NASCAR Red Bull Team Penalized

[none]

NASCAR penalized the Red Bull team for acid dipping the sheet metal on the car.
I actually find that comforting. The "good ole boys" are still over there. Smokey Yunick must be sleeping more peacefully.
Think there's any happening in NHRA?

Lee Sheets
Nitroclovers

 

[The Swegian]

Definitely acid dipping the funny car bodies.

They say that acid dipping makes the sheet metal thinner, therefore lighter, I assume. Don't the cars still have to meet a minimum weight? If so, what purpose would acid dipping serve?

 

[willy]

I heard they had used an illegal gauge of metal..lighter and cheaper.

From what I understand, it was a major violation. What was it $100,000 fine..150 driver/owner points? I'd call that major.

 

[Nate]

Definitely acid dipping the funny car bodies.

They say that acid dipping makes the sheet metal thinner, therefore lighter, I assume. Don't the cars still have to meet a minimum weight? If so, what purpose would acid dipping serve?

Yes but then you can put the weight where you want it. I know it still goes on in a lot of the Stock and Super stock categories, they will dip a body before they make a race car out of it. On an all steel car you can loose quite a bit of weight that way.

 

[Terry]

Yes but then you can put the weight where you want it. I know it still goes on in a lot of the Stock and Super stock categories, they will dip a body before they make a race car out of it. On an all steel car you can loose quite a bit of weight that way.

Absolutely! My first super street car was purchased as a roller Natl Record holding SS/LA 1966 Chevy II---if you leaned on the fenders they would dent like aluminum did on the Max Wedge cars, and when I unbolted the front bumper during disassembly for painting, I braced myself for the weight when the last bolt came out, and I damn near tossed the thing over my head. When I took the front fenders off, they were less than 10 lb each. (everyone wondered why I didn't put glass fenders on it as a S/St car-but since I promised the previous owner I'd keep his secrets as long as I had the car--I told them that they only made 1967 Chevy II glass front fenders and I liked the look of the '66 fenders better. And when I was drilling in the left subframe connector for a hole to hang new fuel line holders, I just kept drilling and drilling and never got through--then I realized all of those drill tailings on the floor were lead.... By the way, for you really old guys, a million years ago, Car Craft built what they called the Triple Threat car--run it as a stocker, super stocker, and a modified. It was white with a red, yellow, and orange stripe on the rear quarters. The project was done in conjunction with the owner, his friend John Lingenfelter, and the CC staff.

As I began sanding the paint down on the rear quarters, I came upon some stripes that looked just like the ones on the CC car.--I went and dug up my CC issue and the car on the cover had the exact same stripes my sanding had exposed. I called the previous owner and said, I found some stripes on the car that look exactly like the CC Triple Threat car---he said um hmm, and I said, Well, is it that car??? and he said yep. I said why didn't you tell me? He said, You didn't ask. Then I made the mistake of asking him about the lightweight front end parts and the lead in the subframe connectors--he promptly said "I have no idea what you are talking about!" It was really interesting working on a top level (for the time) super stocker during my S/St days--I hardly ever worked on the car without finding some new innovation!