Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Hello from PA! Mac Miller had recommended this forum (from Trackforum) and I had read through the 15-or-so page USAC GC thread a few weeks back. Rather than dig that up, I just had one specific question...

Does the car have the driver sitting right up over the driveshaft like a regular sprint car?

If so, Why? Was there any consideration given to having it run alongside so that the driver could sit lower, for a lower overall CG and frontal profile?

I guess it could be done by centering the engine, and having a trans which runs the driveshaft off to one side, or just offsetting the engine, like the Dowker JetRod?

http://stevechasseymotorsportsinsura...ges/JetRod.jpg

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Yes the drive line runs the same way as current silvercrown cars but the goldcrown cars also have a 2 speed transmission. I would think trying to run a drive line down the side of the car would be very expensive and very unpractical. I dont know of any openwheel cars currently running offset drive lines.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Actually the reason there aren't any offset sprinters may very well be because of the Dowker Jetrod - it was so dominant in its time that it was banned - everyone would have had to replace their existing cars to match it.

However, since the USAC GC is a unique new series, there wouldn't be any cars made obsolete. I figured a lower offset roadster-style might have been better and offer more stability at higher speeds. So why did they go with the higher "driver over the driveshaft" arrangement? Tradition?


(Would anyone here have liked to have seen this new USAC GC car with a lower offset arrangment?)

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

You mean other than Supermodifieds?

BTW, did you find a starter?

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Because USAC wanted a "traditional styled" car.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Yep. The GC cars are built on a center line no offset.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Funny Rich Vogler was never dominated by Chassey in the roadster. To watch Vogler beat him in an old upright was a thing of beauty. To watch Vogler drive the Miller plating car at Winchester beat BOTH supers and roadsters was a vision I will never forget.

I guess it just was a matter of who the driver is,and nobody was tougher than Rich.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Yeaaaaah....that was a good day. :thumb


http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...r/Vogler65.jpg

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Actually, Jet Eng. wasn't that great. Armstrong Mould beat them in '79 for the USAC championship. The only year that they went head to head.

As far as the super safety crown car..
Until they get over their overwhelming obsession with "crashing" and design a proper car for "racing", this whole mess will continue to be a "no sale".




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Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

I was there, King Of The Hill...Nobody then or now could out ball Richie V!

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Mac,

Leffler's car was a roadster, just didn't look like one. Paul was one slick man when it came to building race cars.He seemed to find a way to build a better mousetrap.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

I know..... I worked on those cars at Armstrong's in '78, '79 and '80.

Here's a little article I did a while back about the Armstrong Mould team, if you are interested.

