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I survived sandy hook.
#1
Sandy Hook was a blast and the wife and myself met a lot of really nice people. But I did learn a few hard lessons while I was there.

1. I brought a knife to a gun fight. I ran straight axle sidewinder and was the only one. So I ended up in the 6.1 sidewinder. It is amazing what a few years make in kart development when it come to handling. I will bring a different kart next time.

2. Lock washers and lock tight are not my friends.  Something as stupid as a throttle bracket that mounted on the carb at the diaphragm screws would come loose after a few laps. No matter what I did the screws would back out causing the carb to lean out from lack of fuel or it would allow the throttle linkage to go to idle. It leaned twice on me out so bad the flex pipe turned blue from heat. Next time they will be it will be wired.

3. Maxima 927 is great. I got the kart home and pulled the engine apart expecting to see little globules of aluminum stuck to the head , piston  and plug from running so lean. The was not a sign of any damage...great stuff. 

4. A five hour trip took 8.5 hours to get back home due to the weather and DC traffic.

Would we do it again? absolutely! I' keeping my fingers crossed that things at work will let me attend the next event.
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#2
First off,,, you should never have been put in 6.1 sidewinder,,when not enough they are supposed to run with 6.1 rear,,after all, it is a REAR kart with the motor on the side,,...I heard there was a couple other issues also,,,but still a good event for you east coast guys/gals..

heard the track people were lets say RUDE???? my way or the hyway ...

me, I avoid the east coast like the plague....DC traffic,,,Baltimore traffic, NY traffic,,,

gw

gw
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#3
(06-02-2017, 05:39 PM)Gary Wlodarsky Wrote: First off,,, you should never have been put in 6.1 sidewinder,,when not enough they are supposed to run with 6.1 rear,,after all, it is a REAR kart with the motor on the side,,...I heard there was a couple other issues also,,,but still a good event for you east coast guys/gals..

heard the track people were lets say   RUDE????   my way or the hyway ...

me, I avoid the east coast like the plague....DC traffic,,,Baltimore traffic, NY traffic,,,

gw

gw

The track people had some safety issues they got upset over. We didn't see it but they called a drivers meeting to get is straight. The wife and myself didn't have any issues but some people said they did.

I hadn't ran a kart on a track since 1976 and those 6.1 sidewinder's were impossible to catch. But I had fun trying and have a set of burned up rear tires to show for it.
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#4
Gary is right about the early sidewinder placement.
it is an arguement i've had numerous times at certain east coast tracks.
the new promoters are apparently abiding by a few peoples opinion of straight axle sidewinders.
as a rule i just leave those karts home if i decide to attend those events.
unlike most guys i have more than a few karts to chose from.
to me it's way unfair to the guys with only one or two karts to be put in with modern tires and frames that are completely different performance wise.

as a side note to those who may be clueless about what we are refering to in this thread.
early sidewinders were basically a Varient of rear engined karts.
The design change wasn't for track performance it was to get foreign motors not equiped with a fan out into the wind.
i have driven several rear engined margay new breeds,two different  rear engined king karts and run a "sidewinder margay new breed.
all had straight axles same tires same spindles same everything except the new breed sidewinder has an off set axle in the front.
performance wise they are all excellent frames.
does the "sidewinder " perform better.
NOPE
with the square tires they all act about the same on corners and straights.
it's a tiny bit easier to track tune the sidewinder but that's the biggest difference.

anyway it's a STUPID idea to say because the engine happens to be mounted on the side that the frame is in the newer y axle sidewinder class.
if it has a straight front axle and hard skinny tires it should be gridded with rears of the same engine type.
with square tires and a straight axle the only safe idea is to run them with the rears they were build along side of back in the day.
they are in the same year/era and are virtually identical to reaR ENGINED KARTS except FOR BEING A SIDEWINDER.
Dang caps lock
i've said enough
good nite all
Cool
Dave L.
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#5
I was reading on facebook a couple folks that could only attend one day drove a good distance and were told they had to pay full 2 day amount for just one day ..?
so they left ..and track got no money ..if its true that's just dumb on tracks part ..if its 100 or whatever for two days 50.00 -60.00 for one day better than nuttin in my eyes ..??
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#6
(06-03-2017, 06:05 AM)steve miller Wrote: I was reading on facebook  a couple folks that could only attend one day drove a good distance and were told they had to pay full 2 day amount for just one day ..?  
so they left ..and  track got no money ..if its true that's just dumb on tracks part ..if its 100 or whatever for two days 50.00 -60.00 for one day better than nuttin in my eyes ..??

