2006 Tech / Compliance - NERRC/NARRC

Andy Bettencourt

Andy Bettencourt

Super Moderator
I would like to petition the local Comp Boards to do some more compliance checks in IT this year. While I do not want to over-burden these volunteers, I would like to see more items checked on a random basis. What items would YOU like to see checked at our races?

MARRS guys you weigh in too, you have a great series.

(This is not a debate, just brainstorming ideas that may or may not fly. No idea is wrong, it will be up to the local teams to determine viablility on an 'average' regional weekend')

Aside from weight I like an open hood and trunk rule in impound.

AB
 
I think that the cars could get a quick look from tech when gridding for qualifying. Confirm that tires are not slicks, rotors are not cross drilled, ride height is 5 inches, listen for questionable exhaust (cammed or ported motors) look in the engine bay for general safety, fit and finish, proper intakes. Easy stuff, not overly time consuming. Questionable cars could be approached following qualifying if absolutely necessary.

I think the general scrutiny, which hopefully doesn't place much burden on tech since the cars are all gridded, would be good. The sups could even ask folks to have the hood open for a quick check at grid - couple questions about the car might go a long way to creating a heightened awareness of the rules and make people think twice about treading into the grey area. This would create an greater awareness that the club does care and do look at prep and seek a legal playing field and will enforce it.

We could give a tech inspector a very cool, very official INSPECTOR badge or hat so folks know who is looking at the car. The presence of inspection and awareness that you may get chatted with after qualifying or before the race might encourage legal prep.
 
Of course the safety eqipment, and anything that looks loose or hanging underneath that could find its way to the race surface.

As far as the post race;

minimum weight has been met.
juiced fuel would be a good one too.
ride height
ballast placement/location
quick look in the trunk if applicable
track width

oh yeah, we should look for nitrous too!! :D

R
 
I asked a similar question a couple of years ago and suggested at least weighing the field (everyone I know wuv's getting weighed - don't you?). The asnwer I got was "great idea, who's going to manage it?" And they were right. 40 cars in the field, takes 30 seconds each to run them across the scale - there's 20 minutes. Now go and compare each car to its class weight, another 30 seconds each & you've now burned 40 minutes w/o even dealing w/ the cars that are light (and I think I'm being conservative on the time it takes). At the end of racegroup 6 on Sunday I don't see many tech guys interested in this, they want to get on to heading home too.

While I'm making complaining noises I'll bitch about fuel sampling. I've never gotten a straight answer on what we as IT guys can & can't run for fuel. I've asked on more than one occasion if I could get a sample tested (once even provided labled samples & return contact info for the samples to be taken home and tested since they didn't have the testor on hand) and gotten exactly ZERO for answers. So I continue to buy my fuel at the local gas station & hope I'm OK.

Now for being a bit more positive.

An open hood policy is a great idea. Perhaps some understanding of what sort of things will get you a real protest too. If some guidlines were discussed about things like washer bottles getting a blind eye and not asking to check a flywheel between qualifying & race grid would help people accept the scrutineering as constructive. DQ'ing a back marker because they are 10#'s light is mean. Telling them to get it straightened out & a log book note that the car must get weighed before next event forces a change w/o ruining their day. Take the witch hunt mentality away from it and be fair about when it needs to be fixed by is all I'm trying to get at.

Ben's right, a simple look-see at grid doesn't take too long, but remember to put yourself in the shoes of the guy who just killed himself to get to grid right at the 1 minute warning.


Matt
 
Impound the entire field and require everyone to have their cars with the hoods open AND have officials make visual inspections. Heck, even if that person just looks for a few basic things and is clueless about many things, the person whose car it is doesn’t have to know that.

What are the simple things to verify that wouldn’t take a significant amount of time?

Would taking the valve covers off help people do a more though inspection? (I have no idea.)

Verify a few engine codes to ensure they match what should be there. There are a few questionable engine blocks out there. Again, not sure how possible this would be.

Maybe a quick verification that everyone has a stock ECU harness and box.

Weigh the top 8 cars.

I still would love to see a Dummy Guide to Protesting document put together and provided with each person’s registration package.

Andy, if you write a petition let me know.
 
I do not even think that a petition is needed. If you come up with a list of item along with the information tech would need to check these I think you would get cooperation. At the ARRC they had some very simple tools for ride height and air dam height. Fuel testing is imperfect so I would avoid that. Intake location could be checked easily. What else.

Oh and I don’t mind tech being on grid but that is a bad time to approach drivers in a confrontational manner. Having worked tech and driven all interface between the two can be confrontational.
 
I am a fan of the Impound ALL, and hood(s) up at the end of every race. Even if Impound ALL is only for 10 minutes and only the first 3 cars are checked by tech. Sometimes I wonder whats the point of winning if you can't even brag to anyone but your crew on the way home... it would be nice to chat in one area with others after the race, not to mention opening the hoods to everyone really makes you think twice before you put the nitros bottle in ;)

I like the idea of checking ride hight/spoiler hight, it is very easy to make a tool to do that in 15 seconds.

I also think that we should check the legality of all these "splitters" that are being made, some are a bit questionable IMO.

Checking track would be another great thing to check, although this will take supplies, as your not checking track but rather making sure that the contact patch of your tire does notexceed the exterior of your body.

Fuel sampling is a good one that is easy to check (Matt- if you EVER have a problem getting a sample come see me, I will help correct the problem for you).

Checking the ECU should be easy in "most" cars although some cars may require some disasembly of the dash and or other parts of the car, thus this would be on my top 3 cars only list).

I REALLY wish the compression was checked (especially for the top 3), I think this is an area that most IT cars that are borderline might fail. We should come up with a method and have someone willing to check it for the "less mechanicaly knowledgable" folks racing.

