MUST READ from RACER.com/David Malsher (editor)

[ChicagocrewIRL]

http://www.racer.com/2009/06/indycars-racing-must-improve-immediately/

Every word in this editorial is true and I cannot fault any one bit of it. The future of IndyCar hangs in the balance if things do not improve on the ovals SOON if not by Kentucky.

I am so dissatisfied with the oval on-track product this year. Get your act together IRL/Angstatd/Barnhart/Blanche or hit the road.

[garyshell]

Link doesn't work.


Try this: http://www.racer.com/2009/06/indycars-racing-must-improve-immediately/

Gary

[ChicagocrewIRL]

fixed it thanks Gary

[dataman1]

David did a good job at not only stating what's wrong, he has ideas on how to help fix it. I hope the headquarter's guys are listening.

[ChicagocrewIRL]

FROM INDYCAR.COM July 1, 2009

"The IndyCar Series will provide aerodynamic options to teams for 1.5-mile oval racetracks with a goal of improving performance, specifically overtaking.

Tools include tire ramps and sidepod extensions and brake backing plates (wheel end fills) for Kentucky Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kansas Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway that can be used individually or collectively.

Utilized with other track-specific aero packages -- such as a minimum 12 degree rear wing flap angle for Kentucky, Chicagoland and Kansas -- the changes will potentially create more overtaking opportunities by creating additional downforce (grip). Chicagoland, for instance, was moved to the Kansas-Kentucky group of ovals that use the 12 degree flap angle (from 10 degrees). The only aero alteration for Twin Ring Motegi in September was the availability of wheel end fills.

The options will be available for the Meijer Indy 300 presented by Red Baron and Edy's on Aug. 1 at Kentucky Speedway. The IndyCar Series competes on three consecutive road/street courses in July.

"The good news is it shouldn't introduce costs back into what we're doing because these are all things teams have had and know what their affect is," Brian Barnhart, the Indy Racing League's president of the competition and operations divisions, said when addressing issues of overtaking on the speedways.

The Dallara chassis has been used since 2003, and Honda and Firestone are long-time exclusive suppliers of engines and tires to the series. The only alterations for 2009 were moving to a standard 122-inch wheelbase for ovals and a relocation of the exhaust outlet."

Not sure if these changes will help but I think anything at this point is needed. Only time will tell. The Kentucky Race will be the indicator of how well these changes help or not.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I am disappointed by the oval product the IRL has given us, but alas, I have always been a little disappointed in a lot of the IRL events. The box is too tight now and nobody can get out. I hope the changes help, but I think if there were other chassis choices, and less restrictions on wing settings, getting rid of the venturi's ( kill lots of aero downforce and force mechanical grip to be the issue) and a harder tire compound just might bring some skill back into driving these cars.

Right now, they built a car that Milka Duno can drive.....

[Bob Riebe]

What is with the "gotta have blowers" addiction.
Larger displacement V-8s would give greater hp as easily as putting glorified hair-dryer on four banger.
The V-8s might also get some car companies involved that the average U.S. racing actually gives a damn about.

[call_me_andrew]

Big V-8s are so last decade.

[Dr. Krogshöj]

Big V-8s are so last decade.

Where?

[BrentJackson]

What is with the "gotta have blowers" addiction.
Larger displacement V-8s would give greater hp as easily as putting glorified hair-dryer on four banger.
The V-8s might also get some car companies involved that the average U.S. racing actually gives a damn about.

Considering that most of those carmakers have all but accepted that more efficient engines are the way to go, I'd say you are a 180 from this one, Bob. And that's on top of the fact that factory entrants are gonna be rare in this economy and time.

[call_me_andrew]

Where?

Wherever soccer moms roam.

http://images.automotive.com/reviews/images/98explorerxlt.jpg

[Chaparral66]

Good column by David. Can't hardly find much fault with his view on anything.

In one of the other threads, I made a list of suggestions, one of which was to bring back the Panoz DP-01. A couple of people scoffed at this, complaining of more expense, etc. Well, any new car in the coming years involves new expense. The DP-01 would solve several problems right now, I think. Does it need to be thoroughly tested on ovals? YES. No arguement there. So, let's get it tested.

