Steering Problem on LeMons Race car

[Dinodan]

I have driven this car in Lemons races,and had a blast at it.As Dan said,''evil handling'' hits the nail on the head.I had it spin on me in turn one with no input on my part. The alignment that was done on the car was a botched job.We could visually see that the tires were askew,and we tried our best to fix it with a string and plumb bob in the garage. Now I understand why it didn't help!! Hope you guys get her back on track...I love driving that car.
Dan,are you planning on driving,or are you taking over as team manager?
Craig

Hi Craig. I'm not planning to drive at this point. I enjoy track days in the GTI more than LeMons races, and it didn't help that I got punted in the last two races through no fault of my own by drivers who had no business being on a track. Lou is the team manager, so I might just tag along in some kind of support role.

As far as the alignment goes, as best we can determine, the caster wasn't the issue in the first race. That was just a botched alignment, which we actually improved upon with the string and plumb bob. After that race, Lou disassembled the front suspension and fitted replacement a-arms (incorrectly as it turned out). That's when the caster problem arose, and explains why the handling was even worse for the second race (although we had so many other problems that it kind of got shrugged off). The second alignment (just before the second race) was done at a different shop, and as has been commented on here, it's amazing that the tech didn't see that the caster was grossly out of spec. We'll try a third shop this next time...

[RoyBatty]

Get a long straight edge, a digital smart level, a tape measure and educate yourselves just a little bit and typy cam do the alignment job yourselves.
I do my own in my driveway, have more than 30k miles on the tires on my spider at the moment and the tire wear and handling are doing great.

[ga.spyder]

Dan,I understand about the contact.It seems to depend on who is in the other car.I have been named the ''starter'' on our team.I go out first,and at the last race,there seemed to be a lot of people intent on winning a 24 hour race in the first hour.I just try to stay consistent and keep the car undamaged.I got hit 3 or 4 times.It was pretty stressful.On the Sunday session,I was in the car for the first 2 1/2 hours.Everyone was respectful,and even pointing each other by.Total 180 deg. from Saturday.I was running consistent 2:08 - 2:10's,and was having a blast.It is fun when everyone behaves.
I am really happy that the car is going to run again.I have missed you guys being there.