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Ok,since I mentioned this in another thread I will go ahead and see who else wants to dive in.I raced for six years off and on ( with pennies in your pockets it's always off and on) never once owning or wearing a legitimate firesuit.Oh sure I had a suit that looked the part,but considering a firesuit that would fit me cost way more than I had,a pair of blue coveralls with some white stripes sewn down the sides had to do.Imagine my anxiety level when one night during our (V8 Bomber)feature I looked down and saw fire coming in the floor right next to an exposed rubber gas line.I still carry a memento of that night 35 years later.I dove head first out of the car in the infield without even getting it fully stopped.So now the shattered elbow tells me of every weather front approaching.
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Eric, one year racing my mini stock at CMS I bought a bar stool for my seat, couldn't afford a real racing seat, in a heat race I spun off turn 4 and the back of the bar stool broke, I put a 4x4 piece of wood between the seat back and battery box that was located behind my seat and finished the season like that, the track never checked it, now that's another example of racing on pennies, lol -
lol the crack CMS tech team.My first car came across the scales about 90 pounds too light one night after I had gutted excess weight and got a little carried away.They let me run that night but told me if I wanted to run the next Sunday I would have to make weight.Well it was a little hard putting weight back on I had cut off with a torch so my solution? I tack welded a hundred pound anvil right behind my seat.If that thing would have ever got upside down it probably would have been like a Roadrunner cartoon with me being Wile E Coyote and the anvil landing straight up my butt.sigpicComment
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I understand your points about safety not being checked by tech/track officials. But people have to a little bit of since at the end of the day it's your life your putting in danger!Comment
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Agreed Mod Mini
And precisely why the thread is titled Stupid Race Tricks.Maybe I should have put a disclaimer at the start like that show Street Outlaws.Just because we're dumbasses.....sigpicComment
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Crazy
Sometimes the stupid things we do doesn’t make sense to others but when you want to race and can’t afford the proper safety you will do what ever it takes. I know I’ll get bashed for my comment but my parents or sponsors do not pay for my race carsComment
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In 1980, I built a sportsman car using exhaust tubing for front hoop bars and right side door bars. In 1981 my throttle stuck going over the wall at Sunshine between 3rd and 4th turns. I was knocked out and trapped in the car for 2 hours. I broke my jaw and ankle. Two screws in my ankle, 150 stitches in my face and 35 years later, my ankle is full of arthritis and I can't stand or walk more than an hour at a time. This was very stupid on my part. In the name of speed to save weight, I now am paying for it. Don't be like me.Comment
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K.A. that's awful
And for whatever it's worth the silver lining is you lived to tell about it.And let me make one thing perfectly clear,some of my errors weren't just from racing on pennies.I was barely twenty years old when I built my first car.I just didn't know any better.Like wearing a helmet I paid eight dollars for at a discount department store and not having my belts mounted properly.I hit a guy that was spun out at full throttle so hard I drove the entire rear end of his 67 Ford under his rear window opening.My harness broke loose and I went into my windshield like a torpedo.I had took the knob off my shifter before I went out on the track because the threads were stripped and when my motor and trans mount broke it speared me in the leg and put a prefectly round circle on my shin without even tearing my so called firesuit.That was 1979 and that round puncture on my shin just finally disappeared about a year or so back.To make matters (kinda) worse after the races two teenage girls walked up to me and asked for my autograph.I just joked,you aren't related to the guy in that number 16 are you, I bet he would just love to have it.One spoke up and said that's our dad.sigpicComment
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History
Sorry to hear about the injuries some of you guys had. But, you were part of the development of this sport. Those kinds of lessons are what has brought us all of the safety innovations. In my early days, the tech inspection was almost non-existent. They made sure you had seat belts and some kind of a jumble of bars in the cockpit. The first time I ever had to prove roll bar tube thickness was in SCCA. You guys' experiences are what have brought us tubing size requirements, window nets, padding, fuel cells, and much more. Once people are killed at a dangerous intersection, then the cries go out for a stop light. Just the way we are. Almost all of us old timers have cut corners in the name of cost and performance. Some of us were lucky. In the early 80's, I raced a Triumph Spitfire in SCCA. At Daytona, I had a fuel starvation problem, and figured out that the tank was not vented. The fuel tank cap is right behind the cockpit, ahead of the trunk. So how did I fix it? I drilled a big hole right thru the center of the cap. Problem solved! That is, as long as I didn't land upside down. Funny enough, several months later I flipped it at Sebring after an axle broke, but I was fortunate that it ended up right side up.Joe JacaloneComment
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Hey Kenny... I was there that night and boy was that a scary wreck... Those old boards they had in turn three were nothing more than a launching ramp... Amazing how that car got wedged into that ditch...
Dave McInnis showed up at Orlando Raceway one night around 1963-64 and was going to use an aluminum lawn chair as his seat to save weight... Promoter Dick Joslin would not let him race until he changed it...Comment
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The highlight of my racing year used to be several nights of racing mod minis at New Smyrna's World Series. One night, I had unloaded the car and had a few minutes until the feature, so I thought I would clean the windshield for a change. I grabbed my spray can of lexan cleaner, climbed in and started to spray it while seated behind the wheel.
It didn't take long for me to realize that I grabbed the wrong can of "cleaner". I was actually covering the windshield (in front of the driver) with white spray paint. Now I was scrambling around trying to find a solvent that would remove the paint before it dried, and NOT leave the lexan permanently cloudy.
Naturally, I was by myself, so there was no hope of getting any help.
The next thing I heard was "mini stocks to staging", so I upped the pace to a full-on thrash.
Yes, I had something with me that worked, and yes, I got most of the paint off, and still made the start. Of course by this time I had already had enough excitement for one night. Damn, I don't even remember what happened in the race.Comment
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Dave, I was judging F8 during that time...after Jimmy Cope exited the invisible turn 3 exit. I was the one that suggested the post and plywood to avoid a repeat of Cope's flying exit... sure enough, (as you stated "A launching ramp") as Kenny Alderman and Rosie Sloan soon found out. They hit the plywood, toppled the posts and flew over the mound... that was before the USA was trying to send people to the moon... guess it was a trial blast off from Sunshine. OSFOriginally posted by ancrdave View PostThank a Police Officer for what they do........... OSF:
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