Ty Majeski is a Midwest driver who is always at the front and wins a lot of races at a lot of different race tracks. There is a lot of talk around his neighborhood and across the country among other racers as to why. Of course they want to know, everyone wants to duplicate that success for themselves. Here I will offer my opinion as to why Ty wins and how he does it.
It doesn’t matter whether you have ever heard of Ty or if you are racing against him or not, this story and the subject matter will apply to everyone who has to race against dominant teams. I base my evaluation and conclusions on some fifty years of observing drivers, setting up cars, winning races and championships and understanding the physics and psychology of racing.
What clues do I use to make such a bold statement and confident evaluation? With experience and understanding comes the knowledge of where to look for clues. When I explain how I evaluate performance and what clues I use, you too might agree with my conclusions. We’ll see. Not everyone will.
I was talking with a friend of mine recently whose name most everyone in the Midwest and other parts of the country would recognize and he talked about his curiosity as to why this certain driver wins so much. We talked about the basics first off.
Ty has arguably one of the, or the, best crew chiefs in the industry of short track racing. Toby Nuttleman has crew chief-ed for some of the best drivers in his part of the country including Steve Carlson who has won multiple Championships and was almost unbeatable at certain points of his career.
So, Toby knows how to setup a car. And he says, from what I hear around the campfire, that Ty is one of the best and smartest drivers he has worked with. Stories about the pair tell of a great relationship and unique cooperation. That doesn’t necessarily cause success in and of itself, but it helps. The answer we are all looking for falls somewhere among those two ingredients, great driver and great crew chief. But what we are looking for isn’t the overview, it is the details and that is what I am about to get into.
I recently watched some in-car videos taken during a few of Ty’s races including the recent Ice Breaker 100 held at The Dells Raceway Park. The clues are all there for the astute observer in both the visual and the sound.
I never met Ty or Toby, and never talked to them. I don’t need to in order to form my opinions. And if I had, I doubt anything either of them would say would tell the tale. There are plenty of drivers and crew chief who will tell you how they approach their racing and sometimes even the exact setup they use. That won’t necessarily translate into success for you.
Here goes. As I watched the videos, I noticed that early in the race, Ty wasn’t any faster than other cars around him when he had to come from several roes back. In fact, some other cars pulled him down the straights which might discount a horsepower advantage for him, not the other driver.
So, we look at the first ten to twenty laps and nothing jumps out except that Ty’s car is very smooth, never jumps out on entry or exit, when other cars definitely do. His throttle is very smooth both in lifting on entry and in application on exit. That I noticed right away. That is called throttle control and I cannot emphasize enough how important that is. This is clue number one.
Ty prefers to run down low and waits until the car ahead moves up and then makes his move. But most of these moves take place later on in the race. He might be staying patient, but then again he might not have the advantage just yet either, another clue.
The advantage I think he has is in the balance of the car. I see it and can feel it. His car stays more consistent than other cars he races against most of the time. This is defined simply as; his car does not fall off in lap times as much as the other cars do.
The observation of this takes some time. You’ve got to stay with the videos for a while, like 30 laps or more in some cases, to see this. But when it starts to happen, he has already cleared many of the cars and is starting to run down the leaders. Run down is really the wrong way to describe it, what is really happening is that they are backing up to him.
This is a phenomenon I am very familiar with having had the opportunity to observe it many times. But why don’t other teams develop the same balanced setup as Ty? It all comes down to both the philosophy of your approach to setup as well as where to look. No one is looking in the right place.
Most teams test and practice to find the fastest lap. I see this all the time. The setup that yields the fastest lap time will probably not sustain speed for a long period of time. So, you get the pole and you lead the early laps, but you fall back, or in your eyes get run down, by a faster car, one that has a more consistent setup. One we call balanced.
What I just described has been true of racers for a long time and will remain true for a long time to come. It is just human nature. It takes a very disciplined and experienced crew chief to understand this and to do the right thing, someone like a Toby Nuttleman.
For the drivers and teams who race against Ty, if you continue to try to find the quicker lap times and ignore the balance, you will continue to get beat by Ty or someone who is doing what that team is doing, plain and simple.
This combination of Ty and Toby is successful because Ty can drive with throttle control, which is always necessary, and because Toby understands the big picture and resists the urge to shoot for the fastest lap times.
What is the solution for those who get beat? If you fade at the end of a long run and/or at the end of a race, you are not running a balanced setup and you need to make changes. You might give up a tenth or two initially, but you will gain that or more later on, usually more.
And the other thing I think Toby does is that he maintains the setups that work. When you find that perfect balance, it is a very fragile existence and you must work to maintain it. But it will be useable for many different tracks that have similar characteristics.
So there you have it. This evaluation is solely my opinion, but based on a lot of experience and observation. If you can develop your approach to setup correctly and resist the “need to find the fastest lap” syndrome, you might just become more successful and be able to compete head to head with someone like Ty. As with everything else in life, it’s all up to you.
