Less wings, more undertray? (Tony Cicale)

[ChrisB]

(Hello! Nuthin' against the other forums, but I thought I'd give this one a try too.)

CART.com has a new interview up with Tony Cicale:

http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=5349

Some interesting thoughts on the downforce package for the future:


"I think the problem that we've had with our racing, particuarly on the ovals, has been anytime a driver attempts to pass, he pulls up behind someone and basically loses all his grip in the turbulence, which isn't a lot these days because of the restrictions. Consequently, he can't get close to the car in front of him. He doesn't have enough load on the car and basically has to back off to a certain distance, just to stay where he is.

and further down he says...



He thinks it's worth thinking seriously about enlarging the underwing and reducing the size of the wings, or even removing them entirely, as a possible means of enabling the cars to run closer together to increase the potential for passing and close racing.

"I don't think the concept of taking off the wings and having large underwings is stupid at all," Cicale remarked. "I think in a lot of ways its a good thing to look at. I think in the short term that probably wouldn't get anywhere, but in the long term it's worth looking at things like that."



A few weeks back in the Tom Anderson article:
http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=5306

"I would like the underbody be a bigger percentage of the overall aero package than it is today," he said. "We need to keep the wings, but they need to be a lesser percentage of the aero package. We need to keep the look, but we need to get away from front wings that have several hundred parts in our inventories.

"To hold sponsor logos, there needs to be a single mainplane in the rear that has a Gurney Lip. Maybe it needs to be a two-element rear wing. I'm not an aerodynamicist, but the biggest percentage of the aero needs to come from the floor, which is less affected by traffic. It is affected, but not nearly as much as taking the air off the front and rear wings.

"This would enable people to pass and to run closer together so that a driver can work on somebody from behind and not be at a great disadvantage. They could play with each other and have a proper dice and if the guy behind is clever enough to outfox the guy in front, he'll be able to pass him."




I guess it's time for CART to look at less wing and more tunnel/undertray for '05?

How would they do this? Tight restrictions on what the wings can be? (but please, no minimum angles)

I believe F1 also has some restrictions on where winglets can be placed on the cars, to avoid workarounds to get more aero grip from the top of the car?

Would a common template for the undertray/tunnels be feasable?

[Railbird]

Sounds good to me.

[Peter Venkman]

Less wing AND less tunnel.

I would rather see more power than can be handled on road courses, and having to lift or brake into turns on ovals.


Hell, it worked for my Grandfather, why couldn't it work now?

[FortyOneFord]

I like it. For a couple of years now the technical guys have been calling for this solution. Maybe a spec undertray and spec small front wings?

Then again, if the series is going to be almost exclusively road/street courses, is this solution neccesary?

[damiandoan]

IMO, tighening up the restrictions on the {i]size[/i] of the wings and their placement Will not only help the racing, but also cost concerns. I m not for a "spec" undertray, but there needs to be very tight rules and guidlines to help control costs under the car. You want to give them more undercar downforce? Fine, but don't do it in a way where everyone brings out an entirely new undertray every weekend or two or every session like in 2000 & 2001. In Houston 2001, Team Rahal changed Kenny's undertray almost every session Friday & Saturday! Not to mention the 3 different front wings they kept swapping out!

One thing is for certain in any new rules concerning aero rules. They need to be very, and I mean very, strict in the amount of development allowed. Don't get me wrong, but cost almost killed us. Maybe a rule stating that all aero parts developed by the teams must be registered with CART, and on file for a period determined by CART, prior to first intended use, and the teams may only submit designs for a limited number of parts per period. I wouldn't want to see a situation where there are "spec" items, but development needs to be under control.

DD

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by FortyOneFord
Then again, if the series is going to be almost exclusively road/street courses, is this solution neccesary?

I would agree.

How many ovals are they going to run next season - three, tops?

Why bother for three races?

[Warlock!]

Originally posted by mnkywrch
I would agree.

How many ovals are they going to run next season - three, tops?

Why bother for three races?
That doesn't mean that in the future, once they have a car that is better suited for ovals (compared to the car we've had the last few years), Pookie won't be looking to add a few here and there. CART didn't want to have a spec car for the '03/'04 seasons... they did it out of necessity. I don't think CART wanted to lose the ovals they've lost over the last couple years either... but it happened. If they can spec their new chassis to perform well on ovals as well as road courses, I think they're gonna hunt some ovals to provide a bigger variety. That used to be CART's biggest bragging point, and I imagine they don't wanna lose that.

