Is this (see attachment) the car everyone is talking about?
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Is this (see attachment) the car everyone is talking about?
Yes that's the one, that is for "race series unknown" ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Giuseppe F1
(Now we see how long the photo stays there.)
Is this definately even a Panoz chassis? The logos on the mechanics shirts dont look like Panoz logos....although maybe they areQuote:
Originally Posted by Giuseppe F1
isnt this supposedly the chassis update for the f3000 italia series??
It looks like a Champ Car with an Air box to me, but hey, who really knows? I can say if everyone was taking the pics off the net as fast as they were posting, I suspect where there is smoke, there is fire.
If the IRL is going to go to a new chassis, they will no doubt talk to Panoz. I suspect though that they will avoid this new car like the plague to avoid merger talk. Tony has not wanted to talk merger even consider common rules. He will talk to KK, and they will bat ideas around, but I suspect that until he has decided he has had enough of losing money, he wont talk merger.
If they do NOT go with Panoz for next year, then they will likely get Dallara or Lola for the next chassis. Maybe both. I just hope they go for a more visually appealing car. Of course, some weird part of me would love to see a Front engined roadster for the new century in the IRL. That would end all talk of the difference between the two series now wouldn't it??? Ok, maybe it is a loopy idea, but hey, I put it out there to find out how many rotten tomatoes can be tossed my way!
Mark, I don't know if it's a "loopy" idea or not, but it's a fun fantasy. From a personal standpoint, those all-different, powerful, chromed-up, some side-engined-for-ovals California supermodifieds are the prettiest race cars in the U.S.
I'd still like to see a modern take on the ol' "sausage" formula cars...completely wingless...clean and simple design. You wouldn't get "foot to the floor all the way 'round" racing then! :P
DRC, THAT is exactly the kind of Roadster that I would love to see. A modern take on the roadster, with very limited wings. Supermods would be fun in a sense, but they are just too radical. An elongated Sprint car with very limited tires would be an interesting take on a classic race would it not? Right now, you have cars that are essentially f1 style in their layout, and to the average guy on the street, he doesn't get the difference. Champ Car, IRL, F1, they all look the same to a non-race fan. Give the IRL an unique style of race car, and they can then have the field to themselves. Also, by having front engined big HP cars, you have another place for Sprint car drivers to go besides NASCAR. Of course, TG wouldn't listen to me on this, he didn't listen to a guy as smart and outspoken as Brock Yates on this years ago, so he wont listen to the likes of some goofball Canadian guy....
This is an illustration to the Racer article in which Brock Yates proposed the modern Indy roadster back in 96.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quetch
Can you imagine the appeal of cars like THAT racing on ovals? Just enough downforce to keep them on the ground, no aero that would cause the car to leave the ground if the car spins, full bodywork, motors enclosed. If TG had THIS car as his vision, I would have signed on. Instead, he bought up old CART cars and tried to tell us he had a better idea. It was to me, a fatal error. The only reason the IRL is alive today is because he has spent a small fortune keeping it alive. If he had taken them in a fresh direction and marketed it as a truly American series (what is more American than a front engined roadster? A Dallara isnt) then he would have gained the drivers he was supposed to be keeping a home for, the sprint and midget drivers. Those gents might have seen these cars as something they could work with. They sure as heck didn't see a car they could handle in CART cars and the later IRL cars, and they went to NASCAR.
I still like the mid-engined sausages...and no wings at all. Big rubber, fine. Sidepods even...for safety, etc. OK, maybe it'll look like a bloated sausage, but I still think it would be cool.
Geez, I am a designer, you'd think I could draw one up...
This is what I'm lovin'...
Another...
Oh man, Quetch, I LIKE that car! :)
Is anyone else noticing that the engine is positioned between the driver's legs?Quote:
Originally Posted by indycool
Almost certainly. The walls, and floor match the room that all the black DP-01s were taken in and the mechanics shirts match too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giuseppe F1
Yes, that is Elan/Panoz. They are supposedly working on a European single seater chassis.
Yes. I noticed it first time I saw it. To package, you'd need to have the driver sitting where the rear wing is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonesi
But ignoring that. The engine is still centrally located compared to the old roadsters so the handling will still be closer to the current cars than the old roadsters that everyone seems to think is what would be best for "traditional" oval racing.
If the car never raced on anything but an oval ( Remember that was the whole mantra of the early EARL) then a roadster with some length to it for safety would be not a problem.
