Keith Tanner wrote: Z31 simply misspoke, methinks. It's a minimum, no max. Although back in the 30's, it was a max weight limit. Legend has it that's why the white Mercedes cars showed up in bare aluminum without paint, to eke under the limit. The dawn of the Silver Arrow.
Yeah, I actually just quoted the article, but now going back I see it's wrong.
Relative to the Silver Arrows, that story is true. I heard a recorded (literally - it was on a record album of interviews put out by Riverside Records celebrating a major Mercedes anniversary, maybe 50 years or 75 years, I forget which - back in the late fifties or early sixties)interview many years ago with Mercedes guru Rudolf Uhlenhaut where he confirmed that they had shown up with the cars painted white, the German racing color, and were overweight, so they scraped all the paint off the cars to get under the weight limit, and always ran them in bare aluminum in the future. IIRC, the formula also specified dry weight, and I think I remember that he said they drained the lubricants and partially disassembled the engines and gearboxes and wiped all the oil off as well - although memory may be wrong on this part.
Will wrote:Keith Tanner wrote: Typically, yes. There's one high-profile exception, I think it's NASCAR. I remember there was some fuss when Danica arrived that her light weight gave her an advantage over the big boys.But can you imagine being the guy that filed such a protest? Back in his prime Mark Martin had to have the same kind of an advantage, to the extent it's any advantage in cars that size.
they are big cars by race car standards, but they are finely tuned and they still like to put every ounce of weight where it will work best in the car. even with the different weight breaks for different driver weights, they still like to have the lightest driver possible so they can put more weight somewhere else.
i used to watch a show hosted by former crew chief Larry McReynolds and current crew chiefs Chad Knaus and Booty Barker, and Chad once said that he prefers to actually paint the cars instead of wrapping them because it's something like 10 pounds heavier for the vinyl once it's all said and done, and most of that weight is up high where they don't want it.
as far as the cars go, they build the actual cars way under weight- like a couple of hundred pounds under weight- then slide slugs of lead in the frame rails to get them up to legal weight.. they get so picky with weight placement that they even have aluminum spacers that go between the various lead weights so they can put the weight exactly where they want it within the frame rails- so you might have some weight at the front, none in the middle, and some at the rear, or it might all be moved forward or backwards... pretty sure they have to also meet specs for how much weight has to be on one side of the car, otherwise they would just pile all the weight in the left side for better cornering..
Keith Tanner wrote:Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:I may have put a very large drink bottle in one of our cars at the last pit stop in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.bmw88rider wrote: I've seen it happen on the club level.At our last BMW endurance race we were in a podium spot but almost out of fuel and worried about being slightly under weight. When I pulled the car down pit road one of the crew handed me a gallon igloo jug in the window on the way to the scales "to drink out of"
"you look thirsty. just let us put this 48 can igloo cooler full of ice water in the back seat so you can make it thru the last 5 laps of the race"
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