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The Best Way To Setup Your Race Car | Kenny Wallace Classics · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Well, today's story is one that I get asked all the time.
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  I have race car drivers that come up to me and say, Herman,
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  what's them, Dan Spring Smashers and all them load sticks all
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  about. We are in a new era and there
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  are still a lot of race car drivers that don't understand
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  load, load sticks and things of this nature.
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  So let's go through the history of how we've sat cars up or set
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  them up and where we're at now. All right, Charlie's working the
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  camera. And let's start from the
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  beginning. Years ago, we had four scales,
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  All right? Now these are considerably real
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  nice electronic scales. Mike Midler made them back in
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  the day. We lost Mike, man, we sure do
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  miss him. But Mike, you know, sold these
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  scales. These are electronic scales.
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  So the car, this would be the left front, this would be the
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  right front, this would be the right rear, this would be the
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  left rear. And these wires would go to each
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  corner and we would read all the weights right here.
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  And all of you old guys, you love this except Scott
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  Bloomquist and my brother Rusty and Mark Martin and even me.
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  We grew up on the legendary grain scales.
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  The big old scales are cars way up in the air, and we'd set the
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  car up for hours. Well, the problem with this is
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  you can't take these big grain scales on the road.
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  You know, some some thought they could.
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  And boy, there were Montrocities back in the day.
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  To this day, nobody likes taking scales on the road.
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  You look at the World of Outlaw light models, You look at a
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  Lucas Oil light models. Where are you going to set it
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  up? You're going to find a Walmart
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  parking lot. You're going to borrow a guy's
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  garage. So we still have these.
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  And let me tell you what the purpose of these scales are for
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  now, your overall weight of your car left to right and there are
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  still some old school guys that love setting their cars up on
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  scales. However it is AI was going to
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  cuss. It is a lot of work.
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  You got to Jack the thing up, Jack this whole car up, put it
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  on, take the left or axle out, take the left front, the right
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  front, the right rear, shocks off, and it is just a ton of
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  work. So how do we go on the road?
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  How do these traveling racers go on the road and adjust their car
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  from track to track? We're at El Dora.
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  Well, then the next night we got to go down here to Macon
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  Speedway. You're going for more of the
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  world's the fastest dirt tracks to one of the world's slowest
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  tracks. How are they changing the
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  chassis on these cars while they're on the road?
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  Now remember, you're running your local track every week.
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  No problem. Use the scales if that's what
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  you want to do. But it's still a lot of work
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  because you got to Jack the car up, you got to pull the axle.
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  I got to take everything off except the left rear shock and
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  whatever have you. I'm going to show you something
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  that is old, but still very new. And yes, I know you have one,
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  right? Let's check it out.
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  Come on. So instead of you putting your
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  car on the scales, this is what we call load.
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  What does your right front weigh?
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  What does your left front weigh? Right rear and left rear.
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  We're going to go to the rear of the car right now.
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  This is a rear spring with a rubber in it, obviously a blue
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  rubber. Right now we got all types of
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  rubbers. You're not checking nothing very
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  secretly out right here. And here's why.
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  Charlie, let's show them the legendary rubbers.
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  Do you want a blue rubber right here?
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  Black, green, yellow, purple. OK, now the purpose are rubbers
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  are adjusting how much your spring smashes as you go in the
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  corner. You're looking good.
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  You go through the middle, you're starting to transfer more
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  weight to the right rear. We want timing.
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  Timing as we go in the corner, we're getting loose.
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  Then it sinks. So let's go to the For all you
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  erasers that that are afraid and you're embarrassed, the
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  herminator's here to help you. Check it out.
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  We want to help my buddy here. This is the Ultra force.
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  This is by Chad Weirs. So we just turned it on.
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  Let's watch it. OK, Herman just pushes.
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  All right, now we're going to go to manual.
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  We're going to do manual, we're going to 0 it hold your finger
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  down 00 means that now the machine's going to work all
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  right, so here's what we're going to do instead of you
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  scaling your car, Charlie, right rear.
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  This is the right rear scale this.
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  If the car's here, this is where it's going to be.
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  You're going to you're going to get the right rear weight, but
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  you don't want to Jack the car if you want to do all that work.
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  So let's just do it here on the Spring Smasher, all right, The
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  herminator going to push this baby up, going to put her in.
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  I can do this in my sleep. All right, So what we're going
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  to do is we're going to use 2121.5 O 21 1/2.
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  If you're like me when I grew up, it's like 125 zero .1250.
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  What is that? It's an eighth of an inch.
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  I'm not real smart. I'm a lot redneck, and to this
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  day, I still don't know a lot. I think 0.75 is 3/4 of an inch,
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  something like that. I don't know.
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  All right, Charlie, let's zoom in here.
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  We're going to go to 21. Let, let's go.
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  Let me see where we go to. Let's go.
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  All right, Let's go to 21 inches.
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  All right, we're going to go to 21 inches now.
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  Now, I like doing things manual because I'm not very smart.
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  I want 21 OO. Right, Let's go.
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  Right. OK, let's just use that.
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  That's close enough. All right, now, center to
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  center, 21 inches. OK, now your chassis builder is
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  going to tell you that number. OK, now come here.
