John,
According to the 2001 rules, "Roof rails may be installed on any vehicle
in classes CC, ALT, GC, MS, PRO, PS, and GT ONLY where the original body
style is a coupe or sedan. Roof rails are REQUIRED when the existing
class record exceeds 200 mph."
Personally, I am not convinced that the rails do much good on a short
top, such as my car has, I think that they would be more effective
mounted on the hood, (or at least continued onto the hood) in my case.
When our present car spun, the nose of the car was picked up when it got
sideways.
YES they can affect the handling of the car if not correctly installed.
At least, I am convinced that they can. I did have a problem with
stability on the Pierson Coupe after installing roof rails and I found
that they were not properly centered on the car. At Speedweek ('90, I
believe) we started out running the short course only. I hit the nitrous
at the 1 1/2 mile and was really cooking, the car spun about the middle
of the 1/4 at above 200 mph, the rest of the week I was having a spooky
time of it. Of course, several cars had spun during Speedweek because it
was wet, so I supposed that the handling was because of the slick course.
At the World of Speed, the car was wagging its tail above 150 mph on a
very dry course. After considerable thought, I determined that the only
major change I had made to the car was the roof rails. Since USFRA did
not require the roof rails at that time, I removed them. The handling
problem went away.
It was determined that my method of finding center of the roof was in
error causing the rail to be off center. They were also mounted parallel
to each other (same distance apart in front and rear.) I talked with Bob
Pierson about the problem and he suggested that I give about 2-2 1/2
inches more separation at the rear to accommodate the turbulent air. I
determined correct center and mount the rails as suggested and had no
more problems.
Tom, Redding CA - #216 D/GCC
landspeedracer wrote:
>List
>
>What is the value of roof rails? Does every Coupe, Sedan, Sports Car or Truck
>need them over 200 MPH? Can they upset the normal straight ahead handling?
>
>John
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