[rabbit]

Pardon me if this is a stupid question. I'm anything but an aerodynamacist. Heck, I don't even know how to spell aerodynama, namicys, nammyci, aw heck, person who knows a lot about air flow.

Anyway, I know with wings that you get more grip the faster you go. How much would reducing the wings and increasing the undertray affect corner speeds on a road course? Would it reduce them overall, increase them, or reduce them on high-speed corners and increase them on slow-speed corners, or vice versa? :confused:

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by Peter Venkman
Hell, it worked for my Grandfather, why couldn't it work now?

Didn't he drive a horse and buggy?

[Ziggy]

The problem is present on Road Course's as well. The cars cannot run anywhere near each other for any sustained attack. This was true of both Elkhart Lake and Mid Ohio this year. The aero package is upset when one car is following another car, and circuit does not really matter that much. Anytime speed is present, its a problem. Street Racing is another kettle of fish, but here again, if it is going fast in a straight line, then the aero package comes into play.

Ziggy

[oddlycalm]

Originally posted by Ziggy
The problem is present on Road Course's as well. The cars cannot run anywhere near each other for any sustained attack

Amen Brother Ziggy. This is the #1 item on the list if we want to get back to actual on-track passing for position, whether oval or road course.

Kellner has been saying this for as long as I've been around the forums, and I thought he was right the first time I read it, and IMO, he's still right. Nice to see someone like Tony Cicale is saying the same thing.

Get rid of the big wings, make the front tires wider, hang a 1.5L turbo on the back end, and lets go racing! And while we're at it, lets dial the weight back to 1250lbs.

[ChrisB]

I don't wanna get into the ovals debate, but the issue is always there because form does follow function, and we can't separate what the car will have w/o considering what it be doing. CART sure looks like it's becoming a defacto road-racing series, and I'll leave it at that.

A modern precedent sorta exists for removing at least the front wings. F1 cars circa '82 had so much tunnel downforce that some cars did away with front wings that year, and others just used a small wing for "trimming". Here's a drawing I found of Gilles in the Ferrari 126C2:

http://www.netaxs.com/~gg1/race/ferrari126c2_82.jpg

And here's a pic of a Champcar modified w/o the front wings:

http://www.netaxs.com/~gg1/race/champ2.jpg

Interesting look. Could it work?

[DaveL]

Originally posted by rabbit
Anyway, I know with wings that you get more grip the faster you go. How much would reducing the wings and increasing the undertray affect corner speeds on a road course? Would it reduce them overall, increase them, or reduce them on high-speed corners and increase them on slow-speed corners, or vice versa?

The undertray works like the airfoils in that they produce aerodynamic lift which is reversed by shape being upside down to produce downforce. Lift (or downforce depending which direction the wing is laying) squares with the speed. Undertrays are far more effecient at producing downforce because they do so with less of a drag penalty (For every x pound of downforce the wing produces, y amount of drag is generated. The closer these numbers are to each other, the better).

[nrc]

Allowing big tunnels that start well forward would probably make it possible to get the center of pressure far enough forward that you could get the car close to balanced with something like the body work you see at the front of those Ferarris. But I think you're bound to run into situations where you still can't get the aero balance right without front wings. Then builders are going to start rolling out new front body work every weekend, probably in multiple variations.

[Mike Kellner]

My observation of racing from the beginning of the TV period when I could watch a lot of races with my own eyes is, that in the early 80s, there was a lot of close running and passes for position. They also had liberal undertray rules. Everyone was worried about cornering speeds, and for some reason, they decided undertray downforce was the culprit, likely because it was the newest technology. They passed new rules in F1 and CART almost every year reducing the effectivness of the undertrays and as they did, passing dissappeared. F1 was ahead of CART undertray restrictions so they had less passing, but both got steadily worse.

What I believe is the technical reason for this is, a venturi is less effected by turbulence than a wing, and therefore looses less of its effectivness when following another car closely.

