If you intend to race under a sanctioning body, always read and understand the regulations of your chosen racing class before designing or building any race vehicle. A fuel safety cell, fire wall, and front/side/rear bumper bars for impacts are also mandatory.
#Sprint layout usa full
Safety: Modern sprint cars require a full roll structure integral to the chassis, with a racing seat/harness. Designing a large range of adjustability into the wing angle of attack will provide maximum flexibility to tune at the track. Downforce generated by the front and rear wings will affect front and rear grip levels, and will be impacted by the wake of the cars in front. Depending on the length of the track, changes to wing shape and angle of attack may have a pronounced effect on downforce/drag. There may be opportunities to maximize downforce and minimize drag through simulations of various wing shapes and attack angles. Intake, Cooling and exhaust need to be considered in relation to chassis design, bodywork and aerodynamics.Īerodynamic: Sprint cars usually restrict the dimensions and camber of their wings, as well as end plates and gurney flaps (wickerbill). Powertrain: Weight distribution is heavily impacted by engine position. The suspension link locations impact the chassis design.Ĭhassis: Providing openings to make internal components accessible for maintenance is also important. At any given track, at any given race, the surface conditions might dictate tuning of these suspension components to provide more/less "bite" and tightening or loosening the rear of the car (understeer or oversteer). Adjustability in these areas must be designed into the car or tuning options will be very limited. The cars use stagger (larger outside tire) and offset (right side tire farther from the chassis than left side) to manage weight transfer, as well as ride height and springs/shocks. Axle, wheel and tire weights ( Unsprung weight) affect the compliance of the suspension, which in turn affects handling, so keeping all these components as light as possible is an advantage. Suspension: Maximizing the compliance with the track is of key importance. Therefore weight distribution must be optimized to obtain as much traction force from all four tires as possible while making left turns. Weight Distribution: Because sprint cars run on oval tracks as opposed to road courses, they are generally configured to optimize counter-clockwise or left turns. Aerodynamics also play a vital role in producing a fast car.
Understanding the handling and suspension of the live axle configuration and the springing/damping aspects are especially helpful in the design and tuning of sprint race cars. After the iterations are completed, the design will be complete and optimized.
Much of the design work is iterative, meaning re-designing areas based on new changes to another area. These six major areas of the car design work as an integrated unit and the designer must have an understanding of how changes to one area affect the others. In the UK, New Zealand and Australia there are also cars which run on dirt tracks called "Stock Cars" which bear many similarities to Sprint cars, including front engine/rear drive and large roof-mounted wings.īuild Your Own Sprint Race Car Knowledge Levelĭue to the scratch-built nature of sprint cars, you should be knowledgeable in handling, chassis, suspension, powertrain, aerodynamic and safety design. Racing is run in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia on local tracks, with the largest racing participation in the USA. They are characterized by their scratch-built single seat chassis, high power 8 cylinder front-engine, rear-drive layout, encompassing roll cage and big roof-mounted wings to give large amounts of downforce. Modern amateur cars have advanced in terms of technology, but the racing has the same premise: Drive as quickly around a dirt or paved oval race track. The designs evolved to use V8 engines and eventually wings and roll cages. Their development paralleled the Midget race car, but Sprints were based on full-size cars.
Sprint cars began in the USA in the 1930s and 40s as modified Model T racers and evolved into purpose built cars over the 30 years that followed.