In pristine form just seven days ago, Bell Motorsports is forced to undergo another painful repair of their Aston Martin DBR9. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

Bell Back in a Familiar Position

The Bell Motorsports Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 car suffered a massive shunt at St. Pete earlier in the year that forced the team to the sidelines as they repaired the extensive damage. Returning to the series after three months of hard work on the DBR9 at Lime rock, the team is yet again forced to the sidelines due to another major crash.

Team manager Doug Smith said on Tuesday that the car was in transit back to Miami for the team to tear down the car. Damage didn’t appear to be as comprehensive as was suffered at St. Pete, but a number of deformable structures did indeed deform in the impact.

The team’s pains to repair the car the first time around were due to business and contractual struggles between Bell and Aston Martin Racing. Their philosophical differences in how the car should be fixed and where the parts would come from to affect repairs led Bell to manufacture everything necessary to return to competition. It would have been easier for the team to work with Aston and to buy their parts from them, but Bell wasn’t happy with the terms and opted for the more challenging path of manufacturing his own replacement parts.

Depending on the volume and complexity of the replacement parts needed after their Lime Rock crash, there’s no telling how long it will be until we hear the scream of a V12 Aston Martin in GT1 again.

Schupack’s Vee Book’s Back in Business

Porsche PR ace Andy Schupack showed me the newly converted digital edition of a book he’d written decades ago on Formula Vee and Super Vee racing cars titled “Formula Vee/Super Vee—Racing, History and chassis/Engine Prep.”

Long since out of print, Schupack contacted the original publisher, and was given permission to begin offering the book again, albeit in digital format.

“They aren’t going to fire up the presses for an old book on Formula and Super Vee’s, but it’s pretty neat that we can bring something back to life I’d assumed would never see the light of day again.” Like everything else that comes from Andy’s keyboard, its well worth the read. Visit www.formulaveeracing.org to find Andy’s awesome book.


Audi’s Stuck in the ‘80’s

The twin-turbo V12 diesel Audi’s are noticeably quieter than all the other cars competing in the American Le Mans Series, so I began to wonder just how quiet they actually are in comparison to the rest of the field. Turns out they’re up to 25 decibels lower (depending on the weather) than the normally aspirated V8’s, V10’s, and V12’s!

Anticipating the near-silent Audi's arrival at a corner has plagued photographers since the diesel R10 TDI's debuted in 2006. Hearing the German V12's at full volume would be a welcomed change. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

“I do a lot of the ALMS’ tech talks they have for fans at the races, and we always get asked about why our cars are so quiet,” Audi’s Brad Kettler shared. “Part of it is because of the turbo; it acts as a ‘pre-muffler’ before the exhaust goes out to the particulate filters. But the main reason our cars sound so quiet is from the lack of high revs; the normally aspirated cars rev to ten thousand RPM’s or more, and we’re at half of that. We just never get that high pitched scream with our V12 engine, so it produces more of a low rumble than a loud scream.”

With the loudest non-Audi’s bellowing at 110db or more, the R10 TDI’s can get lost on track if you aren’t watching them intently—you simply can’t hear them coming, nor do you know when they’ll peek around a corner at speed. It makes for a fun guessing game to try and estimate when they’ll appear.

The ALMS has a maximum db limit for their cars, but with the near silent ‘whoosh’ of the R10’s, maybe a minimum db level would also be worth implementing.