I don't want mandated undertray designs, I want undertray competition with rules that allow more downforce from the undertray and more leeway in design. Believe me, the teams would love to be able to pass the car in front of them and will try to design a car that can do that if they are cut a little slack.

Except for street courses where WOO wings would be too small, there is an optimum amount of downforce for a car, beyond which you increase lap time. If you can get more downforce from the undertray, you will end up running less wing. You don't need the sanctioning body to tell the teams where the optimum point is, they will find that themselves.

I guess the real philosophical point here is, the cars are about as safe as they can get, given today's technology, and the officials need to quit twiddling the rules every year to try and slow the cars 2 mph. It is this mindset that anything done for safety cannot even be questioned that has removed passing from OW racing. The officials would better employ their time trying to figure out how to clear wrecks quickly and shorten yellow flags, or examining chicanes with an eye to eleminating as many as possible.

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by Mike Kellner
The officials would better employ their time trying to figure out how to clear wrecks quickly and shorten yellow flags, or examining chicanes with an eye to eleminating as many as possible.

Here's what I've never understood about chicanes, and to a lesser degree the FIA revisions of so many tracks so they have ridiculous first turns:

Yes, they slow the speeds of cars into corners.

But they lead to pileups (especially on the first lap) when one guy makes a mistake/has a problem and others get involved.

For instance, Monza.

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by Mike Kellner
What I believe is the technical reason for this is, a venturi is less effected by turbulence than a wing, and therefore looses less of its effectivness when following another car closely.

...

Except for street courses where WOO wings would be too small, there is an optimum amount of downforce for a car, beyond which you increase lap time. If you can get more downforce from the undertray, you will end up running less wing.

1st paragraph - this is correct.

2nd paragraph, I think it may not be correct. More downforce from wing adds drag but I do not believe drag is induced by the undertray, which raises the issue that even if a car the same amount of downforce but more of it comes from the tray the car speed should be higher.

[Hink]

You get drag from the undertray but you also get a higher amount of downforce than you would from a wing that generates the same amount of drag.

[Napoleon]

Mr Hink

Then my conclusion is correct in that for the same amount of downforce you get less drag and therefore a faster car (all other things being equal).

[ChrisB]

MarkC has an article (http://www.autoracing1.com/MarkC/000801AeroProposal.htm) over on his site with a good interview with Mark Handford who says:


Dr. Handford explained that the underwing should be less sensitive to turbulence for a number of reasons:

1. The ground plane will attenuate vertical velocity fluctuations.

2. The length of the underwing will integrate turbulence (which has both positive and negative downforce benefits over short intervals of time) over a longer time period than a short (say, 12inch) chord wing.

3. The underwing/ground-plane generates downforce from a venturi-effect AND circulation-mechanism rather than just the latter (which is the case with a wing) so ideally the underwing is more-nearly just sensitive to mass-flow rather than mass-flow AND local angle-of-attack.


4. The underwing generally develops much lower peak suctions so it's less likely to suffer catastrophic flow change (stall, etc.) due to turbulence.


Apparently John Lopes is also on board with getting more downforce from the undertrays too. Hopefully it'll all come together for '05.

[Mike Kellner]

All lift (Downforce) creates drag. Undertrays are just more effecient than short wings, which is why reducing the undertray slows the cars by increasing the amount of drag you have with an optimal setup.

As you add downforce to a car, you increase cornering speed, but slow straight line speed because of increased drag. At some point the reduction in top speed costs more time than is made up in turns and additional wing increases lap time.

[Mike Kellner]

Then my conclusion is correct in that for the same amount of downforce you get less drag and therefore a faster car (all other things being equal).

Yes.

However, a 10 mph reduction in cornering speed will not have much effect on preventing the catistrophic accidents where a driver is severely injured or killed, which are used to justify the aero restrictions. Most of those are caused by trackside obstacles. Therefore undertray restrictions reduce the quality of the racing without making any substantial improvement in safety, and need to be scrapped because their benefits do not justify the cost.

[Hink]

Napoleon - Yes

Mike said it best. An undertray more efficiently generates downforce than a wing.

Another part of the story is that the dowforce created by the undertray is far less affected by a leading car. Traction Control was not the only reason why people had trouble passing last year. Closely following a car takes air off the front wing and makes the car push in a corner.