If you have comments or questions about this or anything racing related, send them to my email address: chassisrd@aol.com or mail can be sent to Circle Track, Senior Tech Editor, 1733 Alton Parkway, Suite 100, Irvine, CA.
Brake Bias Question
Bob,
Good morning. My name is Dan and I’m building a pro stock dirt car. I’m working on the brake system right now and I had a friend help who has been at this for several years of building and racing cars. When he put the pedal assembly together he put together a Wildwood pedal and master cylinder. The front master cylinder bore is 7/8” and the rear is 1″. He also attached a 10lb residual check valve to both the front and rear master cylinders.
I installed a pressure gauge for bias adjustment to know exactly how much pressure there is in the front and rear. When trying to adjust to mostly rear brake the best I can get is equal pressure front and rear. With the balance bar in neutral position I have more front brake. Should I have both master cylinder bore sizes the same to be able to adjust my bias better from front to rear?
Also with the 10lb residual check valve, I know those are designed for drum brakes not disc. After talking to my friend, he said the 2lb there was too much pedal travel. My concern is that there will be too much brake drag and heat the brakes up too much. Should I change back to a 2lb or stay with the 10lb check valve? Also the master cylinders are above the horizontal plane of the calipers.
Thank you, Dan.
Dan,
The smaller master cylinder bore creates more line pressure with the same pedal pressure applied. That means the front will have more brake force than the rear, and that is not what you want.
So, if you reverse the two master cylinders, you would have more rear brake force and I think that is what you are trying for. If you made them the same, I doubt you will achieve “mostly rear brake”. Then if you don’t have enough rear brake, some adjustment in the balance bar will help you with your goal.
Since the residual check valve is designed for use with a drum brake system, and I assume you are running disc brakes, you probably should remove them. Having the master cylinders above the calipers is just what you want so that any air in the lines will move to the masters.
Torque Arm vs. 3rd Link
Hello,
We are now in our closed season and are looking into our rear end setup. I’ve just read your article on mounting the 3rd link offset to help load the tyres evenly through anti-squat. We currently run a 3 link system with a panhard rod.
I’ve been looking but can’t find a article you’ve done on torque arms. Is there any advantage on a torque arm system over a 3rd link? I’m trying to achieve more bite off the corners but can’t find good enough info to tell how the torque arm would work on circle track racing as they are all on old muscle cars. Any info you might have would be great before we start altering bits about.
Thanks, Carl.
Carl,
I recently ran through the affects of the torque arm verses what the third link does. Here is my assessment. The 3rd link uses part of the force of rear end rotation upon acceleration to apply force to the rear end. This force serves to push down on the rear end at the point where it is mounted over the rear end while also equally pushing up on the car at the point where the front of the link is mounted to the chassis.
The remainder of the force is unused as far as helping drive the car off the turns. The torque arm is different in the way it works. All of the force trying to rotate the rear end is available through the torque arm. So, in a similar way, the rear is pushed down at the point where the arm is mounted on the rear end and the chassis is pushed up at the point where the front of the link is attached.
With the torque link, you can adjust the length of the link to manipulate how much force is applied, the longer the link, the less force and that has to do with leverage. The longer link will also apply the force farther to the front of the chassis.
What everyone needs to understand about both the 3rd link and the torque arm is that the force pushing up on the chassis takes load off of the springs and does not provide more loading on the rear tires. What both do is redistribute the existing load that is on the springs between the two rear tires offering the opportunity to gain more equal loading and therefore more overall grip from that pair of tires.
Panhard Bar or Watts Link
Hi Bob,
I enjoyed reading the article “Adjusting your Setup” in the Dec. ‘16 issue of Circle Track Mag. In the section on changing your race car from circle track to road racing you did not say what to with the pan hard bar or j-bar .Do you move it right or left of the chassis? Maybe a watts linkage would work better on the rear of the car for road racing?
Thanks, Raymond Hann.
Raymond,
You’re right, I didn’t say. You can use either the panhard/J-bar or a watts link for road racing, but most teams prefer to use the watts link, because with that system, there is no movement of the rear end laterally and the roll center stays more consistent.
With the panhard/J-bars, always mount them so that on the side of the chassis where it is mounted, you place the end of the bar higher by half of the shock/chassis movement on that side. Here is why.
If the bar were mounted on the right side chassis and you are turning left, the right side will droop or dive and on road courses, the left, or inside corner, will mostly remain at the same height. This keeps the bar more level in both right and left turns.
The problem with using the panhard/J-bar system is that the rear roll center, a major component in setup balance, changes height in the left turn scenario we described above. This changes the setup balance and makes the car tighter as the bar runs lower.
So, the left hand turns will feel different in handling than the right hand turns when using a panhard/J-bar system on road courses. I guess I just defined why you should change your car to a watts link system.
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