Input on Pros or Cons of a tall car

[hmltn4]

Are there potential issues of a 39" tall 82" car with a 50 pound, 8 year-old driver??

[Swartz]

Yes.

[sfreitas20]

So my take on this is that it is really hard to answer without knowing the reason for the question.  Let me give you an example what I mean.  When my son, AJ, was about halfway through his driving lessons an opportunity presented itself for me to get an older Fiser car which was too large and too tall for AJ to really race in.  However I bought it because $1200 for a complete race ready car with both a 120 and a 160 and a big box of spare parts was too good to pass up.  We put AJ in it for about 3 hours of practice a week for a couple months and he raced his first 4 rookie races in that car before we bought the proper sized car for him (here is a picture of the huge car: http://www.freitasracing.com/photogallery/22209/Race1a.JPG).

We bought the car for $1200, sold the 160 for $300 and then sold the car for $1500 six months later (we did rebuild the shocks, made new bumpers and nerfs and basically went through the whole car to make sure everything was in good shape).  In that time AJ got a bunch of seat time and my brother and I learned all about how to work on these cars that we had no knowledge of prior.  For those reasons I think we made a great decision putting AJ in that car.

At the same time I will say that AJ was 5, so I had time on my side.  If your child is 8 they really can't afford to lose too much time due to having the wrong car because once they hit 9 and have to jump into the Sr Honda from the rookie class it is very tough on them.

I hope that helps.

[Swartz]

Let me expound. My son is 5'6 160lbs and would fit in that car. Aside from the safety concerns from having large openings, allowing the possibility of another car intruding ino the drivers area in a wreck, and having a large amount of interior room for the driver to slop arround in making it dificult to controll the car, there are performance concerns. You can learn all you need to know with 2 2x4s. One 2 foot long and one 8 foot long. The first thing you should do is spin each above your head like a propeller. See which one is easier to start and stop spinning. That translates to changing the direction of the car while moving. The longer it is the harder to turn and stop turning. The other is put a brick on the ground. Lay each of the boards over the brick, get the driver to stand on one end and try to pry him off of the ground. Theat relates to the distance between the center of gravith and the roll center. The farther apart they are the longer the lever it is and the more momentum will try to overturn the car. The more weight you can get as low as possible and near the center of the car the better. You have a real advantage with a small, light driver. Could be a huge advantage in Sr. Honda next year so I would think twice about giving it up by buying a huge car for whatever reason.

[ssssmoke]

a 35 inch car would be much better. oh yeah i have one for sale and is a very fast sr. honda car.

[sfreitas20]

I completely agree with that and if AJ was 8, I would have had to think long and hard before I did what I did.

So I guess what I am saying is; in the end if the pros outweigh the cons then consider it.  In our case they did.

[Swartz]

Another thing I forgot to mention. Visability. If the car has a large hood or nose for bigger kids a smaller driver may not be able to see over it or the right side panel. I don't know how many time I've seen cars pile into a wreck just because they couldn't see anything but the left front tire.

[sfreitas20]

That was probably the most difficult thing was getting the body low enough so he could see (notice the normal Fiser hood isn't on the car) without having the seat high up off the floor.

[clouse55]

Been my problem too, my driver is so small it makes it interesting sometimes...........LMAO!!!!

[Swartz]

NBA calling you guys yet Jeff?