500 Sprint Car Tour Roundtable: Volume 1 - Crew Chiefs
Today’s Question: How is preparing for the upcoming 500 Sprint Car Tour season the same and/or different from previous racing series that you have been a part of?
Scott McIlwain photo
Bob Bischak - Owner/Crew Chief #31 Sprint Car: “Preparation for the 500 Sprint Tour season is very similar to the ASA/CRA Late Models and the USAC Silver Crown series in terms of the amount of pre-season and race-to-race maintenance required, and the emphasis on reliability. The wide variety of tracks visited require unique set-ups with appropriate gear sets, springs, shocks…Sprint car parts are extremely lightweight and prone to failure so you inspect, test, rebuild or replace a lot of parts in the off season. Steering gear, magnetos, rearends, engines, shocks, driveline, cooling, and brake systems are all gone through. Headers, oil pans, dry sump tanks and radiators tend to crack due to high vibration levels. But, the biggest thing about prepping for the 500 Sprint Tour, is that early in the season YOU ARE FACED WITH A 500 LAP, 3 HOUR ENDURANCE RACE KNOWN AS THE LITTLE 500 at the high banked ¼ mile Anderson Speedway. This places a whole new level of preparation focused on reliability to survive 500 intense laps of 33 sprint cars wheel to wheel at Anderson! I can’t wait…”
Brad Larsen - Crew Chief #67 Sprint Car: “We approach every season, and in reality, every race the same way. The goal is to win. We don’t go to races to finish second. We have our baseline setup for the car for specific tracks or kinds of tracks. As we gain experience and proficiency in the car and in the race craft we are continually faced with new challenges - whether it be new tracks or new regulations and are forced to adapt. That’s when we make changes to make the car better. That adaptation and the ingenuity that comes with it, is what we focus on to continue to make the program better. But the approach to the season starts the same. We focus on us and our program, because if we are getting better and getting faster, then the race wins will come.
Brad Hayes - Owner #24 Sprint Car: “Preparing for the upcoming 500 Sprint Car Tour season has been a bit of a new adventure for us. As it will be our team's first year running a sprint car, we have been busy setting up the team and building our new car. Luckily our chief mechanic, Tony Fox, has a lot of prior experience with sprint cars, so he has been a huge help in guiding the efforts. Our normal winter prep for our midget team involves the usual maintenance. But with the sprint car we are sourcing new parts, developing new sponsor relationships, and really putting a whole new program together. We are looking forward to the season, and providing Jackson Macenko with the tools he needs to succeed in his rookie sprint car season. We are also pleased with how our involvement in the 500 Sprint Car tour is creating additional interest in our Kenyon Midget Series events.”
Tom Brewer - Owner/Crew Chief #64 Sprint Car: “There are really no differences in the way we are preparing for this season. Our task as racers is the same every season. We have to prepare a car to be ready for racing in a very competitive series. Even as we unloaded the car from our last race of the 2022 season, we were preparing a list of the things we want to do in the off season. This list gets amended as we go. The tasks fall into three categories: maintenance, corrections and changes to the car or support equipment to improve performance. The truck and trailer are getting a bit more attention this year because we have several races that are further from home. The race car chassis and engines also get maintenance work but also have some items that need correction. These items are things like pesky fluid leaks and parts with obvious wear or heat damage. We fix these things to improve our reliability so as to finish races. A fast car does us no good if we can't finish. We spend most of our time trying to get a few tenths of a second faster. This may involve designing and fabricating some new suspension parts. There may also be some new pieces that we get from vendors. These require time to research the potential to improve our performance and the cost to do it. Because our biggest race of the year requires pit stops, we always look for ways to make them faster and more free of errors. So, while the specific things we are doing to prepare for this year may be different from last year, they are generally the same categories from year to year.”