Skip to main content

Weight Reduction and Design Innovation

0:58
47:55
191.6K views

At 0:58 in

Mike Skinner's 1995 Goodwrench NASCAR Truck: The FIRST Ever Truck Series Champion!

What happens here

Mike explains the extensive weight reduction efforts made on the truck. He points out areas like the rear window and bed cover, which were 'skeletons out' and 'lightened up'. He discusses hollowing out reinforcements and saving every possible ounce of weight to gain a competitive edge in the short track races, even though the overall weight of the truck still had to meet NASCAR's minimum requirement, necessitating strategic placement of ballast weights.

Goal: Explain the modifications made to the truck for weight reduction.

Tools and materials

  • NASCAR Craftsman Truck Chevrolet — The subject of weight reduction modifications

What they say

Hide

probably well over 100 lb lighter than the first one. What about this one was different than the first one that you said was heavy? Like the specific areas you worked on it? I mean, you see everything's skated out. You know, all this stuff's lightened up. There's a lot of stuff that you know, that we always tried to hide back in the past, but not now. But underneath the tonneau all the reinforcements all hollowed out and you know, we just we went into savings mode on on on weight. And you know, we still had to weigh the same amount, but when you can put it in the frame rail instead of the roof, it's big and and it was just technology moving along and I tell you the cars that Dale Earnhardt Sr. was driving and winning in, they were heavy compared to stuff like some of the Hendrick stuff and some of the other other teams and it just makes me respect him all the more because he didn't have the best cars all the time, but he still winning races. and when all this came about, we hired some really smart people, guys like Jesse Coke and Johnny Sailler and Todd Barrier and Rich Burgess was was a late model guy. He ended up being my crew chief in '95. Um those guys were all smart racers. Richard Wat- you know, who do you want to hire? We we got together about who we were going to hire, who's going to be the crew chief, and we put a team

Auto-generated from the video audio.