The GRIP Seminars presented by Circle Track are less than a month away. Last year the seminars featured a new, more interactive format. This year the format will be similar, but will feature a few new twists.
New to the lineup this year for GRIP will be a visit to Zeta Performance and demonstrations at lunch time from CTW Automation. We learned more about these two companies and what they will present to the attendees of GRIP.
Zeta Performance
Circle Track: What is Zeta Performance?
Andy May – Zeta Performance: Zeta Performance Vehicle Technologies is a full service vehicle engineering company deeply rooted in motorsports. We were born from the engineering department of a successful NASCAR Xfinity team and we spun off to give customers access to the cutting edge technology and the most exclusive resources used by top tier teams – and previously only accessible by those at the very top teams.
Our engineers and technicians have amassed great amounts of knowledge at the very top levels of motorsports, which we now use to work with our customers, which vary from automotive OEMs all the way to street car enthusiasts – but we remain very grounded in our primary market of motorsports.
We specialize in vehicle dynamics and have a lot of resources dedicated toward vehicle dynamics development – including a Servotest 7-Post Shaker Rig, a custom-upfitted Mittler Bros Pulldown Rig and a large amount of data acquisition equipment, including our all-new TraqDaq data logger, containing features specifically focused on the oval market, that we unveiled with our partners Penske Shocks at this year’s PRI show.
CT: How did you come together with GRIP?
AM: We came together with GRIP Seminars through our relationship with Jason Enders. Dennis Wells was a long-time employee at RE Suspension, and I was a long-time customer. GRIP Seminars is such a great forum to educate racers which aligns so well with our mission, and we are humbled to be invited to join industry leaders like Jason and Gary to do so.
CT: What will you be covering at GRIP?
AM: I will be covering Vehicle Dynamics and Suspension Geometry in the seminar. My goal is to help our attendees gain a far greater understanding of the theory of vehicle dynamics, along with not just how but why changing different variables effect the vehicle’s handling. From there, we will move into suspension geometry to cover various geometry items and how they affect the car’s behavior in different situations.
CT: What should attendees expect to learn from Zeta?
AM: There’s no magical, one-size-fits-all solution and there’s certainly no “right” answer when it comes to setup because with everything comes a sacrifice. I aim to help our attendees learn how to think through their setup decisions to understand the effects of the changes so they can balance these sacrifices and come up with the best setup decisions for their needs.
In addition to speaking at the seminar, Zeta will be hosting an After-Hours event at our 7-Post shaker facility. We will take this opportunity to expose racers to engineering resources used in top level motorsports to help our racers gain a better understanding of how we use engineering to quantify and measure different things. We will have a car on the shaker rig to run some demonstration tests, and will walk through some of the data and basic data analysis. While this is a resource that is likely financially unattainable for most of our attendees, I hope that we can open their eyes to what is out there and different ways to think about and approach what they do.
CTW Automation
Circle Track: What is CTW Automation?
Michael Kadlecik – CTW Automation: CTW Automation is a company that builds test equipment for the automotive, motorcycle and racing world. Our initial focus is on testing shock absorbers, springs and various other elastomers that are in use across the various racing divisions. While we are a new company, the owners and employees are all ex-Roehrig Engineering workers so our history and experience go back to the early 1990’s doing this vary same thing.
CT: How did you come together with GRIP?
MK: Through Roehrig, we worked closely with Jason Enders and RE Suspension to supply the test equipment that is used for his service center. This relationship has simply moved to CTW from Roehrig.
CT: What will you be covering at GRIP?
MK: We were asked if we could have a shock dyno on display during lunch times so people could see one working and ask any questions they might have about them. Seeing how its primary function is as a tool to measure your dampers, Jason thought it would fit well with the GRIP seminar’s focus.
CT: What should attendees expect to learn from CTW?
MK: This could vary depending on the person and their experience with using a shock dyno. While we can introduce many people to this tool, we usually end up teaching them less about the dyno itself and more about how to read and interpret the data that comes from the machine. What does the “graph” mean? What is low speed? Bleed? Etc.. so it becomes more of an advanced lesson on data rather than the dyno itself.
For more information about GRIP Seminars presented by Circle Track visit www.gripseminars.com
The post GRIP Seminars New Partners – Zeta Performance and CTW Automation appeared first on Hot Rod Network.
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