Champ Car had in many ways had as many issues as the IRL did interms of general administrative matters. But the series was superior technically. The Panoz DP-01 was a superb instrument, a good evolution on the what the Lola did, and set to be great cars for years, constantly improving itself. It had a turbo V-8, which most of strongly favor (we love the sound of the turbos), it had F1 like paddle shifters which allowed for quick shifting on road and street courses like Cleveland, Long Beach, and Toronto, and push to pass was brilliant. Right up to the end of Champ Car, you could always count on passing and close fights for position. With PTP and the Hanford device on ovals, I'm sure we could have had some great racing at ovals had CCWS not abandoned them all together.

I still think the DP-01 could solve many of the issues we have right now in the sport, especially on ovals after proper testing and evaluation. The car is already mostly developed, that can actually save on development costs. Just need to get it set up for ovals. Do that, and hopefully we can avoids snoozers like Richmond, a less than 1 mile track Indy Cars shouldn't be on anyway.

[nigelred5]

Wherever soccer moms roam.

http://images.automotive.com/reviews/images/98explorerxlt.jpg

When was The last time anyone sold a NEW one of those??

[Chaparral66]

Several points for you to consider.
1) Will the Honda engine fit into the DP01 without major modifications?
2) If it fits, will the additional cooling requirements of ethanol fuel be an issue? Adding cooling to the chassis may be harder than fitting the motor.
3) Is it crash worthy on ovals?
4) Where will you get the cars from? Remember who owns the existing ones and is that person likely to sell given past history?
5) Are there enough existing cars even if you can get them? There were barely enough for teams to have a spare car in the 16 car CC days (and not all teams had a spare). How will you outfit a series that fielded 22 cars just this past weekend?
6) Where would at least half the field find the money for two new cars (you do need a spare)? And don't forget the budget for an inventory of spare parts which can run into significant dollars. The budgets are very tight for many teams.
7) And last, why would you spend the money on a three year old design when a new car is on the horizon in two years? Development of a new car needs to start about a year before it sees action on the track.

The answer to all the above is that there is no compelling reason to bring the DP01 back. That car is dead, defunct, kaput, done, toast. In other words it isn't going to happen.

Good points, all. While I like this idea, no one said it would be easy. This is a stopgap measure to put out an improved car until a brand new clean sheet design can be made available. Why a stopgap measure? My thought was to modify an existing design that saw relatively little use and bring it up to date. A clean sheet design would cost money too, and have to answer the same legit questions; I was just think this might be a less expensive alternative for the short term economic crisis. As to your questions:

1) I don't know for sure, but it's safe to say some modifications would have to be made. But if the car could take a Honda turbo engine built to roughly the same specs as the (Ford) Cosworth engine, the mods could conceiveably make it happen, but that would have to be confirmed by an engineer. But like I said before, as soon as someone says it can't be done, someone else will say, "I've figured out a way."

2) Again, I don't, know, you'd probably might be better able to answer that me. You did confirm that a turbo could be used on an ethonal fueled car, so again, with proper engineering, someone could figure the answer to this as well, though I would certainly concede that taking this into consideration at the design stage is a much better process, as oppose to retrofitting a modification.


3) As best as I can recollect, the DP-01 was designed to be compatible on ovals, even though CCWS (unfortunately) was getting out of them at the time. This would take testing to see if they are oval worthy. I have no personal knowledge how much of this was considered at the design stage, although if it were up to me, I would have specified oval compatibility in the event that Champ Car were to return to ovals or make up with the IRL and managed to convince Tony George to use DP-01s with Honda turbos.

4) I'd have to find out if Panoz still has the capacity to manufacture the cars and if they can make enough with spares to outfit a 22-25 car field with spare bodies and additional parts. Some cars are still available, and to make something like this happen, we'd have to wait until 2011, with a new clean sheet Indy Car design coming in 2013 or 2014, which gives the series and chassis guys another 3-4 years to come up with an absolute state of the art design for the rest of the decade. The idea here is to ride out the bad economy until it turns around and more funds are available for the brand new car.

