My current plan is to take an old Arrow chassis I have, throw an LO206 on it, and run it around Zen Ridge Raceway in Wilmington, OH. It’s a dirt oval, I’ve actually done this before, but when I was a newbie in the kart scene.
Last time I did this, I had minimal spare parts, so I almost ran the chassis same as you would on asphalt.
This time, I’m planning on offsetting the axle to the right, make the front end min width on the left side, max on the right, and run 7.1 rims and tires on the right. Last time I did this, I used Hoosier R60B’s I think, and I still have plenty of them to choose from, as well as a big stack of MG Reds, the old ones.
Anyone have any other suggestions on setup, or which tire might be better? It’s an anything goes kind of outing, so if anyone knows of some homemade secret sauces for the tires, I’m all ears on that one, too. The dirt is a clay base, it seems. I’ll definitely have it geared pretty low, as max speed on the oval isn’t going to be much over 30-35MPH.
Here’s some vid from the last time I ran there on an Arrow X2. I forget which Arrow I have this time.
Scott might have a thought or two. Iirc he had one chassis that looked like it was setup for oval. Or is he racing you and therefore not to be trusted?
He’s actually letting me drive one of his dirt karts. I’m putting this one together for my girlfriend and son to have some fun in. But they do have an old Sodi sprint chassis setup with specific dirt wheels and tires.
I wouldn’t worry too much about offsetting, in dirt you need to load the outside tires and since grip is at a premium you want them narrow. So basically go narrow on both sides. If you have spun aluminum rims you can run them inside out to tuck them further. If you want to prep, get some acrysol. It’s not a heavy prep, but it will soften some and add bite.
You may or may not want a lot of rear stagger. Depends on how the kart handles. On my wife’s trackmagic dirt kart (which is largely based off a sprint kart) I run barely any stagger. If I set it up with more than 1/2" of stagger she hates it. So you may have a different LR setup just in case.
my plan is to bring a few extra rim/tire combos to experiment if it isn’t a rocket out of the gate. i’m pretty pumped to get it out there.
i’m glad i took it for a quick little test run, because i realized my homemade pedal extenders weren’t beefy enough. i got that fixed, got all the zip ties and mychron in place, so i’m ready to go.
