Crate lates at St Louis area tracks?

There was a tech program in place that provided a replacement engine for one week and the teched motor was returned on the following Monday. That is the ONLY way to ensure an engine is 100 per cent legal. There are too many cheater parts and racers who have perfected their cheating and parts.

That program worked. It cost UMP nothing. It was sponsored. UMP was just too lazy to do the work of taking the motor and getting it to Mullins. The last year of that program that took ZERO motors. And you wonder why racers were cheating.

One last thing....When they were teching they caught several cheated up motors. Most refused to give up the motor!
 
Even if they took the engine completely apart would they be able to catch this sort of thing?

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Photo taken by me at the PRI show.....

Crate engines are nonsense they cannot work because they cannot be policed in any practical way. Maybe a class where the engines are all based on the components used in the crate engine could be effective but not inexpensive.
 
Well, so much for not starting WW3 lol. Thank you all for the education, being just a fan and not behind the scenes I did know there were some issues with crate engines and teching them, but not to this extent. I just was hoping to see more good racing :)
 
It is not just the engines that ruins the crate class. To build a car that will win, it actually cost more than a super. Everything must be low drag, superlight rotating weight. They even run smaller diameter ring gears in the rearend.
 
Yes, a little more dollars in ring and pinion, everything else is comparable to super but 5800 compared to 32000 to 50,000 for an engine. No way. As bad as I want to give all the credit to ump for killing crates in St. Louis, I give at least half the credit to the lack of tech to tracks. Sorry, tracks gotta step up. This class only survives with tech.
 
profab00 said:
Yes, a little more dollars in ring and pinion, everything else is comparable to super but 5800 compared to 32000 to 50,000 for an engine. No way. As bad as I want to give all the credit to ump for killing crates in St. Louis, I give at least half the credit to the lack of tech to tracks. Sorry, tracks gotta step up. This class only survives with tech.
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With the sealed crate engine how are they supposed to do "tech"? The engine is sealed so they can't take it apart at the track so therefore it can't be and isn't inspected. A quick look, "yeah the seals look ok" isn't ok and isn't an inspection at all but that's about the limit of what they can do really.

Crate engines are ludicrous in any class period.
 
Pretty sure nesmith will check fuels used , check carbs , and pump down motor along with pulling valve covers as a quick check and im sure they go a little more in depth when needed
 
It was a great idea until people figured ways to get around the rules. So many things can be done that add up in the long run that almost all tech guys wouldnt even know where done and some that are right out there in the open. That and the fact as stated the guys just spent other dollars on low friction stuff that it pretty much made a "low budget class" in reality a pipe dream
 
www.nesmithracing.com

Series started when the guy who runs went his own way after initially being involved with Fastrak. Someone asked me years ago who, if any sanction, would make it in crate racing. I said Mike Nesmith and his guys looked like they were doing a pretty good job, if any crate sanction was going to really do well, it was those guys. Years later they are still going strong.

Crate engine racing went downhill after the first promoter said "sure, we can do rebuilds." After that, all bets were off. GM Performance racing's intention with crate engines was for guys to buy them, run them a year or two, sell it off to the hot rod or drag racing market for tear down and reuse as something else and buy a new, sealed crate engine. But some bright spark at a sanction got $$$$$ in their eyes when they realized they could "license" rebuilders (engine places would pay a fee to the sanction to be allowed to call themselves a "Fast Buck Certified Engine Rebuilder") so of course, rebuilds became legal if they were done by someone who paid off a sanction to be allowed to rebuild.

And the rest is history. This class would work and work really well if the people who are in charge would stick the initial intentions. But money gets involved and well, we all know racing is "How fast can you spend?"
 
One of the drivers that dominated tri city ran a track that did some checking and was caught with an illegal carb,seems like that should have been an easy one to catch,but tracks would rather run off 10 or so cars vs a top runner that cheats his ass off.The bmods could end up the same way.
 
20rocks said:
One of the drivers that dominated tri city ran a track that did some checking and was caught with an illegal carb,seems like that should have been an easy one to catch,but tracks would rather run off 10 or so cars vs a top runner that cheats his ass off.The bmods could end up the same way.
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I raced crates for several years in the Stl and mid MO areas and I don't recall there being any carb rules unless you're talking about fuel type or base plate thickness. Please enlighten us all.

Darin
 
He might be talking about the 8 ball car. It was a dominate car. Brian Collins was driving it the night it was teched. The owner/team opted not to give the motor for inspection and they were dq-ed, fined and suspended.
 
Matt Taylor won race at Lincoln Aaron Heckwas 3rd both disqualified for illegal carbs not sure what was illegal on them.
 
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