5) See #4, above. But the IRL did have this issue a few years ago with engines when Honda suddenly found itself the only supplier; it was able to get through it. The Panoz wouldn't have to come in 2010, but more like 2011.

6) If the new IRL design comes out in 2011 or 12 as planned, the teams will have to answer this same question, and they would agruably be in a similar position at that time. The idea about using to Panoz DP-01 is that this could be a fill in and an updated open wheel design that is already developed to a large degree, that would need some mods done to be the car for all racetracks. In 2011 or 2012, the DP-01 theoretically could be ready, and the the brand new car could come a couple of years later in 2013 or 2014, giving it as much as 5 years in the design stage.

7) Again, this is supposed to delay the expense and cost of a total clean sheet design a few years more, in the hopes of saving teams that brand new spec cost, while we ride out this bad economy. The current IRL spec car has been around for the most part since 1997, and by the multitude of comments from fans of all stripes here in the open wheel forum, people are tired of it. Instead of going with a whole car which would be expensive, I thought about this as an alternative.

This is not the only solution, and certainly not the most viable, but an alternative worth considering. No matter which way the series goes, there are going to be these same types of issues to work out.

[grungex]

#3 was a red herring always put forth by the IRL faithful. The DP-01 met every spec that the Dallara did and more.

[call_me_andrew]

I wouldn't worry about crash worty ratings for ovals. It supposedly had a better crash rating than F1 requires, and F1 has higher requirements than the IRL.

[NickFalzone]

It was literally NEVER even raced on an oval, not even once! How can you say with any degree of certainty that the DP would be a good oval chassis? Computers can only predict so much... I'm with Chapparal that it COULD be used as a holdover until the 2012 car, but that only would have made sense LAST year when unification happened. Now every team is in step with the Dallaras and it would be a huge, unnecessary expense to go to the DP01 (again, with not oval testing) for a couple years. It's better, but not THAT much better. Honestly if we were talking things to change right now, I'd like to see them go to the Cosworth turbo before worrying about the chassis.

[grungex]

So what? The Dallara was never designed to run on road courses, and required hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of modifications to do so, but somehow they made it work -- heck, it's fully 3 seconds faster than an Indy Lights car now. In contrast, the DP-01 was designed to run ovals as well as road courses.

[grungex]

Come to think of it, the Dallara was a pretty horrible oval car for years, taking flight with the most minor provocation. The band-aids do seem to have finally helped somewhat.

[call_me_andrew]

A bad oval car is better than a good oval car.

See, when a bad car turns on an oval, the driver has to lift. When it comes to ovals, bad cars make for good racing.

[PA Rick]

A bad oval car is better than a good oval car.

See, when a bad car turns on an oval, the driver has to lift. When it comes to ovals, bad cars make for good racing.

Then you end up with NASCAR.

Good cars with good drivers on good race tracks would be my pick.

[Bob Riebe]

Considering that most of those carmakers have all but accepted that more efficient engines are the way to go, I'd say you are a 180 from this one, Bob. And that's on top of the fact that factory entrants are gonna be rare in this economy and time.
Which car-makers where?

Four bangers and six poppers are used in, secretaries cars and fwd econo-box crap wagons. (As much as THE OBAMA would love the huddled masses to be forced to use them, where GM, FORD and CHRYSER still race it is V-8 or more cylinders)

Full size sedans use V-8s.
Pontiacs new G8, their best seller before Pontiac was killed, uses a V-8 and was OUT SELLING the six popper G6.

OH yes, tell me what a "more efficient" engine is.
A highly strung four or six banger is NOT more efficient that a low stress V-8.
Blowers are not more efficient, they put strain on an engine which are not present without them.

[Bob Riebe]

When was The last time anyone sold a NEW one of those??
Around here probably last week, they are still selling.

[grungex]

(As much as THE OBAMA would love the huddled masses to be forced to use them

What does Caribou Barbie think? That's what really matters.

