Tko tips and track tweaks tweaks and track tips 6 11 21

[Shannon Whitehead]

#37704

MVI_1818-1.jpg

PART 2
PASSING DOWN TRICKS OF THE MOTORSPORT TRADE

Tire crayons
Tire crayons are as basic as their title but a very important motorsports tool. It sounds silly but tire crayons are still the most effective way to convey and log tire information in all forms of motorsports. Our personal favorite tire crayons that have been around for years are Markal tyre marque.

BASIC TIRE MARKING USEFUL INFO. HOW TO AND WHAT ALL THE NUMBERS AND LETTERS MEAN
1. tire positions RF= right front, LF= left front, RR= right rear and so on
2. If you have multiple sets of tires its always a good idea to keep sets together buy marking each tire. ex: set 001, set 002
3. What track ex: Road America = RA, Sonoma= SR. If you do a lot of track days at different tracks this will help you keep track of what tires where.
4. miles used ……. usually marked on face of tires after use in miles or kilometers
5. tire spin on rim……yellow line on side wall in line with valve stem. Makes for a quick visual reference how much rim spin you have
6. NFG = No F—king Good. “NFG” helps make sure you don’t mix up a decent tire with a junk tire
7. “Whos tires” if your having tires mounted. Put your last name , team name , you initials or car # on the tire face or tread. This reduces possibility of mix ups and saves time when you pick up tires.

Racing close to minimum weight
If you’re cutting it close on minimum weight when you’re racing and you know you have to visit the scales after the race. Go off line on your cool down lap and try to get as much pickup off the track an in your car as possible. This is a very old trick and works very well especially in amateur racing. You can usually add a few pounds using
this trick. Some exceptionally creative drivers have used this trick to add 20lbs of weight.

Wheel chalk
Wheel chalks the simple tool that always seems to get overlooked. Many tracks the paddock areas, pit areas and hot pit areas will never be nice and flat. Wheel chalks are the best way to hold the car in position for any length of time. When your running at the track brake temps can get extremely high. Coming back to the pits or paddock after your cool down or just “pitting in” the brake rotor temp will still be extremely high any pad to rotor contact can cause a multitude of problems. Simple wheel chalks can reduce or eliminate these problems. We offer our TKO wheel chalk thats low profile allowing it to clear side skirts and rear diffusers on most cars. It also has an easy to grab bright red pull strap so you can remove wheel chalk quickly and safely.

Sweat band around brake and clutch reservoirs
Sweat bands around the brake and clutch reservoirs is a simple and effective way to absorb excess brake and clutch fluid that may leak from reservoirs during track use or possibly during filling.. Its always a good idea to replace the sweat bands every so often once they have become soaked with brake and clutch fluid. This is especially true for front engine cars where the brake and clutch reservoirs maybe close to hot exhaust manifolds.

Breather tube to power steer reservoir
Your power steering system will most likely be pushed to its limits at the track. It is not uncommon for more street car based power steering systems to become over heated and loose power steering fluid out the fill cap. A simple solution is to run a small breather line from the breather cap to a over flow container.

Bungee cords on lap belts
If you have racing harnesses in your car you will have experienced the lap belts getting stuck under bum when you get in the car. Simple solution is small bungee cords attached to lap belts. The bungee cords will pull the lap belts out of the way every time you disconnect the lap belts. The bungee cords attached to lap belts also help with quick driver changes as well as quicker escapes should you need to leave the drivers compartment in a hurry. We have TKO Motorsports bungee cord kits. They are part of our in house race parts catalog not listed online.

[Author]

Posts