Keep The Shiny Side Up!
Now I know a lot of this has nothing to do with present day NASCAR but up through the mid 80's it was quite common for the independent teams to have only 3 or 4 full timers that they took to the track and then picked up weekend help like me. Here's what a weekend for us "weekend warriors" was like.
Beginning at the June race at Dover, 1982 and running through the June race in 1987 I worked on the weekends at any race I could make it to with Roger Hamby and his #17 Buick/Olds/Pontiac/Chevy Grand National (WC predecessor) team. Roger had 3 full timers that he brought to the tracks each week in 1982. We had Lake Speed as the driver, Roger acted as crew chief on race day and his 3 full timers were Donnie Disharoon, present crew chief of the #41 Hedrick team, Clay Adams, who, last I heard, owns a bar in North Wilkesboro and a fellow by the name of Tony who I can't recall his last name because he was mostly just called "Flash".
Now a days NASCAR uses a laminated picture ID but back then we would show up on Friday morning at the NASCAR sign in trailer at about 7:00 AM. We would enter, state the car # we were signing in on and show our NASCAR licenses. We paid $5.00 (later raised to $10.00) for insurance for the weekend, signed in and were issued a pit pass with the car's number on it. We would then proceed to the infield and have to go by a second check in booth for our garage pass. After showing our mechanic's license, stating car number and signing in again we were issued garage passes.
It was now time to get to work. I usually helped with tires (had dreams of making NASCAR full time and figured I'd be a tire specialist) so my first job was to unload all of the previous weeks tires and wheels and take them down to the Good Year area to have them removed and new tires mounted. Everyone had their numbers on their wheels and Good Year would mount, spin balance and stack them up for later pick up.
I would return to the car and begin cleaning out the inside. Most of the time Roger's team would spend all week getting a car ready from the previous week so they would have no time to clean it. I would climb in and begin vaccuuming out all the sand, tire rubber and other "floaters" that had accumulated from the previous race. You would be amazed at how much stuff you pull out of those cockpits. Next we would wax the car outside and with the 4 other "weekend warriors" we could do the whole car in about 10 minutes.
While we were doing this Roger's guys (mostly Donnie) would be going over their checklist and doublechecking carburetor jet size, spark plugs, every nut, bolt and hose fitting under the hood and getting the car ready for first practice. By then I'd run back down to the Good Year people and pick up whatever tires they had ready. And since I was trying to be a tire specialist I will regale you on all the exciting "tire facts".
This was back in the days when they were still running bias-ply tires so the next job was to measure each and every tires circumference. The same tire, with the same amount of air pressure would vary anywhere from 1/8 of an inch to 3 inches in circumference (at Dover the circumference usually ran in the 88.5 to 91.5 inch range). There would also be two different tire numbers stamped on them, one for left side tires and one for right side tires. The chief would pull his "little black book" and check his notes for that track to see what stagger they usually ran. Stagger, for the new NASCAR fans was the difference in "tire heighth" from one side to the other. You would make the outside tires larger and this would make the car want to turn left through the turns. So at Dover our stagger was 2.25 inches. My job would be to match up sets of tires as closely as possible to having the left side tires be 2.25 inches larger than the right side. That's a quick look at the old blias ply stagger.
Now the car would start making practice runs, sometimes running two or three laps at full speed and other times running 15-20 laps. After each run the driver would shut the engine down at full speed to keep the spark plugs showing racing conditions. As he came in he would stop on pit road where Good Year officials would take tire temperatures at outside, middle and inside of each tire, writing them on a slip of paper.
By checking tire temps to other tires you would be able to tell which tire had too much downward pressure (the hottest) or which was lightest (the coolest). This would give an idea of which springs or shocks to change, or how much more "wedge" to put in, downward pressure on a spring. The temperature across each individual tire would give you an idea whether you had too much camber (lean in or out from top to bottom of tire) or too much toe-in (lean in or out from front to back).
While I and one of Roger's men were changing springs or shocks the chief mechanic (Donnie) would be pulling the spark plugs and placing them in order on a small holder, matching their placement in the engine. You would take them to the Champion Spark Plug "expert", and he would "read" the deposits and color of the end of the spark plug and suggest different jets to lean or richen the fuel mixture or whether to advance or retard the timing or not. This would vary due to temperature and humidity and the amount of engine pull exiting a turn.
The driver and the chief would put there heads together also to decide on where the car was loose or tight and how well it got off the corners. They would then decide if they wanted to try a different rear end and if we were "lucky" we would have to change a 200 degree rear end out for a different ratio.
Finally after trying every combination of tire, spring, and rear, checking tire temps and spark plugs after each brief run it would be time to set up for qualifying. The BGN cars always qualified first so while they were qualifying we would get the car ready for qualifying. This was when there were only a couple teams that had qualifing engines so our preps were to: swap the fan blade for a flat blade with no use other than to "be there" (when they qualify they only run two laps so they don't have to worry about cooling), pop rivet sheet metal into every front end opening in the grill, then silicone caulk them and spray every inch of plastic or rubber on the car with silicone spray.
We would then push the car through NASCAR inspection and following BGN qualifying, push the car out onto pit road to line up in order of qualifying. (I was asked once how they decide qualifying order; each team sends a rep to the NASCAR trailer and you draw numbers from a bingo cage, B1 goes first... easy!) The cars would be kept cold and pushed all the way through your turn to qualify before the driver would finally start the car. After your two laps you'd go back to the garage, tear off the qualifying set up and pray.
If there was time you might get in one more practice round but at most tracks it was time to put the car to bed, cover it. You could always tell the guys that had the best cars that weekend. Their cars would go "to bed" early, covers on before practice is over. A little NASCAR showing off. Meanwhile the owner (Roger) would be hanging out at the NASCAR trailer to find out who was going to stand on their times and who was going to requalify. He would then decide to stand or run again for a better time on Saturday's second round. In the early 80's it wasn't too difficult to make the field (I can remember races in the 70's if you could make NASCAR's minimum speed you made the race because a whole field didn't show up). So Roger would often requalify hoping to get fastest second round qualifier for the check, trophy and shot at "wild card" spot for the next year's Busch Clash.
At the end of the day we would drag ourselves out to our camper, (we provided all of our own necessities, Roger only paid for a motel for his full timers) and enjoy a few liquid refreshments before looking for the party! That's day one of a usual weekend warriors race weekend. And since this is going so long I'll do the rest of the weekend in the next column. See ya then and:
Keep The Shiny Side Up!