Steve that part did happen. I talked to one person that showed up Sunday and they did have to pay the full price.
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#7
(06-02-2017, 02:29 PM)tom dandes Wrote: Sandy Hook was a blast and the wife and myself met a lot of really nice people. But I did learn a few hard lessons while I was there.

1. I brought a knife to a gun fight. I ran straight axle sidewinder and was the only one. So I ended up in the 6.1 sidewinder. It is amazing what a few years make in kart development when it come to handling. I will bring a different kart next time.

2. Lock washers and lock tight are not my friends.  Something as stupid as a throttle bracket that mounted on the carb at the diaphragm screws would come loose after a few laps. No matter what I did the screws would back out causing the carb to lean out from lack of fuel or it would allow the throttle linkage to go to idle. It leaned twice on me out so bad the flex pipe turned blue from heat. Next time they will be it will be wired.

3. Maxima 927 is great. I got the kart home and pulled the engine apart expecting to see little globules of aluminum stuck to the head , piston  and plug from running so lean. The was not a sign of any damage...great stuff. 

4. A five hour trip took 8.5 hours to get back home due to the weather and DC traffic.

Would we do it again? absolutely! I' keeping my fingers crossed that things at work will let me attend the next event.

I would love to see the straight-axle sidewinder class take off. I'm running my Bucket Bug as a rear with a Margay gear box in the Over 60 class (also the only one at Sandy Hook), but I would set it up as a sidewinder if I had a bunch of guys to run with, if only because I can't reach the top needle without pulling off the track and stopping . Does anybody else have an interest getting that class going?
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#8
Reading this many may feel i am writing about Competition and competitive advantage.
I am not.
I am skimming over the history of vintage karting. it is a light version and is not 100% accurate maybe but it makes a simple point.
Early sidewinder frames were built to cool foreign motors nothing more.
the second generation sidewinders were purpose built to enhance track performance but aren't a huge advantage.
The early varients should be run with rears as a matter of policy.
If second gen sidewinders are at an event but lack grid numbers they too should be run with rears as long as they are equiped with square sided hard skinny tires.

on the straight axle sidewinder class, that class was supported a few years ago.
we had a bunch of them on the East coast and i ran with them.
these were mostly second generation straight axle sidewinders with relatively crude frames but equipped with movable fiberglass seats.
while they can be safely run with rear engined karts when equipped with square tires they do have a competitive advantage.
so we ran them as a separate grid in the so called straight axle sidewinder class which was very popular and fun class to run in at first.
sadly it was TRASHED by allowing sticky tires on the straight axles and then allowing y axle karts to run with them.
    At first , The y-axles were grouped with the straights as they became legal vintage.
initially there weren't many y-axle years to chose from that were legal and that was thought to be a good idea.
Sadly it kinda killed the second gen sidewinder class.
While sticky tires can be run on the straight axle sidewinders the frame tuning is critical and driver skills need to be pretty high.
this is because  the frame wasn't designed for sticky tires and they tend to bicycle when run wrong.
Meanwhile the y axle framed karts originally designed to run hard tires were far easier to retune to run sticky tires.
There are other advantages in their design that makes them far faster karts but it was mainly them being well able to run sticky tires .
it wasn't long before most of the drivers migrated to the y axle frames .
they  handled better , ran faster and were able to sticky tires with little changes.

this was exactly what happened in karting history.
Originally american the sidewinders were created to get the foreign engines into the wind.
This had nothing to do with getting faster frames it was to allow using bigger and faster foreign motors.

The early sidewinders were just variants of a rear frame with steel framed seats on all models.
Steel framed seats are extremely hard to move to different positions.


as foreign motors became more popular karting started moving to more "foreign engine" classes.
This created a need for sidewinders and right about then enduros were gaining in popularity.
enduros are extremely hard to design as a rear engined karts so migrating to side mounted engines was a natural.
since american motors don't care where they are mounted manufacturers started building only sidewinders (cheaper).

