I'd rather they slowed lap speeds by removing downforce making the drivers lift in the corners

Ditto.

jpetry - 05 May 2008 01:59 PM

johnw63 - 05 May 2008 02:00 PM

I'd rather they slowed lap speeds by removing downforce making the drivers lift in the corners

Ditto.

I do believe they said they were working on a way of creating more drag to keep the speeds in check without using downforce to achieve that.

I don't understand. Downforce IS drag. I guess I'll stick with the parachute idea.

Whenever the car following is always faster, you create entertainment, not racing. Think the Hanford devise @ Michigan. Some think that was the best racing ever. I think NASCAR.

The HUGE challenge they have. Is how do you make the cars more challenging to drive where they can't go flat out all the way around. While also keeping the speeds to a sane level. Cart tried to take away down force with the speedway wing configuration but I do believe the speeds went up. Also with the ICS going to those awful cookie cutter tracks with napcar banking It makes it even more difficult to control the speeds! Remember when Cart went to Texas!! In my humble opinion the car needs an extreme make over!! The basic Indy car design has not changed much over the last 25 to 30 years. I would get rid of the wings remove the engine covers and make them create down force with the side pods!!

I think folks are missing the forest for the trees.

What was said was that they wanted a car that was slower but with similar "driveability" as the current car.

Simple as that.

Steve

I don't think we've missed that point ,Steve. I think we are disagreeing with the concept. It seems the term "drivability" means easy to drive and keep the foot planted at many ovals. Some of use would prefer to NOT have that. I would rather have the driver mean more than the wings.

If you increase drag without making big changes to the aero rules, you will force teams to trim the cars out even more in the quest for speed. Trimming the cars out will make them harder to drive.

I think it will be all fairly small changes.

And I don't buy into this "it's all car" hooey. You rarely see all four AGR cars running nose to tail. Heck, last year Marco parked cars because he couldn't get a handle on it.

Steve

So, what is the purpose of a new car? I hear the terms "slow them down" and "driveability". If they want to slow the cars and make them more "driveable", simply mandate a wing angle (like when the IRL was pack racing) and save the owners a lot of money. Then you might see the AGR team doing the train, along with the rest of the field.

When it comes to tracks like Indy, it is car 75%, driver 25%. On a road course, a driver can "carry" a car. Not so on an oval. Ask Nigel Mansell.

Gandretti - 07 May 2008 08:12 AM

So, what is the purpose of a new car? I hear the terms "slow them down" and "driveability". If they want to slow the cars and make them more "driveable", simply mandate a wing angle (like when the IRL was pack racing) and save the owners a lot of money. Then you might see the AGR team doing the train, along with the rest of the field.

When it comes to tracks like Indy, it is car 75%, driver 25%. On a road course, a driver can "carry" a car. Not so on an oval. Ask Nigel Mansell.

How about asking anyone in F1 this week who doesn't have a Ferrari, McLaren, or a BMW Sauber?

I would think that increasing drag and not DF would be fairly straight forward. Any surface that does not act as an air foil, yet puts a surface perpendicular to the direction of travel would add drag and NOT contribute to DF.

It could be a simple as thickening the wing planes. If they are most concerned about Indy, then simply drop the Indy only rear wing. Make them use a double or triple, like they do elsewhere.

On an oval, it is much more the setup than any other driving. A driver can't make lots of changes in their line to make the car faster in the straights or in the corners. They can find the best line and try to hit it each time, but if the car has a push, then they can't work past that. If it is loose, then they are stuck there too. The speed in the corners gets amplified by the speed at the end of the next straight. The best drivers can probably handle a car that is trimmed out a little more than the rest of the grid. As it should be. If you make the cars with too much DF and drag, you remove this distinction and we get a pack.

I may be all wet here, but why not make each car have a flat bottom and have a minimum clearence of .. oh I don't know .. 4 inches .. or maybe 6 inches. That would take away some of the down force. It would force the drivers to lift in the corners and make driving a part of the equation again.

Just a thought and probably not very practical.

On another note, I'll take the DP01 over the Dallara. It just looks faster to me.