Scott,
When we built the #216 in 1992 we carried no extra ballast. We ran that
way until 1997 when my son started driving. He had problems spinning at
each of the three meets that year getting upside down at the World
Finals. We had added 500 lbs just behind the front wheels to get the car
balanced. It ran straight, even when loose with that setup. We broke a
suspension arm because the front springs were bottoming, so after
repairing the arm, we removed about half the weight. A couple of runs
later Jeff crashed.
Looking back there were a couple of things that contributed to the
crash, (1) the course was probably the worst we had ever run on, very
soft and loose. (2) Jeff just didn't have enough seat time at speed and
was likely over correcting for the normal moving around of the car and
with the weight that was still in the car it tended to stay sideways
rather than spin quickly as it had before.
When we rebuilt, we added a spoiler and when we switched back to
gasoline we removed the weight and have run that way since with no
handling problems. Would it still handle well on nitrous and on a course
like we ran in 1997? I don't know. If I was building a car today,
though, I would build it with roughly 50/50 weight distribution and plan
for on added ballast, or if adding weight, I would do it with buckshot
inside the frame rails. Just my thinking on the matter.
Tom, Redding CA - #216 D/GCC
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