LegendsRacer - Legends & Bandolero Racing Forum
LEGENDS => General => Topic started by: art1 on January 21, 2014, 08:35:43 pm
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I am curious what people think about the Inex policy that demands racers send in their older sealed motors to have them re-sealed at the owners expense. I feel that this punishes the lower budget teams and it will not end one of the biggest drawbacks of racing in this series, competing against illegal motors. If engine builders can remove the engine seals, modify the engine and re-seal it, I'm not sure that having the older motors sent in to INEX at the owners expense will fix the problem. What about the purple seals and the new seals? Are they tamper proof?
INEX showed up at the Waterford Speedbowl in CT this fall and teched the top cars after the race and according to our INEX Tech inspector "three of them were found to have motor issues". A few of them were back racing the next week. My question for 600 is why did they stop at the top four? If they had gone deeper into the field they would have found plenty more and why were the teams who were supposedly not within the rules allowed to race again? I also believe that last fall, they caught a lot of people by surprise and next year it won’t be as easy as visiting a track once.
Did other racers witness similar situations when INEX visited their home track?
The only way 600 is going to solve the cheating problem is to consistently tech everybody after every race, even if this is done randomly over the several races. Forcing racers to take the time, remove a motor and send it to Charlotte at their own expense, will solve nothing. Why can't the INEX tech officials perform the tech at the track? The only way to resolve this issue is to check the cars as they come off the track. Just because I send a motor down to Charlotte, doesn't mean that it will be the motor that is in my car at the start of the race season.
I do not want to imply that every successful racer in this series has an illegal motor. I know there are plenty of racers who are successful because of their hard work and dedication. I wrote this because I'm surprised that more people aren't talking about the motor issue and I was wondering what other opinions Legends drivers had on this subject. What's your opinion?
Art Marrero
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Art,
Plenty of recent topics on the new seals. Pro and con... Regardless; Has to be done.
This site has no ties to INEX or USLC (no longer 600 Racing. Hasn't been for years.)
Steve
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Art,
Your preaching to the choir. This is what a lot of us have been saying for a while. I sometime think they forget that there are races outside the Charlotte area but your right tech is the ultimate answer.
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There's not a lot of talk about it because it was announced over a year ago, so most of the talk is done with.
They will not catch the majority of the cheating without a full teardown anyway.
It is what it is I guess.
Just glad I do my own work and run open motors
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you all are missing the point. The old seals are very easy to open and reseal, with no evidence of it happening. The new seals are much harder to do that. Yes, the new seals can be opened up, and resealed. However, when this is done, it messes up the anodizing and is detectable upon inspection. Phase 1 of the engine "fix" is getting rid of all old seals. Phase 2, will be implementing a protest rule for seals. This rule will likely be the tech official cuts of the existing front engine seal, and reseals with a new, different color/type/etc... seal. The old seal will be sent to USLC and checked for evidence of tampering. If it is suspected to have been tampered with, then the side seal will also be taken and checked in the same manner. If this is also found to be tampered with, then the engine will be taken and shipped to USLC.
Of course, this is the basic idea, and process will likely change, but you get the idea.
This keeps the tech guy honest, because he never has a full set of seals at 1 time, and it allows for a fair method of protest that doesn't stop a competitor from racing because his engine was protested and taken to USLC just to check...
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I can't wait to see them take the first motor. That is going to be a very entertaining night. ;)
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This new rule will appear in the 21014 rule book. I have not read the rule word for word, but I can tell you from the meetings I had it will most likely cost $100.00 to protest a seal. The seal will be removed and sent to USLC. It will be detected if this seal has been opened. The penalty will be large nas this was the point of the reseal. I can tell you it is detectable when the seals have been tampered with. Time will tell how this works.
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I can't wait to see them take the first motor. That is going to be a very entertaining night. ;)
It has happened to me three times after winning the world finals over the years. They pull my motor, take it for inspection and then tell me it is worn out. I then tell them to put it back together the way it was and I can usually get another year out of it.
The first time the inspected the same engine twice as it was fairly new winning the first finals and subsequently won the following year too. I was hoping for the forth last year, but coming to the white flag it dumped the rods out of it and went out in a ball of fire...
I really did not care, I knew they were all legal and since it was going into the off season I wasn't concerned about the time frame either. We will have to see what happens at the Saturday night events...
Randy - RPM
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I know they found a illegal seal in NC and they wanted to take the motor. The motor was not illegal but the seal had been tampered with. The guy told them they can keep the illegal part (the seal) and since the motor was correct he got away with it. I'm sure they will take that loophole out of the rule book that we will get in July....LOL
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I just see this turning into a fiasco..... I just forsee a seal being sent to NC, they saying it was tampered with, and the motor owner saying it was not.... If a motor has some age on it, the seal may be all scratched, a little beaten up, the wire could be fraying or pulling out of the seal, etc.... Is there really a dead safe way to tell these have been tampered with? Just see it as a band-aid to the larger problem... Cut the seals off and do real tech........
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yes, there is pretty much a dead set way of telling. My understanding is that the anodizing on the seal, inside where the wire goes, gets messed up.
This is also why the protest will involve both seals if needed. They will check 1, and if an issue is observed, they will check the second seal. benefit of the doubt says 1 might be messed up. But if both are messed up, it is very likely that they were tampered with.
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Personally, I think going away from the single, rock hard spec tire is what caused a lot of this problem...when you cant put the HP to the ground, it didn't matter what you did to your motor.
Don't say that they didn't have a choice, there are more tire manufacturers than BFG.
There will always be sealed motors in Legends racing, so the "taking off the seals" argument is useless. They make so much $$ selling motors, it would be suicide to take the seals off
This is just one of the things we will have to see how it plays out.