Other little things like ballast location, door glass (non nascar door bar), headlights, etc. are always easy good checks.

Safety items like roll bar padding, nomex socks, riped gloves, riped suite, etc. should make up one of the minimum three items checked at every imound.

Hope this helps your quest Andy...

Raymond
 
With the time constraints ever present (for standard regional races) I would love to see the following easily checked items.

• Hoods open (competitors can verify Make/Model specific items) for VW guys Throttle Bodies and Heads come to mind. I think with all the makes and models it would be too difficult, if not impossible to expect “the Club” to be able to check some of that.
• Weight. /Obvious component removal (doors, glass…..)
• Lightened flywheels (easier to check on some than others)
• Contact patch extending beyond fender wells visually, then rolled in flour if questionable
I think it would be too time consuming (logistically challenging?) to try and check VIN’s, Engine & Transmission codes for all the different cars in any given class.

For certain events I would like to see intake manifolds pulled to check for porting (could this be put in the Supps that competitors must be prepared to remove said items?

I would think the safety items are a separate issue and should be policed accordingly

Matt Bal
 
For certain events I would like to see intake manifolds pulled to check for porting (could this be put in the Supps that competitors must be prepared to remove said items? [/b]
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Sure it could - such as the ARRC. Removing the intake manifold - :unsure: for some cars that would be a very time consuming process. I just looked at mine and thought, wow, that would be a pretty big project. With the ARRC scheduled so close to the NARRC, that also adds to the complication for some people. At the same point, I like the idea and that's the only way to catch people.

I would think the safety items are a separate issue and should be policed accordingly[/b]
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I totally agree with you here Matt. Keep this focused on items that are performance related.
 
I do not even think that a petition is needed. If you come up with a list of item along with the information tech would need to check these I think you would get cooperation. At the ARRC they had some very simple tools for ride height and air dam height. Fuel testing is imperfect so I would avoid that. Intake location could be checked easily. What else.

Oh and I don’t mind tech being on grid but that is a bad time to approach drivers in a confrontational manner. Having worked tech and driven all interface between the two can be confrontational.
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Dick - I traded some emails with the top tech guy in NNJR - he said the same thing. Approaching the drivers right before they go on track is not a great time. Impound after qualifying sounds like the best time to review the cars and if there are any issues there's time for a driver to get is fixed before racing.
 
That's the way we do it in RMDiv, grid tech is strictly unobtrusive and limited to safety items.

We generally look at tires, lug nuts, fire system pins, etc. You'd be surprised what you run across, but we never bother a driver unless it's safety related.
 
Impounding cars after qualifing makes the most sense as there would be time to correct any issues before the actual race. Attempting to do any scrunity on grid is asking for trouble in addition to reducing the track time if the field is a large one and cars are late to grid. On a side note, the many references to nitros installed on IT cars is nothing short of BS. :dead_horse: Let's drop it and move on. Can anyone here HONESTLY say that they have seen nitros installed on someone's elses IT car? Where, when and proof? If we are familiar or only vaguely familiar with the installation of Nitros (not the bottle) but the nozzles, lines etc, then we should all know that an open hood inspection would easily reveal such. Just my $0.02.
 
Hmmm. I know a certain MR2 that has NOS decals on it. Wonder what he's got under there?

The whole NOS thing is just something we're all kidding around about. Now cams on the other hand...
 
On a side note, the many references to nitros installed on IT cars is nothing short of BS. :dead_horse: Let's drop it and move on. Can anyone here HONESTLY say that they have seen nitros installed on someone's elses IT car? Where, when and proof? If we are familiar or only vaguely familiar with the installation of Nitros (not the bottle) but the nozzles, lines etc, then we should all know that an open hood inspection would easily reveal such. Just my $0.02.
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Wow :119: As Dave said, we all use this jokingly because it is so obvious........... Take a deep breath......
 
Wow :119: As Dave said, we all use this jokingly because it is so obvious........... Take a deep breath......
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exactly, you can smeel it from halfway around the track if it was in use.
 
Maybe or maybe not, depending on how much they use. Afterall I don't think we are talking about a 50 hp shot like you would easily notice at the dragstrip. A little trickle on a straightaway or coming out of turn could go a long way. Also, people have been spending years developing new ways of hiding nitrous installations. However, all that being said I don't think it's a big problem, I would worry more about illegal pistons, cams and so on. Unless you're racing against a dentist, those guys have easy access to laughing gas. :D
 
That's funny! (pun intended) I DO race a dentist! But he's cool, so no worries about him. I asked because I was passed by a guy in a car like mine at a speed that surprised me, and when he went by I was struck by an unusual smell, and my eyes stung and burned. It was very odd. Later, I mentioned it, and somebody confirmed that they too had smelled it, and had the same reaction, and we determined it was the same car.

Just curious.
 
That's funny! (pun intended) I DO race a dentist! But he's cool, so no worries about him. I asked because I was passed by a guy in a car like mine at a speed that surprised me, and when he went by I was struck by an unusual smell, and my eyes stung and burned. It was very odd. Later, I mentioned it, and somebody confirmed that they too had smelled it, and had the same reaction, and we determined it was the same car.

Just curious.
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Jake, some of the nasty racing fuel out there (formula cars) will do this. Methanol and nitromethane both are very easy to smell and will make your eyes burn when you follow a car running this stuff. I'm not sure NOS is something you can smell since I believe it just disassociates into Nitrogen and Oxygen but I'll let someone more qualified respond to that.
 
nitrous is very noticable if your following, even a small 25 shot on an NA motor is clear as day.

But as mentioned, there are mixes out there (AVGAS comes to mind) that will make your eyes water if your around the car idling.
 
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