So it's a lot more difficult for the following car to be close on the entry, middle, and exit of a corner. That leads to making it more difficult to get a draft on the following straight. Repeat into the next corner, then straight, repeat ... you get the idea.

[damiandoan]

Costs cannot be removed from this discussion (even though everyone did a very nice job of ignoring it ;) ). Any aero package, wings, no wings; flat bottom, underwings, all must consider development costs over the entire season.

What are the cost differentials for removing the front wing entirely? Significant? Is it more costly to develop an underwing or the front/rear wings?

It seems to me that very tight devlopment rules on the outer wings, while more loosely based rules for the undercarriage could create a severe rise in development costs. The reason I say this, goes to the drag vs. downforce issue above. There is more to gain from spending money under the car than there is above it, therefore the $$$ will be directed there.

DD

[Hink]

Originally posted by damiandoan
What are the cost differentials for removing the front wing entirely?

Oh - I don't know - but I can think of a few drivers who would do it for free.

.

It would cost wind tunnel time and the leading edge affects the resultant airflow over the entire car in a major way unless other aero changes were banned.

[damiandoan]

I meant excluding the wings from the 2005 designs. No wings = no season long development costs.

DD

[ChrisB]

It seems to me that very tight devlopment rules on the outer wings, while more loosely based rules for the undercarriage could create a severe rise in development costs.

As long as the '05 cars are wickedly fast on a road-course (much moreso than even now) I have no problem with "tight" rules to keep costs down. If the Champcars could in the future beat the F1 pole times at Montreal, I wouldn't even care if the chassis were spec. Really.

[Gurneyflap]

So...the "better" drivers want drag reduced by trimming out the aeros for higher top end, because they trust their superior skills to get them quickly through the twisties? The less skilled want gobs of downforce so they can corner on rails, and make up time there? All depends on the track and ratio of fast to slow sections, eh? NOW...who would be some of those drivers who make do with less downforce for more straightline speeds and trust their "turning" skills to take them to the front? I like them best! I like the tech-talk, safety and cost ideas, but what about the drivers? Who benefits most if "wing" is taken away?

[Mike Kellner]

Whatever the rules, winning will cost whatever there is to spend. The only way to reduce costs in racing is to impoverish the teams. The only way to do that is to reduce the popularity of the series. If the series is popular, it will be worth a lot of money to win and someone will spend it. If they are barred from spending it in one area, they will spend it elsewhere.

[KobySon]

Originally posted by Gurneyflap
So...the "better" drivers want drag reduced by trimming out the aeros for higher top end, because they trust their superior skills to get them quickly through the twisties? The less skilled want gobs of downforce so they can corner on rails, and make up time there? All depends on the track and ratio of fast to slow sections, eh? NOW...who would be some of those drivers who make do with less downforce for more straightline speeds and trust their "turning" skills to take them to the front? I like them best! I like the tech-talk, safety and cost ideas, but what about the drivers? Who benefits most if "wing" is taken away?

Juan Pablo Montoya.

---

If we get more aero grip from the undertray, will it improve the racing on the slick temporary street circuits like Denver and Miami? Are the speeds there too low for ground effects to make a difference?

[Turn7]

Rick Mears was another one.

[Mike Kellner]

"If we get more aero grip from the undertray, will it improve the racing on the slick temporary street circuits like Denver and Miami? Are the speeds there too low for ground effects to make a difference?"

Ground effects (Wings too) works as soon as there is a breese blowing over the car from front to back. The force varies with the square of speed, but with a street racing setup, you likely pick up some measurable advantage at speeds as low as 40 mph

I think the problem with limited passing on street circuits is the short straights. It takes time for the cars to get around each other. They are so fast, that a track that is all little 200 yard straights connected by 30 mph turns guarantees no passing. A good road/street course needs at least one long straight ending in a tight turn that is wide enough for passing. If the rest of the track has a bunch of slow to mid speed turns, that will guarantee they'll run enough wing to keep max speeds in hand.

[damiandoan]

Originally posted by Mike Kellner
If they are barred from spending it in one area, they will spend it elsewhere.

Not if spending that money gives them no real advantage on the track or they can't use it as soon as the next session starts. I'm all for spending money (especially someone else's ;) ), but I'd rather see the money spent on drivers than 3 new front wings per race weekend. A new wing every three or four weekends, yes. I'm not talking about eliminating development, just the rate at which it is useful to spend the dollars on it.