[Bob Riebe]

What does Caribou Barbie think? That's what really matters.
Obama contols GM, Gov. Palin is not a gov. employee; your statement is asinine.

[garyshell]

Obama contols GM, Gov. Palin is not a gov. employee; your statement is asinine.


No more or less asinine than the assertion that "THE OBAMA would love the huddled masses to be forced to use them" or that Obama himself controls GM.

Gary

[Bob Riebe]

No more or less asinine than the assertion that "THE OBAMA would love the huddled masses to be forced to use them" or that Obama himself controls GM.

Gary
He does control GM, HE created the Car Czar, no one else. He forced the retirement of the previous GM CEO; he told Chrysler what it must do for its money, etc.
He does intend to create a exceptionally high mileage standard which would force Detroit to build econo cars to meet it, which also forces a reduce choice of vehicles available to the public, whether they like it or not.
I suggest you start reading some business and tech. journals on how Wash. is affecting/effecting Detroit.

If you think Palin is in any way connected to this, or this thread in any manner, you are either incredibly naive or ignorant.

[BrentJackson]

If you don't mind, leave the politics at home, Bob. If I wanted to read more rantings about GM and politics, I'd go read it at *****. They've beaten that horse into a bloody pulp on the pavement.

In all seriousness, most cars on the road run four or six cylinder engines, and there are some truly serious performance cars with such engines. (Porsche 911 Turbo, Nissan GT-R, Subaru WRX STi, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, etc.) And most European and Asian V8s are smaller ones. GM makes one of the world's best V6 engines, and Ford is cranking out its EcoBoost products.

In 5-10 years, V8s will be getting far less common in all cars. Why? Forced induction will make it un-necessary. As a result, running big-inch V8s will put the series out of touch with many modern automakers, in large part. And while many people (including myself) love big-inch, torquey, gutsy V8s, the reality is that their days are coming to an end. But we'll still get all of the power we want to have - courtesy of ethanol (with its considerably higher octane rating than gasoline), modern turbodiesels (which can make obscene levels of power) and smaller displacement turbocharged engines.

[call_me_andrew]

Then you end up with NASCAR.

Good cars with good drivers on good race tracks would be my pick.

NASCAR's billions of dollars lead me to believe they have a sound buisness model.

Good race tracks? What the hell does that mean? There are plenty of people who would say, "All road courses are bad" and plenty that would say the exact same about ovals.

[grungex]

He does control GM, HE created the Car Czar, no one else. He forced the retirement of the previous GM CEO; he told Chrysler what it must do for its money, etc.
He does intend to create a exceptionally high mileage standard which would force Detroit to build econo cars to meet it, which also forces a reduce choice of vehicles available to the public, whether they like it or not.
I suggest you start reading some business and tech. journals on how Wash. is affecting/effecting Detroit.

If you think Palin is in any way connected to this, or this thread in any manner, you are either incredibly naive or ignorant.

Shouldn't you be holed up in a bunker surrounded by your precious guns and ammo? Lighten up, Francis. Jeebus.


Interesting that you agree Palin is Caribou Barbie.

[PA Rick]

NASCAR's billions of dollars lead me to believe they have a sound buisness model.

Good race tracks? What does that mean? There are plenty of people who would say, "All road courses are bad" and plenty that would say the exact same about ovals.

NASCAR has a great business model, So does Microsoft. I am looking for interesting racing, not an addition to my market portfolio.
Can you really not tell the difference between a good track and a bad track? A good track allows drivers and cars to fairly compete without playing follow the leader. What may be good for NASCAR may not be good for the IRL. Most road racing circuits are too narrow not allowing overtaking, and most ovals are too highly banked for open wheel racing.
The best ovals are Indy and Pocono, and the best road/street course is Cleveland because of the wide racing lines in my opinion.

[methanolHuffer]

Cleveland is spectacular for the wide track and the very few obstructions from a spectator's view.
If Laguna Seca or Road America could (-and they wont) make the track 30% more wide in some spots, we'd have great racing.
There has to be an old airstrip or industrial complex that would make a good cheap venue near a metro area - just haven't found it yet.

