Drag Illustrated Issue 150, November 2019 | Page 50

D.I. COLUMNIST Tuned Up with Will Hanna STAY AWAY FROM THE “ADVICE BUFFET” W e all reach points in our racing careers, and life in general, where we seek advice to answer a question or get some direction. More often than not, good advice will tell you some things you may not want to hear. Especially if it involves spend- ing more money than you planned, want to, or have to spend. This is where I see a lot of racers, and I think we’re all guilty of it at some point in our career, going to what I call the “advice buffet.” If you ask enough people, you may get the answer you want to hear. Once you get that answer, you consider it as the “correct” way to go. Here are some of the most popu- lar items on the Advice Buffet: 1. What you have will work or you can make it work by changing something else you have. 2. You should be good for another race on those rods (insert any other part here). 3. It probably plugged a nozzle. Definitely wasn’t lean. 4. I run these nozzles with this much fuel. 5. Weekend Lunch Special: “Just get after it.” The buffet is much more expan- sive, and if you ask the right person in the kitchen, they’ll cook up what- ever answer you’re looking for. They also serve tuning advice at this buffet. I can’t tell you how many times I see racers use fuel system advice from one tuner, gearing from another tuner, clutch and converter from another tuner (or the manu- facturer), chassis from one tuner and shock advice from another. I can see the logic behind trying to get knowledge from multiple gurus, but all of those areas are key ingredients to a tune-up, and they have to work together. You wouldn’t expect a Mike Leach-run Air Raid offense to work with a bunch of players better suited for a Darrell Royal Wishbone. Or Jack Pardee’s Run-n-Shoot to work with players from Bill Yeoman’s Veer (obligatory University of Houston reference – GO COOGS!). Everything works together, and it either complements each other or it doesn’t. While the advice you get from multiple tuners may be proven to work, it may not work with someone else’s advice. Tuner A may run very aggressive gear- ing, but your chassis guy gave you a setup better suited for a conser- vative launch. Getting advice from multiple sources can be especially detrimental in an engine. While 28 degrees of timing may work for the guy who told you that, if you got fuel system advice from a guy who runs 26, look out. This is why I try to tell new and experienced racers alike, pick one guru and go with their advice and their package. Even if you are ex- perienced and tune your own stuff, don’t call guru A one race and take his advice, then decide to call guru B after a race or two and try his advice, unless you are ready to change the whole setup to guru B’s package. Learning curve is a very expensive commodity, yet it gets treated like it’s free. I guess because we never cut a check or get a charge on our card for “learning curve.” At its best, learning curve is just the amount of problem-free runs it takes to “figure it out.” Anything above that “best- case” scenario can get pretty costly in a hurry. Nearly any kind of power adder car, whether it’s heads up or fast brackets, is realistically using up at a minimum $200-$300 in consum- able parts per run. Top Alcohol and Pro Mods are closer to $1,000 (and up). That’s not counting any costs to get wherever you are running. If you are going anywhere besides a very local track, it usually costs $1,000 to pull out of the driveway (4-plus hours’ drive, entry fees, crew passes, food, etc.). A tuner can save a racer quite a bit of money by speeding up that learning curve and helping them avoid costly pitfalls along the way. It’s hard to put a number on the money you don’t spend. One of my favorite poker sayings from Mike Caro is, “the money you don’t lose spends just as easy as the money you win.” A good tuner can get a car dialed in within a few runs. Maybe you can match those results yourself for free, but many good racers have paid some big tuition checks to the School of Hard Knocks going down that path. Whether it’s ego, not wanting to be labeled as having a “hired tuner,” or you just want the pride and reward of tuning a car, many racers forget many legendary tun- ers in the sport got some help from someone along the way. Take Frank Manzo, for instance. He got a lot of help from Tim Richards in his early years. Also, the greats call each other, talk shop and get advice from each other! Had I took a step back in my early years of running Top Alcohol and got some real help, I would have won a lot more rounds as a driver. Stay away from the advice and tuner buffet. And remember, kids, usually the only advice you can’t af- ford is free advice. DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI Will Hanna is a tuner/consultant- for-hire offering services from run evaluation to trackside consulting. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. TRACKSIDE CONSULTING • REMOTE TUNING • RUN EVALUATION / “Monday Morning Crew Chief Service” Available [email protected] • 979.415.4959 50 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com Issue 150