DD

[ChrisB]

If they are barred from spending it in one area, they will spend it elsewhere.

I agree with dd. Why do we need to spend $$$ for ever-increasingly efficient aero to make the cars faster when we only have to reign it in some other way? A simple turn of the boost screw will give the same results as a million dollars of wind-tunnel work. If we heavily restrict what aero improvements can be made (keeping a sensible design, of course) the aero "arms race" goes away and the money could be spent elsewhere.

Maybe I'll make a future post about it, but I wouldn't mind going so far as to have something like templates for the major body parts of a Champcar. Combine a near-spec aero profile with a massive hp turbo engine, and suddenly a lot of the priorities shift from car development to driver skill.

[damiandoan]

whoa, hold them there horses Chris...

No where am I advocating spec anything. Templates? For every aero part? [shudder]

IMO, development must be involved in the package at all levels, I just want to slow the rate. Slowing the rate will slow the dollars.

DD

[ChrisB]

Nah.. the spec/template chassis stuff is me. I'd rather really restrict what can be done with the chassis, which would then shift the development emphasis to engines... and driver skill. (I'll make a big post about this later on when I have time)

[Mike Kellner]

NASCAR has all that and the most restrictive formula in pro racing, yet they spend every penny they can get. There is always something you can do to make the car go/stop/turn faster, last longer, eat less fuel, have quicker stops. If they have it, they will spend it. Controlling costs is a fool's errand.

I would rather have the focus of series be facilitating on track competition and selling the series. Nobody buys tickets to see cost controls. If the series is popular, the money will be there.

[rabbit]

Originally posted by Mike Kellner
NASCAR has all that and the most restrictive formula in pro racing, yet they spend every penny they can get. There is always something you can do to make the car go/stop/turn faster, last longer, eat less fuel, have quicker stops. If they have it, they will spend it. Controlling costs is a fool's errand.

I would rather have the focus of series be facilitating on track competition and selling the series. Nobody buys tickets to see cost controls. If the series is popular, the money will be there.

Bingo.

[Classic Apex]

Less filling, tastes great.

:saywhat:

[ChrisB]

Mike, I sorta agree. If you "template" one part of the body, they'll spend $$$ looking for ways to improve the areas that aren't covered.

Maybe what I'm really thinking of is a single-supply (spec) chassis w. heavy input from the sanctioning body, and no mods allowed (like F3000 or Atlantics)... but with multiple engine suppliers. If we can tolerate multiple chassis with a single engine now, why not the opposite later on?

[DaveL]

To concur with Kellner, the reason why there is so much noise about "controlling costs" in F1 is because teams are starting to drop off of the grid. If there was no car count issue and teams like Arrows and Prost were still humming, no one would be talking much about it. But finding $50 million to run in the back of the F1 grid is becoming harder and harder so they talk about it.

BGN is starting to creep up in cost? Why? Because it's becoming more popular and more value is becoming placed on running up front. So sponsors are willing to dish out a little more money to allow their teams to get the best built cars or develop the best engines to give them the tenth of a second on the track the other guys don't have.

Simply put, a sanctioning body cannot reduce costs if sponsors are willing to pay more money each year. Even if the body puts an absolute limit on the cost of any given piece of hardware, there is nothing a sanctioning body can do about how much a team can pay the best personnel in salaries, nor can a sanctioning body limit how many of them boys are back at the shop. In NASCAR, for instance, more money on personnel buys a big buck team whole crews to prepare cars for future races while another team of guys strips down the car that was just raced. Money buys extra transporters to ship cars to the west coast in advance for a race without having to wait for the main transporter to return to Charlotte so the crew can fly in their private jet straight to Fontana or Vegas.

As I wrote many times in the past on other fora, if a sponsor decieded it was worth Winston Cup money to win the ARCA title, then the price of winning that ARCA title for any team with a serious goal of winning will go way up and there's nothing ARCA can do about it.

This is why we CARTisans always scoffed at Lord Sagamore's claims that the IRL was created to control the cost of racing. We know that there is nothing a sanctioning body can do about the cost. The sponsors, and only the sponsors, determine the cost of competing.

