Topic: Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza part of "tech"?

So is this hyperbole or a real test the cars are put through prior to entering the track?

What sort of trials must the cars undergo prior to entering the track for the first session of racing?

--Spank

Re: Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza part of "tech"?

It used to be.

The only standing between you and the track now are the tech inspection and the BS inspection.

Mike
Lab Rats Motorsports
1988 Mitsubishi/Dodge/Fiat Colt Carpocalypse Edition

Re: Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza part of "tech"?

Spank wrote:

What sort of trials must the cars undergo prior to entering the track for the first session of racing?

I've been wondering this myself- what sort of... uhm... 'failure testing' is ACTUALLY done prior to taking the track?

Re: Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza part of "tech"?

JoeGekko wrote:
Spank wrote:

What sort of trials must the cars undergo prior to entering the track for the first session of racing?

I've been wondering this myself- what sort of... uhm... 'failure testing' is ACTUALLY done prior to taking the track?

About 30 minutes of Yellow on the track before the green flag usually takes out 5-6 cars.  That's about the extent of it.

Make sure you are comfortable getting out of your car while an inspector is pounding on the car yelling FIRE FIRE FIRE...

Re: Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza part of "tech"?

There used to be actual suitability tests in the first races, but those only had 30-50 cars.  With the 100+ car fields now, there just isn't time.  Some were used to determine starting order and others were just for the delight of the organizers.

They never did the brick on the accelerator test, though.  Our first car's engine (1st gen CRX) as well as others would have gone Kabloo-ey since not all had a rev limiter.  I think that this fact killed this test, but it stayed in the rules for giggles.

-Kyle
Eyesore Racing
"That's probably wrong, but it's worth a shot."

Re: Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza part of "tech"?

Actually we did do the brick-on-the-gas test for the very first Lemons in '06. We gave teams a chance to build a throttle stop with the caveat that they had to drive the car immediately from the brick-on-the-throttle test to the mannequin slalom. So, you wanted the stop to hold the car to about 3-4k rpm in neutral so you could actually drive through the slalom afterward.

The most hilarious part about this was the 30 minutes before the test when you could hear team testing their throttle stops in the pits with varying degrees of success. There was a lot of "OK, try it now," followed by an engine revving out of control, followed by "OH GOD, STOP, STOP!" followed by "I CAN'T, IT'S STUCK!!" Pretty great stuff.

Alas, both the rod-throw-apalooza and the mannequin slalom were eliminated due to the logistics of 100+ car fields and most everyone wanting to skip any kind of qualifying in favor of more race time.