TAMS restarts

[44SS]

I was watching the TAMS race, and noticed on the restarts they left a orange cone out on the track, just wondering what the reason was in doing that.

[Truck99]

On the restarts, no passing can occur until the cars have passed that cone.

 

cs

[44SS]

thanks, sometimes they would leave it out for a lap or two before pulling it off, i guess the guy in charge of it got caught up in watching the action. I thought the pass on the outside by the 14 car at the beginning of the race was awsome.

[hray]

44SS

The cone is only out on single file restarts and is placed far enoungh up on the track that not only can there be no passing before the cone, but all cars must remain in single file until past the cone. In other words, no jumping the start!

It may have seemed like the cone was out more than 1 lap, but it wasn't. It must remain out until the last car has passed, and in TAMS the lead cars can sometimes be on the bumper of the slowest cars by then, especially with a 24 car field at THR.

I thought the Cole pass on the outside in lap 2 was guttzy. We were playing it cautious and moved in immediately behind Swenson. When I saw Cole coming, we were already boxed in behind Swenson and had to ride in 3rd place until he broke his transmission. We were fast enough to catch Cole, but there were less than 10 laps to go and I don't think Jason could have passed him even if he caught him. I told him to take a safe 2nd cause we need the points, so Jason stayed about half way between Cole and Heinaman the rest of the race.

[jracer98]

hray,

I was suprised by that outside run on the start as well. I did not notice that he layed back to get that run so my next thought is that the car pulls a lower gear or has a transmission that shifts( ie not a brinn). I was planning to use a Brinn but I'm not married to it. Comments?

Thanks

Jay

[hray]

Jay,

I'm almost sure Cole runs a Bert so he can't be shifting. Here's what I think it is; His car hooks up so good on cold tires (compared to ours which takes about 2 laps to really hook up) that he can run on the outside and be faster than everyone else for about 1 -2 laps. That's why he has set so many poles this year. After that, he would not be able to pass the top 2 or 3 on the outside. We set our chassis to be fastest at the finish or with long green flag runs. We haven't seemed to find that perfect setup that makes us fast with cold or hot tires, and there is too much room for error to run one setup for qualifying and then change to another setup for the race (NASCAR can, but we can't). I don't think Cole has either; we were running faster times at the end of the race than he was until 6 to go when we decided to just pace him unless Heinaman started to catch up. My hat's off to Cole for finding a compromise that works.

By the way, we're not too far off. We've set pole 4 times this year, finished in the top 10 - 5 races and the top 5 - 5 races, set 1 new track record and tied Heinaman's CC Speedway record and 1 win out of 11 this year and 2nd in points (our 2nd year on asphalt).

Maybe we'll figure it out by next year.

[jracer98]

hray,

I saw a lot of what your saying. A lot of the cars looked terrible timing in but their race laps (with heated up hard tires) were much faster and "smoother". 48 and 77(you?) were starting to hang with 14 on the late restarts and we had the impression that the setups were crossing.

Was your car on the semi slicks? Since we have two cars, we're thinking of starting one on gas/slicks and the other on alcohol/semi slicks just to be able to evaluate both formulas competitiveness. Comments?

 

BTW, in earlier posts, several people were going back and forth on what "florida" pavement mods look like...that 40 is a real good example( as is the 5).

 

I liked everything I saw except the competitiveness of the track surface/configuration. It looked like if you didn't qualify about 5th or better, it was going to be a bad day and your finishing position was going to be dictated by others good/bad racing fortune. That 5 (point leader?) had a poor timed run and it doomed him for the rest of the night.

 

Jay

[hray]

Jay,

We run the 2 barrel flat top motor and slicks. If you have a lot of cautions (every 10 laps or so) or at SAS the semi slicks work. But if you ever get a long green run the slick tired cars will win. I think Barta and Heinaman are the only semi slick cars that have won this year.

Your right about THR. It is a one groove track. Once the pace is up, the only way to pass is if the guy in front of you moves up (either by accident or you move him up).