Sure, it sucks that you had to send your motor in last year (or still have to if you procrastinated), but at least USLC is trying something somewhat inexpensive, I'll give them a little credit there.
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yes, there is pretty much a dead set way of telling. My understanding is that the anodizing on the seal, inside where the wire goes, gets messed up.
This is also why the protest will involve both seals if needed. They will check 1, and if an issue is observed, they will check the second seal. benefit of the doubt says 1 might be messed up. But if both are messed up, it is very likely that they were tampered with.
Nothing personal but we have heard this same song and dance before with the last set of seals. I even saw a dealer get protested and he refused to give up anything and nothing was done about it. The real answer that Slack11 keeps saying "tech" real tech.
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This is why we now have a seal claim rule. When there was an engine protest or claim rule racers were using it in a malicious way to disrupt another competitors season (like in a point situation), so USLC decoded since the motors were sealed there would be no need to protest engines. Then came the seal tampering. The seals were able to be removed and work performed and resealed without truly being able to tell for sure. On to the current seals, if the current seal is opened and work is done and it RESEALED it is detectable. This is why we now have a seal protest rule. Someone else mentioned scratched or a seal with a tattered cable, this will still be able to be checked as it was not opened. Once the new seal is opened USLC can identify this has been done. A temp seal will be installed until the protested seal is checked by USLC. This is the tech you are asking about.
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Jim, the Federals are not really any softer than the BFG's. The side wall is, but the tread itself is not. (maybe marginally, but that is all) i don't see the tire being an issue. The ONLY bad thing about federals, is that they are single ply sidewall, and get cut easier.
I don't run dirt, but I have to imagine the AR tire is 1000% better then the bfg.
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The AR is awesome, I love it, glad we have it. Would be cool to see asphalt guys on a slick too, but that will just make the faster guys faster, and have more people cheat.
Keeping up with the Joneses (no offense to Tommy or Andy ;) )
Just saying that in my opinion, the easiest way to police a class like this is to put them on crap tires like they did from the beginning.
There will always be ways to cheat, absolutely, but try to cheat with Road Runner tires from Fleet Farm...you're not going to hook up.
I'm glad they are doing something, if nothing else it should stop all the "he's got a cheater motor" whining at the track.
If you think it's a cheater motor, pull out your $100 and protest it.
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The Federal Tire sucks!
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Dennis, tell us how you really feel... :)
I actually much prefer the Federal. I was happier than a Camel on Wednesday when they got rid of the BFG....
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Just saying that in my opinion, the easiest way to police a class like this is to put them on crap tires like they did from the beginning.
There will always be ways to cheat, absolutely, but try to cheat with Road Runner tires from Fleet Farm...you're not going to hook up.
Very true! For the last race of the year I put in an 1100 stock bike motor in my car for the road course at NHMS. It was all I could afford. Anyway the rain came for the feature and I beat many cars that had sealed and open motors. Hp was taken out of the equation for most part, racing the track was key. I loved it and this rookie got his first top ten finsish. ;D
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Exactly, and congratulations on your first top 10
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How about a real race tire and made in 'merica' ? I'm ducking at this point
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A real race tire wont help the engine situation, it will make it worse, as the cheaters will be even faster.
They need to fix themselves first, before adding new elements to the equation
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Ummmm.... Topic is re-sealing 1250 engines.
All this has been covered. Check the old threads. All there.
Off season is always the time to go rounds about rules. We (Average Joe Racer) don't have any say so. Sorry! Just the way it has been over the years I have been involved with the Legends Cars. Dirt guys; INEX won't give you the time of day. Those that run pavement; You have a slight advantage there. Sorry.... Just what I have seen over the past years.
This site is not political. It is meant to be an informational and educational site. For the most part, I think that is what happens here. Lets get back on the engine seals rule.
Steve
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before the Federal tire you had to be a driver and set up was important. Now the Geicko Camel could drive one these cars. Its like going to the u-rent go kart track. You have to cut them to nothing to free the thing up throughj the middle and get bite off the corner. Piece of junk!
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Oops sorry, didnt see ur post. Hey I think everyone is being nice and its good conversation. No politics meant on my behalf guys!
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I know that Dennis. This time of year, everyone tends to get caught up in rules (that aren't even out yet). They always tend to be late. Nothing new.
Just saying that this thread is supposed to deal with "Engine Seals".
Steve
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I think there is something that nobody has talked about.
Why couldn't someone have seals made duplicate to the USLC seals and just put them on?
And don't tell me this is too far fetched, I have personally seen Titanium driveshaft parts and titanium hubs (that looked exactly like the cast ones), so don't tell me with the right amount of money I couldn't reverse engineer the seals and have someone (maybe the original manufacturer) remake me seals?
I could cut the old ones off, mess with the motor and put "new" seals back on and they would never show tampering?
Just saying, I have seen guys with more money than god run these cars, when you have a $300k rig to haul your legends around you have enough money (and contacts) to get custom stuff made......(not that I think every wealthy person cheats)
Having worked in different R&D and Fabrication facilities I believe anything can be done, for the right price. If someone says it can't be opened, gotten around or done I just laugh.....to myself of course.....in my head..... Cheesy
Gerad
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2 words. Trademark infringement.
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2 words. Trademark infringement.
LOL...... ;D
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Here is the real deal. People have these seals already and by what I have been told they can be reworked with little or no detection. This is the same story we heard when we got that last seals. Don't mean to be a kill joy but when you tell me the same story over and over and I see it still see people getting behind the seals I just don't fall for the same trick twice. I will tell more next week but don't think anything will change. I just want to be at the track the first night they try and take someones motor. Now that will be entertaining.
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Make sure you get it on video ;D