Ok well I've been persuaded to repost my earlier message that I deleted with out adding my adjectives. So here is my email that I sent and the reply that I got back that details out the fixes for the issues at hand which are wheelie bars and big front tires.
Quote:
Hello Gentlemen,
My name is Kris Rachford stock 3032 and I would like to let you know my views on the front brake strut rod bushing issues. I'm currently deployed in Afghanistan but I'm also currently rebuilding my Dad's old Stocker to be able to complete with when I come home. I basically want to make you aware of what happens when the front brake strut rod rubber bushings are used in a race application. I will attach pictures to this email that shows how much movement the stock type rubber bushings allow the front tire to move which in turn lets the tire contact the rear part of the inner fender wheel housing. Until recently I didn't know that I had an alternative option to the factory rubber bushings which would correct this issue of the tire contacting the inner fender area. I believe this happens when the car comes down off a wheel stand and basically lets the body of the car land on the front tires which could very easily cause a tire failure on the race track. The other thing that happens when rubber bushings let things move around is the toe or alinement of the front tires doesn't stay running straight and parallel to each other. Under braking my car was always a hand full and I didn't realize until a Super Stock racer explained it to me that with the rubber bushings under braking the car wants to "hunt" due to the fact that your alinement is now out of adjustment causing the car not to track straight. So there are two basic issues that the rubber bushing cause in a race applications which they were never designed for originally. One being they allow the tire to contact the inner fender wheel housing under hard braking conditions or coming down off a wheel stand which the attached pictures show and they do not keep the front end alinement tracking straight and true. I hope you can make sense out of what I'm saying and understand that both of these issues are safety issues and could very easily cause an on track incident to happen. But there is a fix for this which you know. I've purchased a set of the front spherical bearings from Calvert Racing which corrects these issues. Unfortunately it seems that the NHRA is not going to allow me to use the spherical bearings to correct these safety issues which I disagree with. My hope for this email is that NHRA sees that this is a safety issue and tables this rule for the 2013 racing season to do more research on this issue. Thank you for your time.
Respectfully,
Kris Rachford
Stock 3032
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Quote:
Kris,
If your concern is from a wheel stand, I suggest you put wheelie bars on the car which are legal; and will correct that issue. As for your other issue; any car will wander/hunt during hard braking with a narrow front tire. Our decision is to not allow the use of spherical bearings and/or rod ends on strut rods in Stock.
Pat Cvengros
Pacific Division Technical Director
(626) 250-2295
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