drivers/riders, so if every rookie driver drove/road only one run on the short course that would make 17% of the short course runs made by rookies, which can be time consuming. Just an idea.

[dwarner]

John R others............

we have used the service road as seen previously.....
abit risky.........

this year......I didnt make it on dyno.....and needed to
test airshifter.........before waiting in line to see...........
...so we unloaded on the dirt in the vicinity of the bend
in the road.........away from all the campers.......and
went through the gears........checking shifting to our
satisfaction.................AND a gentlemen walks up
and says..........your Joe Amo arent you.........(saw the
team amo trailer).........he says you probably dont remember
me............but I remember you.........you helped take care
of me in ICU.....(he was in hospital for over 120 days, near death)
you talked to me about Bonneville..............this is my first
trip to the salt..........I saw you drive past my campsite...........

long true story short.........his specialty is forming fiberglass
and painting..........and has offered to do whatever I need
on my bike in our quest for better aero.............

gotta love it..............

[dwarner]

"long true story short"

Joe,

A beautiful human interest story. This is the sort of thing that makes LSR so special to me.

Please excuse the copy of Joe's post above. I tried to use the quote function. Fat fingers on a early Monday morning caused the goof.

DW

[Bob Jr.]

RidgeRunner, thanks for your post. I was not aware of an incident in 72'. The reason I suggested a short, short course is it would be supervised just like other courses, and make everyone wear all safety gear required to make a regular run,  unlike the old warm up areas. I realize this would be an extra strain on the current support crews, but with the entries growing, eventually something will have to be done. That is why I suggest a 2 mile course, as it would involve less time per vehicle.  I believe we had 1200 runs on the short course this year. I also think there were 200 rookie drivers/riders, so if every rookie driver drove/road only one run on the short course that would make 17% of the short course runs made by rookies, which can be time consuming. Just an idea.

Desoto & Hotrod
Very good ideas for helping stream line things.

What also needs to happen with the growth of numbers of competitors is that we will need more volunteers to pull this off not just more people in the entry line with ideas!!!!

Still speed week went great for the amount of people that were there