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  C21 point OO is 34 lbs, Right? OK, well, I want, I want 60 lbs.
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  Now, these numbers are way off to protect the chassis builders
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  information. So we're going to take this,
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  we're loosen this up, we're going to take a little load out.
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  All right, right, all right. Now what we're going to do is
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  we're going to screw down to turns.
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  Remember our number was 34, right?
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  Now, watch, watch. I'm going to come around 1/2 a
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  turn. One turn.
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  I didn't go down enough. All right, So here we go.
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  I went two turns. All right, I've smashed the
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  spring. Two turns.
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  Now, these are big threads. So when somebody says go down a
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  half a turn, that's a lot. That's a lot because they're
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  coarse threads. Charlie, let's zoom in on these
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  threads. See how these threads are very
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  coarse? They're very coarse.
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  So if you just do a half a turn, that's a lot.
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  All right now remember 21 inches was 34.
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  We went down to turns, right, All right, 21 inches.
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  OK, 20.99, that's close. Look, 80 lbs.
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  Thirty 4445460474, 40 something pounds with two turns.
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  So there is so many things you can do with rear load, but this,
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  that is load. That's all there is to it.
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  I know a lot of you old racers are afraid.
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  I know a lot of races that they're pretty decent racers and
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  they talk like they know what load is, but they really don't
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  know what it is. And I, I, I can detect it right
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  away. So what we're doing is going to
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  take the take this off. OK, go down here.
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  OK, now here's what I want to say to you.
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  This this rubber is, is a blue rubber, right?
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  It's a blue rubber. And what that rubber does is it
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  catches the car. So when the spring is weak, it
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  starts to fall over. We put that rubber in that
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  rubber will catch the car in the middle of the corner.
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  Look, car goes in, starts to fall over, starts to go over,
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  rubber catches it. But what kind of rubber do you
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  want? Do you want that rubber I got in
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  there or do we want to come over here and Hibach sells all these
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  rubbers? These are different, different
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  type rubbers, right? What?
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  What do you want? What do you want in your race
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  car? If you're so damn smart.
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  But I see people that get mad at the chassis builders.
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  Damn it, I know I can drive if you would just tell me what to
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  do. It's very complicated and it's
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  not that easy. It's up to you.
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  You might drive differently. Do you go down the straight away
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  and let off the gas and your car falls down or do you go in the
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  corner and you let off 90% start dragging the brake?
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  Do you have a stiff left rear shock on?
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  Now you're saying Kenny, that's the rear springs.
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  What about the front? All right Charles, let's go
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  right underneath the table here. So once again, I have my let's
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  move the rubber down the way. Let's go to the front of the
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  car. I want to put one turn in the
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  front of my car. Here once again is my Weir's
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  load stick. That's the part number.
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  All right, so I I keep all my information here, so I'm going
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  to hide it because I don't want nobody getting mad at me.
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  All right now look at this beautiful unit.
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  All right, So what I would do is I would take this off right and
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  this is my right front shock top and bottom.
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  Here's the sensor. Now usually I'm putting the car
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  on the Jack stands are on the scales and it's just too much
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  work. So I take the shock off.
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  What I do is I, I put this on, I've got this bad ass bolt nut
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  combination that I've made. I take the shock off, I screw
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  this in and then I put on my measuring device which is right
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  here. It bolts in here like this.
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  It goes in there and this this measures it.
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  So let's say I want my right front say 20 inches and I want
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  it to be 700 pounds, 20 inches, £700.
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  Well, right here, Charlie, this, this area right here, this is
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  going to light up. Let's see if it's it's got any
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  charger. Yeah, there you go.
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  It's loaded. So we would we would press load,
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  it would neutralize it. But anyway, I don't have our
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  zero. We wouldn't have it hooked up.
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  So anyway, this will tell you, this is the front load stick.
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  This is the rear spring smasher. We're checking the rear spring
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  loads with this machine. We're checking the front loads
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  with this load stick and this sensor.
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  So hopefully for a lot of you great racers, the local racers
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  that don't know what load means, load sticks is for the front,
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  load smashers for the rear. You're going to find this
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  machine. You're going to find this
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  machine in Dean Hoffman's trailer, your local racer.
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  You're going to find it most of your local racers now, because
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  if you want to run here on Friday night and you want to go
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  3 hours up the road on Saturday, you don't want to have to guess
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  where your car's at. Oh no, we need to put our car on
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  the scales because I think we're off.
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  And boy, let me tell you what that is happening awful lot.
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  So what I just showed you is just a real quick education on
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  putting the car on the scales like we did back in the day.
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  Now listen, I still put my car on the scales to see what the
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  weight is and what the rear weight is and what the left
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  weight is. My car hasn't seen a set of
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  scales. Well, I ran my car two years and
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  I think I might have put it on the scales one time just to see
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  where my rear weight was. But this is what all racers live
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  on now. Rear Spring Smasher and the new
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  load stick. And once again, this is nothing.
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  This is nothing to make fun of because it makes life easier on
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  you. That way you don't have to spend
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  your nights out in the garage while your wife is going to get
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  in here for dinner. You can do this at the racetrack
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  if you want. No more crazy nights on the
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  scales.