Armstrong Mould Racing 1978-1980
by Mac Miller
As I look back upon my time with the Armstrong Mould Racing Team through the focus of reality, I realize that most of the
legends and myths about the team are true.
Armstrong Mould Racing was quite a remarkable team. Our inventory included four Indy cars, two dirt champ cars, two
pavement sprint cars, two dirt sprint cars and a midget. These cars were all raced at every opportunity by a crew of only six
to seven guys. In 1979, Armstrong Mould Racing fielded over 100 race entries in all USAC divisions.
The Armstrong Mould Racing shop was one of the best in the business and included a full machine shop, full fabricating
shop, full engine building shop with dyno, magnaflux and zyglo shop, Bear alignment rack and electronic scales.
I joined Armstrong Mould Racing in 1978. My job was to build gear boxes for the four Indy cars. My job soon expanded to
chief mechanic for one of the Indy cars and managing an inventory of more than 150 wheels and tires necessary to run all of
our cars.
As good as the shop was, the personalities were even better. I had the opportunity to work with two of the great curmudgeons
of the sport. Wally Meskowski was the shop manager and Paul Leffler was the team manager. These guys knew about
winning attitude and made sure that everyone on the team knew it too.
Anyone on the team with an idea about going faster was given the opportunity to try their ideas out. A perfect example of
this and also an opportunity for a little “horn tooting” was an idea I had to control tire pressure buildup. Within a couple of
days, I had created what was the first tire pressure “bleeder” valves.
The Armstrong Mould Racing, USAC sprint car record between ‘77 and ‘80 shows thirty-four feature wins, two car owner
championships and two driver championships.
Our regular drivers were Tom Bigelow and Greg Leffler. Bigelow was a “seat of the pants” type racer while Greg was more
of a technical type of driver. I liked working around both of them because they were fast, winning drivers. Tom won the
championship in ‘78 and Greg won in ‘79. Tom is still the winningest driver in USAC sprint car history with fifty-two
feature wins. Our biggest rivals in those days were Steve Chassey in the Jet Engineering roadster on pavement and Bubby Jones
driving the Siebert sprinter on dirt.
Here are a few of the more humorous anecdotes from the sprint car wars. Of course the most famous story is about Sherman
Armstrong getting caught drinking a beer in the pits. The USAC official told Sherman the infraction was going to cost a
hundred dollar fine. Sherman gave the official six-hundred dollars and told him he was going to finish his six-pack. The
official walked away shaking his head.
Another great story involves sprint car driver Chuck Gurney. At some pavement races, Paul Leffler would enter a third car
(one of the dirt track cars) just in case something went wrong with Bigelow’s or Greg’s car. One day at Winchester, Paul
hired Chuck Gurney with instructions to get the third car qualified for the feature, in case it was needed. Chuck obviously
didn’t understand his assignment of a supporting role. He qualified toward the front and won the feature in the dirt car,
beating both Tom and Greg. Paul was so mad, he wouldn’t even speak to Gurney after the race.
Here’s a Pancho Carter story. We were racing sprint cars at New Bremen. The Armstrong cars were pitted at the end of the
pit toward turn four. Pancho was having great fun running through a mud puddle “accidentally” splashing our cars when he
came off of the track during practice and hot laps. Sherman sent word down to Steve Stapp to “ask” Pancho to “please” stop
running through the mud puddle. To insure that Pancho got the message, Sherman sent a guy with a drain pan full of mud
down about five or six cars, with instructions to dump the mud in Pancho’s lap as he passed by if he splashed our cars again.
Pancho ran through the puddle and got the mud dumped in his lap. The heated confrontation never came to blows. Pancho
knew what he had done and he knew that Sherman had taken his just revenge.
The Indy cars were a fairly major undertaking, running between two and four cars at each even. Our regular driver was Tom
Bigelow and our other drivers included Gary Bettenhausen, Roger McCluskey, Jerry Sneva, Howdy Holmes, Greg Leffler
and Janet Guthrie.
The cars we had included a 1976 Wildcat with a DGS Turbo Offy and three 1979 Lola Turbo Cosworths. Our cars were
always well done, fast and reliable. We normally ran in the top five at all of our events and rarely had a DNF.
A couple of our more notable races were the 200 miles at Milwaukee in August of ‘79 and the 1980 Indy 500.
We qualified four cars at the Milwaukee race with Bettenhausen in the Wildcat and McCluskey, Bigelow and Guthrie in the
Lolas, At the end of the race the results were McCluskey 1st, Bigelow 2nd, Bettenhausen 5th, and Guthrie 6th. A great day!
At the 1980 Indy 500, we again qualified four cars with Bettenhausen again in the Wildcat with Jerry Sneva, Bigelow, and
Greg Leffler in the Lolas. We had another great result with Bettenhausen 3rd, Bigelow 8th and Leffler 10th. Sneva crashed
out of 5th place on lap 130 after qualifying 5th fastest. I believe that Gary’s 3rd place was the last Offy appearance at Indy.
The formation of CART in 1979 gave Sherman the opportunity for mischief during the month of May at Indy. Sherman, a
staunch USAC supporter formed his own anti-CART group called FART (I don’t think it was an acronym for anything). He
started selling FART t-shirts and everyone in the garage area was wearing Sherman’s “Don’t FART with CART” buttons.
I am certainly glad that we were still working in the old garages in those old days instead of the super sanitized garage area
they have now. What incredible history happened in those old garages. The spirits of the past were very strong there.
Probably, the funniest thing that I remember during the Indy car days was something that happened to me in the shop. Paul
Leffler was very particular about the way things were done so when he wanted something special made he would assign his
best guy to do it, which was me (LOL, just skidding). One day he told me to make some front brake air scoops for the Indy
cars. I thought about how to make them for a bit and finally decided to use some aluminum tubing. I worked all morning
fitting, cutting, and welding my air scoops. After a hard mornings work, I went to lunch.
Upon returning from lunch, I started laughing hysterically! My air scoops were laying on the welding table smashed flat.
Paul Leffler, came up to me and told me he didn’t like my design and maybe I should think about it and try again.
I just realized how long this is getting but I certainly could go on and on with Armstrong stories.
As I have discovered over my years in racing, a group of guys with the right chemistry is a rare occurrence and a group of
guys can only be held together for a maximum of three years. Living around each other all week, late hours and racing all
weekend, eventually takes its toll. The Armstrong team was no different and the original group split up late in 1980. The
team continued with different guys but it was not the same.
Where are they now? Well, Paul Leffler and Wall Meskowski are deceased. Greg Leffler is in business in Fort Wayne,
Indiana, Tom Bigelow is retired, living in Winchester. Sherman Armstrong is still in Winchester.
The rest of us are still involved in racing.
Thanks to Sherman Armstrong, Paul Leffler, Wally Meskowski, Greg Leffler, Tom Bigelow, Bob VanNote, Randy
Skinner, Phil Shuler, and Tom McGriff
These guys were the heart and soul of the Armstrong Mould Racing Team.


