[MrForbes]

We were talking about inches, not feet. We were looking at the spider leg from the end, not the side. We were talking about vertical offset, not horizontal offset.

To address your question, I find the horizontal offset of the spider feet is about 1.67 feet, viewing from the side. The overall width of the "cage" of the rack is 8 feet, each spider leg (from pivot to end) is 4.83 feet, the center disk from pivot to pivot across is 1.66 feet.

Two spider legs plus the center disk add up to 11.33 feet, sutract the 8 foot rack leaves 3.33 feet for two spiders. divide in half, leaves 1.66 feet per spider.

see attatched sketch, hopefully this clears it up. One place where you might have made a mistake is not including the amount the spider legs overlap the center disk. My measurements are taken from the bolt hole in each, not the overall size.