HORSEPOWER TIPS:

Solid Fuel Combustion
By Don Terrill (c) RacingSecrets.com

You can find inspiration in the damnedest places.

Years back the wife and I spent the summer going to different types of racing -- from Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) racing to the Soap Box Derby. At every event I saw something that could be applied to auto racing. For example at the Soap Box Derby it was all about frictional/aerodynamic drag and how they drove the course. Even though the lanes are straight, they weren't perfectly flat and the racers figured out how to take advantage. Do auto racers look at these things? Yes, but at nowhere near the focus of Soap Box racers.

Sometimes inspiration can even be found outside of racing. Last fall we installed a wood stove in our house. Given I was a wood stove newbie, you'd guess that I looked at the stove directions or asked for advice. Nope, I just jumped right in, figuring it was a simple task -- Just throw in some newspaper, kindling, firewood and light a match.

At first I thought I only needed to worry about the amount of fuel (wood) and inlet air. Well, I quickly learned the key to a great fire is building heat in the firebox -- getting the cast iron hot. At this point combustion becomes very easy and efficient. Too much inlet air during warmup has a real cooling effect. Yes, of course air and fuel are important, but everything becomes easier when the "combustion chamber" is hot.

How to apply this to racing engines:

* Good Warmup - A thermostat and the ability to add load to the engine will quicken this process.

* Block Filler (Grout) - Only applicable for short term racing like drag racing. Most people think this helps performance because it stabilizes the cylinder walls, Nope, it's because it creates the condition where you can have a hotter lower engine and cooler upper engine at the same time.

* Less Combustion Chamber Surface Area - A flat top piston and a small combustion chamber will have less heat transfer than a large dome and large combustion chamber.

* Hot oil - So the oil doesn't overly cool the bottom of the piston and cylinder wall.

Of course there's a downside to building all this heat, and that is the probability of adding heat to the air/fuel mixture.

How to keep the inlet air cool:

* Hood Scoop or Cowl - If you're looking for max power, never pull hot under hood air unless forced by rules.

* Block Exhaust System Heat - We don't want heat from the headers radiating to the intake manifold. Consider header coatings and wraps or maybe just a simple sheet metal baffle to block/deflect the heat.

* Heat Resistant/Dispersing Intake Manifold - An aluminum manifold with an air gap design is best. Also consider an oil splash pan under the Intake.

* Ice Down the Intake Manifold - Since it only creates a short term benefit, it's perfect for qualifying laps or drag racing.

Other Ideas:

* Strategically placed temperature sensors - Just knowing the temp of the coolant at the front of the manifold is not enough if you're going to push the limits of this concept.

* More Intake Manifold surface area - The easiest way would be to grind/mill grooves on the outside of the Intake, but you could also add fins. Think air cooled engines.

The main point I want you to take away from this article is the advantages of creating a wider gap between upper and lower engine temps.

As you go through your day, look around, there are lessons everywhere.

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More Engine Tips:
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SPONSORSHIP TIPS:

Client Focused Presentations
by Beverly Terrill (c) SponsorshipHelp.com

As a Payroll and Human Resource professional for over 20 years, I have done many presentations. I have presented to my internal associates (co-workers), my client’s company executives, the employees of my clients and everyone in-between. For me it’s exhilarating and gets my adrenalin flowing!

About 10 years ago, which was well into my career, I took a 2-day training called “Presenting and Persuading”. Wow! I learned some very valuable lessons. Today I want to talk about the number 1 lesson that I learned and how it will help you to present in a whole new way.

When you read materials on presentations, most revolve around how to use the software, what size font, voice inflection etc. And these are all techniques to consider when preparing your presentation. But when I talk about presenting, I am referring to the actual meeting when you are in front of your client (or for you, your potential sponsor).

What was the eye opening, game-changing lesson?

Present what your client wants to hear, not what you want him to know!

This sounds so simple. When I used to create presentations, I would put my bullet points on the screen and have my notes in hand. These bullet points were all the things that I wanted my client to know. How great my product is, how it works, how excited I am that they are coming on board. Sound familiar? I would dwell on what I want the client to know not what my client wants to know. Do you know what happened then? The client sat thru an hour presentation and then had an hour of questions for me. What a waste of a good hour!

Now, you may already have a presentation that is fabulous. The good news is, you don’t have to change your presentation, but HOW you present.

So how do you do this? Here are my tips:

* Don’t dwell on how happy you are to be there and have this opportunity. There is a time and place for that - but make it a sentence not a topic. If you were about to spend 50K on a car, do you want the salesman going on about how happy he is that you chose his lot, instead of the one next door?

* Put yourself in your client’s shoes. What are his concerns? You can talk about trends etc. but what does that really mean? Trends are a look at the past and sometimes predict the future, but what are the client’s expectations? Don’t just say here are the trends. but ask him how that stacks up to what he has seen and heard.

* Be clear and to the point. By this I mean don’t drag out a topic that should be easily explained. Don’t go on about how much tires cost these days and don’t make excuses for why they cost so much. Your client doesn’t care. Tell him how much you need to go promote his company – which just happens to include tires.

* Bring a couple folks with you. You don’t want someone who just reads the slides but he or she must understand the message. This helps in multiple ways – first – what if you get there and can’t talk for whatever reason. But also you have a teammate who can assess what’s going on around you. He will have more time to think about the question while you are answering. So he might say, ‘let me just add to that comment’.

* Present what you know about the company. This is a great way to let your client know you have done your research but also give him a chance to talk about something HE loves to talk about.

Just a couple of general rules for presenting that you have heard a million times but, bears repeating.

* Be prepared - We all tend to ramble and lose our place if we haven’t done it a hundred times already. It cuts down on nervousness too.

* Record yourself - In the course I mentioned at the beginning of this article, they videotaped us and our instructor counted the number of times we used a word or phrase. For instance, how many umms. My no-no phrase was ‘And so’. These things become annoying and can detract from the message. You can avoid this by having someone critique you while you are practicing and remove any offending words from your vocabulary.

And remember, always present what your audience wants to hear, not what you want them to know!

Best of luck on your sponsorship goals!!

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DRIVING TIPS:

It really is ALL mental....The most important sport psychology information!
By Tami Eggleston (c) DrivingSecrets.com

So I love almost all sports, but I will admit that I don't watch a lot of professional golf on television. But I truly believe we can all learn so much about the mental game of sports by watching golf. At the level that professional golfers are at they basically can all drive, they all have the best equipment, they all can putt that ball in the hole, but what makes the good players GREAT players is their mental game. Just today I watched an amazing golf event on TV where one man had a fairly big lead. But the number two person just stayed strong and kept playing really well and never let up the pressure. Eventually the number one person started to make mistakes, missed some relatively easy shots, and you could just see him losing his mental game. The number two person ended up winning. What was so fascinating was the excellent announcers who kept saying things like the following and these statements really are the most important sport psychology information nicely summarized:

1.) At this level most of this sport is mental. It is all about who has the best mental game.

2.) This person needs to go back to basics and focus on his routine and his breathing.

3.) Clutch situations are what separates great athletes. Great athletes love these situations.

4.) At this point he needs to slow down the game and get back to playing his own game and not worrying about the other athletes.

5.) He needs to remind himself that this is what he practices for; he has made this exact shot thousands of times in the past.

6.) In this sport you can never give up, it is not ever over until it is over.

So as you watch other sports than your own see what you can learn from them.

It really is all mental so think tuff!