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Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Saw Vogler do the same thing at Salem in 1987 or 88 he outran the supers in the Miller Car untill a red flag . He was parked right in front of us an begin to leak water while he was stoped an when they started again he had to drop out soon.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

GREAT STUFF!:thumb Keep it coming!!!

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Thanks Mac - great stuff! What can you tell us about this car:

http://motorcaster.com/resc/resc1.jpg


But getting back to the issue of the USAC GC driveshaft, does anyone think there would be any merit to having the driveshaft run along the side (through either offset engine placement or an offset gearbox) which would allow the car to have an overall lower profile (kinda like that RE car above) which might have advantages for pavement speedway racing?

(afaik, this is going to be a spec car, so everyone will have the same thing anyway)

Would it be good for this USAC GC car to have an offset driveshaft and a lower CG layout?

.
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Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

A couple of things are being forgotten. One is that road courses are being considered for the Gold Crown car. The second is that the Owner's Exploratory Group is planning on using the 2006-2007 car. This would allow the owners such as myself to get back on track with a minimum of expense. Offset drive lines would not allow either.
Although I am not a member of the Mac Miller fan club he has had some great posts lately about the old days.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Paul Leffler built this car for the '73 season when they ran rear engine cars. It was #52 sponsored by Seibert Olds. It was driven by Johnny Parsons Jr. and George Snider. It finished 18th in USAC points. It was one of two new rear engine cars built for the '73 season. David Roahrig also had a newly built car. The other cars that competed that year were modified Indy or Formula 5000 cars ..... Tom Sneva had a modified MG Liquid Suspension Spl. Indy car, Gary Bettenhausen had a modified Eagle Indy car and Jerry Hansen had a modified Lola F5000 car.
Of course, the rear engines were banned at the end of the season.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

@mac - thanks, that's great info. It would be interesting to compare the lap times of the (rear-engine) Gelhausen Huffaker vs the (offset) Dowker Jetrod on the same tracks they ran on (years apart).


@RACEMS41 - you're in Oswego.. would an ISMA Supermod have done just as good a job on those same tracks as the 2006-07 USAC SC car?

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

A supermodified is a different animal all together. I feel having owned and run both on the long and the short tracks that the super may have been faster but not nearly as safe and would not at all make a connection that USAC fans could identify with.
JIM

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd bump this back up and ask...


What's the latest status of the GC car?

With the economy in it's current condition, is this new GC car gonna happen?

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

Listen to D.O Monday night and I am sure you will get all the latest.

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

One thing not mentioned often here is that tbe NEW Gold Crown car is a redesign of the NEW Silver Crown car that flopped. A bunch of people invested money in them and USAC is now trying to salvage something with the Gold Crown research. The sheet of paper for the Gold Crown was not blank before they started work. And, there's no guarantee that what they come up with will fly anyway.
Jim Morrison

Re: Question about the new GC driveshaft placement
 

So it has the driver over the driveshaft because they're trying to update the design of the previous SC car?

That's a shame.. back in 2004 or so when the new SC was just announced, I sent an email to R&S asking if it would be a lower-offset roadster style, and they said no.