[Mike Kellner]

F1's problems are caused by their unique set of rules. It is a Constructor's Championship. Before GP racing was reborn in 1950, they didn't even have a driver's championship. It has always been a car building contest. Each team has to build their own chassis and for the most part each engine supplier has one team they supply, though a few have a B team who get one iteration old motors. This leads to a vast difference in performance and the dominance of three teams. Right now Ferrari has figured something out, and has McLaren and Williams covered. This has hurt TV viewing and ticket sales because it is like a Tyson fight. The closest they come to drama is if Michael screws up the launch and Rubens gets to turn one first. Then you can spend the race guessing how and when they will restore the designated winner to P1. Still teams going out of business were able to raise $30M - $40M last year to run at the rear.

CART will not have those problems because of the chassis supply situation where whoever makes the good chassis ends up supplying most of the field.

If the chassis rules are changed to allow more undertray lift, it will just mean the same car builders will do the same amount of work on a different dimension undertray. I hope nobody thinks the current restrictive undertray rules eleminated R&D into undertray design. All that limits that is what the sponsors are willing to spend.

I view cost control as a distraction which diverts the series' focus from product and marketing. The product is competetive auto racing and the rules, within the bounds of what is reasonably safe, need to have that priority one.

[patm]

I thought multiple teams bought chasis from several mfg. Lotus being one that sold chassis to independant teams. This of course was in the 70's but I could be mistaken...or was it engines that were shared.

patm

[Hink]

Originally posted by patm
I thought multiple teams bought chasis from several mfg. Lotus being one that sold chassis to independant teams. This of course was in the 70's but I could be mistaken...or was it engines that were shared.

patm

Pat - That was in the 70s when there was FOCA, the "Chief Negotiator" of FOCA Bernie Ecclestone, and Max Mosely the M in March (M stands for laywer son of a ____ in British apparently).

Now back in the 70s there were all kinds of Formula One teams mulling about pretending to be teams with their different paint jobs and their "slick" tyres on their "race" tracks... Some of these manufacturers were out there on the streets selling their chassis for money looking to turn the quick buck. Max was right there - all down and out - selling his wares to any bidder.

Ecclestone was running his own team that eventually won a WDC.

So what, you might ask became of all of this?

Well Mosely and Bernie were very hooked up in FOCA, made up of mostly non-turbo British chassis suppliers. They both realized what they had and took advantage of it when they could and beat the establishment, FISA - the turbo engine no popoff valve road racing fruity cuppers.

Max repented that he'd ever dunned wrong and made sure that no one could ever sell their wares on the street again like he did (1). Perhaps he banned privateer to award himself his own world record - I'm not sure. Or it could have been since FOCA teams happened to use the NA Ford Cosworth engine - I can't remember.

So they ran this thing, they pushed all the slick tyres aside toward the chicane, and it became a dreadnaught. Bernie and his sidekick Max really invented the first real traction control in F1 - FOCA. Despite the gradual elimination and castration of the tracks, despite the immense costs and kickbacks they have and still receive, F1 always gets more popular. They built up the series. F1 popularity (read - moneywise) did not exist like it does today 20 years ago.

Note that they didn't cash in and sell out the for peanut money like many CART owners did. They had the animal by the throat and they held on to it as it grew. It will be interesting to see what happens in their slighly weakened position now that they can't quite milk it like they could.

...

(1) See the original Concode agreement - it banned "privateer" teams from running someone else's chassis but not - outside supplied engines. Max did exactly that with March

[Hink]

And BTW - This cost reduction thing is crap. It costs to win what it costs to win in racing no matter what the rules. If you want to win prepare, and prepare to spend.

No one complains about costs when it's worth it, only when they're either forced out or squandering too much money (because they had money to spend but never should have been there in the first place.)

It's a big world out there. That's the way it is.

CART is dealing with cost controls because they have to, not because they explicitly want to, and 'thought it would be a good idea' ...

[ChrisB]

CART will not have those problems because of the chassis supply situation where whoever makes the good chassis ends up supplying most of the field.

Hold that thought! That's part of the reason I think a single-supply chassis might have some merit... since most everyone is going to be going to the dominant chassis ANYWAY, maybe they might as well pick one and work with it.

