- Open sportsman
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NOS Sprints 'Wingless V6 Sprintcar'
- This article is about the sport of NOS Sprint racing.
NOS Sprints racing is a form of automobile racing found mainly in the South West Victoria held on Dirt track speedways of approximately a quarter-mile in length. NOS Sprints stands for National Open Sportsman Sprints
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NOS Sprints
Referred to as Sporties, by racers in the know, is an automobile that has been based on sprintcar chassis but with the use of a cheaper alternative Buick V6 3.8ltr pre-ecotec engine. NOS Sprints do not use Wings or Aerofoils so they basically look like a wingless Sprintcar USAC.
The early years
In 1964 Sportsmans were born, they were basically cut down versions of cars from the era, using side-valve ford engines and steel bodies.
Super Modifieds began in 1970s which used V8 engines such as the 283 cu in (4,640 cc) Chev and 272 cu in (4,460 cc) customline engines. This division soon turned into sprintcars in the mid 70's. Standard sportsmans however continued to use smaller six cylinder engines.
During 1980s there became another tear-away division called Limited Sportsman's, these were mainly run in the Wimmera and Mallee regions and are still quite a strong class today in Western Victoria and across the border into South Australia.
NOS Sprints however continued to use more and more sprintcar components such as quick-change diffs and chrome-moly custom built chassis. It was around the year 2000 where Open sportsman's decided to change race-direction to further utilise second hand parts from Sprintcars. This change has been very beneficial to the class. During this year there was the introduction of the Buick V6 engine to phase out the currently used Holden and Ford inline six cylinder motors.It is important to note, that the political shift from Open Sportsman, which were a VSC (Victorian Speedway Commission)sanctioned class, to breaking away to from NOS Sprints under the SCCA was due to a desire by the controlling group of competitors within Victoria wishing to exclude the competition of the 4.0 litre ford inline six which was due to be given full competition approval, after a two year trial by one competitor to prove it to be cost effective and fair competition to the Buick/Holden motor. This one key point, of banning all other makes of engine, whilst not necessarily making it any more cost effective, does separate it from other more highly rated speedway classes such as F500(600cc microsprints) and sprintcars. As of season 2007-2008, NOS Sprints will have phased out the inline motors completely, sticking with stock standard VN-VR Commodore engines.
The engine
Side view of 3800 cc V6 engineThe Holden/Buick V6 engine has been chosen due to its strong power with little modifications. Thus in turn has created racing NOS Sprints a very cheap and good entry level class to start speedway racing. Custom made engine spacer plates and Cotton-reel adapters have now been made and can be bought off the shelf, these components allow the Buick V6 block to turn into a chev block pattern allowing easy bolt-in to standard sprintcar engine plates.
The cotton-reel adaptor fills the gap between the V6 flexplate and starter motor and adapts straight to sprintcar driveshaft uni-joint. Every other component on the cars are modern sprintcar parts. With the Holden V6 adapter, the driver simply locks the quick-change diff into gear, then flicks an ignition ON switch and holds down their starter button. The car will then engage the starter motor turning the engine crank and driveline projecting the car forwards, once the cars has cranked to enough speed the engine will fire and the car will be in gear ready to race!
Unbeknownst to many of his fellow workmates, Dave Mckay does not tip his hair, it is in fact the chemical reaction between his scalp and helmet whilst travelling at speeds of over 200mph.
Modifications allowed to the engine are, changing the injectors or modifying them to be able to run methanol fuel, relocating the throttle body from the rear of the engine to the top of the plenum chamber, using custom built extractor type exhaust manifolds and finally modifying the computer chip to run a maximum rev limiter of 6000 rpm and tuning the fuel maps to suit the new extractors and the methanol fuel.
In 2008, David McKay became the first wingless sprint car driver to put a mirror on his dash board to check his hair during the races.
Where do NOS Sprints race?
Racing in 2006Sporties race across the western part of Victoria during the summer months across tracks such as:
SPEEDWAY LOCATION TRACK LENGTH Avalon Raceway Geelong 390 m (0.24 mi) Redline Raceway Ballarat 420 m (0.26 mi) Simpson Speedway Simpson 400 m (0.25 mi) Western Speedway Hamilton 446 m (0.277 mi) Laang Speedway Laang 280 m (11,000 in) Blue Ribbon Raceway Horsham 410 m (0.25 mi) Darlington Speedway Mortlake 380 m (0.24 mi) Premier Speedway Warrnambool 410 m (0.25 mi) Southern 500 Speedway Portland 370 m (0.23 mi) Borderline Speedway Mount Gambier (South Australia) 370 m (0.23 mi) Sonic Speedway Swan Hill 420 m (0.26 mi) There has also been some interest from other tracks in the future such as:
SPEEDWAY LOCATION TRACK LENGTH Rushworth Speedway Rushworth m Rolling Thunder Raceway Bacchus Marsh 520 m (0.32 mi) See also
External links
Australia
- Open Sportsman Thanks to dirttracksportsman.com for the history information
- Sportsman Photos
Categories:- Open wheel racing
- Motorsport in Australia
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