[call_me_andrew]

NASCAR has a great business model, So does Microsoft. I am looking for interesting racing, not an addition to my market portfolio.
Can you really not tell the difference between a good track and a bad track? A good track allows drivers and cars to fairly compete without playing follow the leader. What may be good for NASCAR may not be good for the IRL. Most road racing circuits are too narrow not allowing overtaking, and most ovals are too highly banked for open wheel racing.
The best ovals are Indy and Pocono, and the best road/street course is Cleveland because of the wide racing lines in my opinion.

Tracks don't dictate when a race turns into follow the leader, the cars do.

[Bob Riebe]

Cleveland is spectacular for the wide track and the very few obstructions from a spectator's view
If Laguna Seca or Road America could (-and they wont) make the track 30% more wide in some spots, we'd have great racing.
There has to be an old airstrip or industrial complex that would make a good cheap venue near a metro area - just haven't found it yet.
It is racing, it is supposed to separate the men from the boys, if the reason they cannot pass is the width of Road America they should not be driving race cars.

Thirty percent widers, good grief that idea is obtuse.

[Bob Riebe]

Shouldn't you be holed up in a bunker surrounded by your precious guns and ammo? Lighten up, Francis. Jeebus.


Interesting that you agree Palin is Caribou Barbie.
I agreed with nothing; but YOUR ignorance is only exceeded by your grade school rhetorical skills.

[Bob Riebe]

In 5-10 years, V8s will be getting far less common in all cars. Why? Forced induction will make it un-necessary. As a result, running big-inch V8s will put the series out of touch with many modern automakers, in large part. And while many people (including myself) love big-inch, torquey, gutsy V8s, the reality is that their days are coming to an end. But we'll still get all of the power we want to have - courtesy of ethanol (with its considerably higher octane rating than gasoline), modern turbodiesels (which can make obscene levels of power) and smaller displacement turbocharged engines.
IF you have actually read the threads tll Gary about politics, or don't put your nose where it does not belong.

The idea above is absurd at face value, if you think putting a blower on a engine is a better solution than not having, one go do some reading of auto engineering journals.
A blower puts more strain on a engine not less, and more parts there are on any engine the more parts there are to fail. (The more expensive it will be to work on an engine. People pay hundreds of dollars every year for mechanics to remove and replace functioning parts so the mechanics can GET TOO the parts that failed.)

[grungex]

Huh?

[NickFalzone]

For better or worse, electric motors are the future of personal transpo and turbos are obviously out of that equation. I could see them being used for a few years like on smaller 1 liters such as the Volt and other hybrids, but at best they're a moderate stopgap measure while the battery tech is improved. I agree with what Bob is saying about the shortening engine life, but I don't see that as big of a problem as it used to be, certainly not on lighter vehicles with a small boost. I don't know anyone buying SUVs anymore, the market for them is terrible right now, you just see ones from 3-6 years ago on the road not new ones.

[grungex]

What a bunch of misinformed nonsense.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I don't want my race engines to be enviromentally releveant. I want them loud, fast v8's and to provide great races. If I want to see 4 bangers or turbo weedeaters, I go watch Rally cars. Great stuff bu tthis is INdy car. I want 900 hp and I want it in race cars that allow great drivers to shine while providing good racing.

Do that....and you have...oh god...NASCAR??

AS for the tracks, that is a little tougher to pick...but we know from past races where the good ones are. It is IRL management that kept trying to find new ways of messing up good tracks. Or ignoring them.

[PA Rick]

Tracks don't dictate when a race turns into follow the leader, the cars do.

Then why was there more passing at Cleveland than at Portland. Once you leave the drag strip at Portland there is hardly enough room to drive side by side let alone race side by side.
At Cleveland there are not only wide lines, but different lines.
And on ovals, if you have a bad cookie cutter, you get bad cookies. Altering aero packages will allow better dicing at speed but that is a band aid to compensate ovals ill suited for high powered open wheel cars.
All racing would be more fun if they bulldozed the banking.