Many realized sidewinder frames , when designed right , can be faster than rears and as time passed the rear era was ending.
The first gen sidewinders were simple variants of rears but that changed with the introduction of fiberglass seats
The second generation of sidewinders came with bolted in lighter fiberglass seats .
this allowed far easier changes to seat position and since driver wt. is the majority of a karts load .
Seat position movement is a HUGE advantage when a frame is being race tuned.

they also were set up with rear steer and front porches were added to many adding critical leg room.

Also in years past it was discovered that less metal welded to the frame tubes allowed alot more flex.
this was first noticed when in efforts to lighten frames seats and floor pans were replaced with aluminum rivited or bolted in to the frame.
because the frames could "flex" better when not constrained with welded in pans the karts also cornered better.
the final best example of this is the Fox kart frame which was purposely designed to have a floating seat.
the gk series 1600, that was never produced, had gone as far as to CUT the rear bumper to allow more flex.



The purpose built sidewinders carried all this knowledge so the floor pans were all inserts not welded and the seats were built out of flexable (comparatively) fiberglass.
But the biggest change was the seat being bolted in thus moving it in tiny increments became possible.
Also the rear bumpers were bolted in in many cases so they could "float".
These changes made for a faster frame but the new fangled fiberglass seat is key.


My new breed sidewinder is pretty good handler, but my cheetah which is a purpose built sidewinder is alot better handler.
the new breed Already had many of the "faster" design features , loose floor pan ,bolted rear bumper a somewhat looser seat attachment (bolted with tube clamps).
the frames both by margay are the same length, same width same spindles, same front axle brakes basically the same everything except the seat which is steel framed rigid (new breed) as opposed to flexy fiberglass (cheetah).


The foreign karts had been being built as sidewinders since the early sixties.
these karts had advanced to y style axles and american companies soon followed.
So the straight axle sidewinders purpose built lasted only a few years.
Concurrently the tires got stickier and frames were redesigned to handle the new compounds.
The motor mount was also changed from the axle bearing style to welded in the frame tubes which was a major drag reduction on the kart chassis.
Less drag = faster lap times.

anyway i got way off track here.
basically the straight axle PURPOSE built sidewinders only cover a few years.
They are stuck in kinda rare limbo as they are slightly faster than rears but slower than y axle sidewinders.

So what to do with them.
Over the years my personal experience is they should be run with narrow hard tires as they were designed for and run with the rear engined classes when there aren't enough for a grid.
This should go for any straight axle sidewinder.

The earliest sidewinders weren't purpose built and don't really have much if any competitive advantage.
 The later purpose built ones are slightly better handlers but only in the hands of a good driver, good engine,good carb,good fuel and good luck.
You get the idea.

The MAIN REASON to put them in the rears is matching tire performance.
 mixing hard with sticky tire compounds always has bad results possible.
Since we are out there to have fun and BE SAFE it makes zero sense to mix hard and soft grippy tires together.
This trend towards mixing soft and sticky tires at certain events must be stopped asap imho.

Cool
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Dave L.
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#9
Bill nice to hear from you. I do remember who are since you were the only one in  the over sixty class. Bill I'm going to leave the Cheetah sprint I have as is with the Mac and the vintage skinny tires.  I would love to see more people in this class but I really think it is a none starter because there is to much interest in other larger faster classes. If I ever get back to another event they can stick me in the back of the rears and not score me.  Or I'll let you know I'm coming back so we can run together.
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#10
(06-03-2017, 07:18 PM)tom dandes Wrote: Bill nice to hear from you. I do remember who are since you were the only one in  the over sixty class. Bill I'm going to leave the Cheetah sprint I have as is with the Mac and the vintage skinny tires.  I would love to see more people in this class but I really think it is a none starter because there is to much interest in other larger faster classes. If I ever get back to another event they can stick me in the back of the rears and not score me.  Or I'll let you know I'm coming back so we can run together.

Tom, that would be great, except I'm going to leave it set up as a rear at least for the rest of this season. I'm going to these tracks for the first time, so it's a lot easier to play with my gearing with the box. Once I've been to all the tracks and know what gear to run, then I'll change it over if we can get enough interest. In the meantime, if there aren't enough Over 60s to make a class, I'll run with the rears.
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