[Mike Kellner]

Problem is, that locks out the next better chassis, and prevents people from making their own.

mk

[nrc]

You can't control spending. But you can control the cost of putting a reasonably competitive car on the grid and you can make sure that the benefit from spending large amounts on R&D quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns. The former can be achieve by a good sensible set of specs, cost and supply rules and the latter through long term rules stability.

[Gurneyflap]

I maintain costs are NOT crap and HAVE to be controlled. They can, and in CARTs present situation MUST be controlled. FAIR, common sense rules. Enforceable rules. Rules that don't benefit some over others. Rules interpretted by CART not by the teams. I do NOT want a situation that prohibits or diminishes competition by reserving victory only for those who can buy it. Every team, top to bottom, has to have access to the same equipment. Same shocks,(specs) Different settings. Same brakes, different bias. Same wings, different angles. Ahhh...different drivers! Different engineers, crews, chefs! I want to actually WONDER how the race will turn out. Unlike F-1!

[Peter Venkman]

"Didn't he drive a horse and buggy?"

And damn well, I might add....

[Badger]

My first post and its on one of my favorite topics, aero.:D I am encouraged that CART is starting to look at the under bodies as a means of making the cars better in traffic. In the past, I posted this:

1) They should look into raising the minimum height of the front wings to reduce pitch sensitivity. For those wondering why this is not already done, the reason is simple. Wings generate more downforce the closer they are to the ground until they get to a critical point where they are too close and they quickly lose a lot of downforce. By raising the front wings, the critical point where downforce is quickly lost is never reached. This idea is used in f1 after the FIA asked designers how to improve the racing.

2) A total rethink of the ground effects tunnels are in order. My observations from watching racing over the years is that as the tunnels have become smaller and more restricted, the racing has gotten worse. I looked under a current car at CMS this past weekend and the current tunnels with all the splitters and complex curves are a work of art. The early G.E. cars tried to pump as much air through them as possible and the diffuser area was as large and tall as the designer could fit. The current cars are restricted by the tightly defined diffuser area (20 wide by 6 tall) so the trick has become to create vortices (think tornados) under the car to generate more airflow speed and thus downforce. The beauty of the old tunnels was that they allowed large volumes of air to pass directly underneath and through them which seemed to upset cars behind them much less than current cars. For examples, see how close Mears was able to get to Johncock in 82 or even as late as 92 (Jr vs Goodyear). The cars appeared better in traffic and I would bet wind tunnel testing could prove it. Common sense suggests that more volume of air flowing under a car will be less easily disturbed than a much smaller volume of high velocity air. I think it could prove benificial for CART to look into bigger tunnels that are less sophisticated in design in order not to get obscene levels of downforce. To keep downforce in check, they could outlaw splitters, raise the sides another inch or mandate a section of the tunnel to remain flat. I think these ideas would allow more air to pass under the car.

3) Look into getting more downforce from the tunnels, and less from the wings. This was an idea that Handford threw out (AR1 article), so who here can argue with him. (No, not even Hoop or Mcquireb ) Basically, Handford felt that tunnels are influenced by turbulent air less than wings, so this is an area CART should look into. If you can get enough tunnel downforce, maybe front wings wouldn't be needed so the dreaded aero push could be reduced (Longhorn had no front wings at Milwaukee in 80). Maybe DaveL can help me out, but other than the Longhorn (LR01) at Milwaukee, has any other Indy car not carried a front wing since?

For those wondering what the current champcar underbody looks like, the best picture I have seen is here: www.mulsannescorner.com/LolaUnderbody.jpg

As you will see, the tunnel is not very deep, and it diverts most of the air out the side to form a vortex seal. The first time I recall seeing the underbody splitters was sometime in the early 90s on a lola at the Chicago auto show. Obviously, splitters work, but the cars are too aero sensitiveand have been since the current aero regs were implemented in either 99 or 00.

[damiandoan]

Originally posted by nrc
You can't control spending. But you can control the cost of putting a reasonably competitive car on the grid and you can make sure that the benefit from spending large amounts on R&D quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns. The former can be achieve by a good sensible set of specs, cost and supply rules and the latter through long term rules stability.

That is exactly what I am getting at...

thanks nrc.

DD