Dirt track racers are in a constant battle with tire spin as some tire spin is a good thing but too much can lead to a poor handling race car and make the driver work a lot harder to get around the track.  Excessively spinning the tires not only makes the car harder to drive as it also causes higher tire temps and excessive tire wear.  When a driver lifts off of the throttle or counter steers to make up for this 5% tire spin mistake it upsets their rhythm and ultimately slows the car down.  Then when a driver makes a 5% mistake with the throttle they have to correct 20-25% to fix it. 

Davis Technologies has developed a new model of their popular traction control systems designed to reduce this unwanted tire spin in dirt track cars.  This new system is capable of detecting tire slip within one cylinder of crank rotation and then triggers a small reduction in power to reduce or stop the tire slip.  Davis Technologies worked with Blount Motorsports to get their veteran dirt late model driver Billy Ogle Jr. an exclusive test of their traction control system at Tennessee’s Smokey Mountain Speedway.

Billy Ogle Jr. in the Blount Motorsports #201 dirt late model (Photo Source: Michael Moats Photo)

Davis Technologies model TMS-9000-SL(short) traction control that was used for the test

For the test Ogle went out and did ten laps with Davis Technologies TMS-9500-short self-learning traction control unit on his Rocket Chassis late model with a 450 ci Chevy race engine by Custom Race Engines.  He immediately followed that up with ten laps without traction control on the same tires and finally five more laps with traction control. 

The results speak for themselves as Ogle’s average lap times were on average 0.18 seconds faster with traction control the first time and the 0.13 seconds faster the second time out with the unit hooked up.  He commented that when he drove with the traction control the car felt smoother and easier to drive.  He added that when he went back out after running without traction control the tires felt like they came back.  Ogle then commented that without traction control the car was a bit of a handful and that he had to work hard to go fast. 

In the video they have hooked up a red light to indicate when the traction control system is at work.  Check out the video and see for yourself how much more work Ogle is doing behind the wheel without the traction control unit hooked up.  For more information on all the great traction control systems Davis Technologies offers for dirt racing, pavement racing, drag racing, pulling trucks, land speed racing, and other racing applications check out www.moretraction.com.