Tire height was another important factor.  No independent front axles or precision ground front tires in .002 increments where available at the time.  The instructions were simple: take a drill you had at home (I didn’t have one of those expensive Dremel tools) along with an emery board (appropriated from my wife) and grind your own front tires. 

I did what they did but my car still went sideways.  We were racing on Dan Briewick's track at the time.  His track was an "L" shaped track about 80 feet long.  There was a straight away going into a set of S’s as I recall.  After 6 weeks or so of working on the car, doing everything they said, it was getting very discouraging to see my car be competitive in speed and not in handling.  I would hang with the group and every time my car would go sideways at the S’s and they would go through.

Editor's note: Micrometers of sufficient quality for measuring HO tires can be purchased for as little as $20.  These days, many HO scale enthusiasts use tire gages (hole templates) with all the tire sizes in increments of .002 inches.  These gauges come in plastic for $5 or aluminum for $20.

Tim Essman to the rescue.  A quiet, but very good racer who pitted over in the other corner of the basement asked it he could help or look or something at my car.  Sure, everyone else had offered their opinion, why not.  We went over to his box; he took the lexan body off my car and pulled this strange looking semi circle device from his box.  He started to slide the tire through this opening in the semi-circle and turning the handle.  “What’s That?” I asked.  “It’s a micrometer," he said.  Tim explained the increments of measurement and how important .002 is to the handling of the car.  We marked the underneath side of the car, ran it two laps and examined the marking.  The marking was still there indicating the car had not rubbed on the rails of the track.  In other words, it was too high.  So he ground off another .002 of an inch and repeated procedure until we had the car level and just touching the track.  Ten to 12 minutes later, BINGO!, my car now went through the S’s like everyone else’s.  Now I had a fighting chance to compete!!  Yes, I still needed to learn to drive better, but the car now handled through the S’s.

In the early days of racing, I helped where I could.  I made a personal vow to make sure everyone has the information of how to set up his or her cars.   I was not the best builder in the group, but I did my best to get people started with a positive experience in HO racing.  Guess what is one of the 1st things I tell new people?  (Tire height and how to measure it)