Hey, Panoz built a front engined sports prototype not once but twice, with middling results, but the safety and layout all were proven. If you depend on more mechanical grip than downforce, then you could have a great front engined oval car.
I have always thought the 50's roadsters some of the most aesthetically pleasing race cars going.
IC, supermods are not beautiful to me, but they are fun. I find though they look too much like a short track freak show. No, a Modern day incarnation of an Indy roadster would have to have sleek lines and some thought given to some style. Lets face it, if you take away the making downforce ability, speed down the straights and mechanical grip in the corners will make a place like Indy a real challenge.
Those Panoz front-engined roadsters were cool cars, and they were also fast. I liked those '50 roadsters with the low tails, too.
Some Indy car designs have come from supermodifieds. One that jumps out is the old "Oswego Wedge," which several guys, among them Bud Tingelstad, drove at Indy. Think that was the first time that anyone thought about "aero" to any degree.
I still remember some fine trips to Delaware and Oswego, Mark! :) :)
http://www.mulsannescorner.com/panozlmp1-9.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by indycool
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~jdavies/spor...oz2_001_20.jpg
http://www.racingsportscars.com/phot...-06-16-022.jpg
IC, you have been to Oswego? I can almost spit across the lake to that burg from here, ( well not quite, but it is but 3 to 4 hours AROUND the lake for me, and yet I haven't made it yet. Seen lots of pics of it, know lots of guys who go, but I see the SuperMod's when they have ran at Mosport's 1/2 mile oval a few years back and they also run at Kawartha Downs, just 40 minutes up the highway from me.....
I'm dating myself bigtime with this, but watched Bentley Warren win the International 500 at Oswego one year......some of the regulars were from Canada --- I remember Norm Mackereth, for one, and were Nolan Swift or Jim Shampine from up your way?
Mackerath I have heard of, don't know Swift or Shampine. I know there are few guys who make the trek to Oswego. The Canadian dates have been hit and miss, mainly miss. They wont run Mosport's oval any more because the straights are too long and the corners are too tight, sort of a bumpy Martinsville layout with more banking. They were running about 140 and hammering the brakes to get in the corner, and it just wasn't a good circuit for em.
I suspect only about 3 or 4 steady runners at Oswego are Canadians. Our short track scene in Ontario is so busy that most guys just end up going to whatever short track is near and running the stock car circuits there. That said, there is a few dirt tracks up here running DIRT mod's and outlaws as well....
Well, as I said, I dated myself! Swift, I'm sure was from Canada. Shampine, driving his well-known "8-ball," I believe was from upstate New York somewhere.
Back in the late '60s and '70s, the big supermod tracks were Oswego; Sandusky, Ohio; and Delaware out near London. Sandusky was a "paper clip", too. Some ran the dirt at Owosso, Mich., where Paige Reynolds from Houston broke the so-called world half-mile record time in a supermod that Sonny Ates set in a sprint car at Dayton. (This is '60s stuff.)
The Michigan contingent included Gordon and Nolan Johncock (the latter of which was killed in a '70s supermod crash) and Johnny Logan.
Too much off topic, but in "modern" times, Davey Hamilton and Paul Durant came out of the west coast supers (after Tom Sneva and Art Pollard did before them) and Joe Gosek came from Oswego to make the Indianapolis 500 field in the '90s.
I've watched a history of Indy500 DVD recently which showed the differences over the years of these cars.
I don't think I'd have the guts to race a brand new one until I saw how it performed for a season while someone else raced it first. It must take alot of faith to jump in one right hot off the assembly line in its first year of racing, I'd think. Guess I'm not so tough after all......because that'd scare the liver out of me.
O'keefe, if you think those cars are scary, you are just normal and well adjusted!!!!
The SuperMods that IC and I are referring to are the last manifestation of the kind of race cars the old roadsters evolved into. Offset monsters with stock blocks on the left side and huge wings. They are one of a kind kind of racers, and in a sense, represent a lost thread of racing.
As much as the modern IRL is a clone of every other open wheeled series now, there is much to be said about having a unique series based on the roots cars of USAC, evolving designs based off the sprint car and then allowing creativity....
It doesn't exist as in current hardware, but that is a minor point. All the cars and replacement parts for late season haven't been built yet either. They are going to know when a oval in in the works long before we do so they will do a good job.Quote:
Originally Posted by tbyars
The CC guy who coordinated the program with Panoz said at the Road America fan forum that the DP01 was absolutely designed with ovals in mind and a oval package "was designed" and would be built if the need arises. I noticed right off the DP01 has all the expensive electronics in the left sidepod, standard oval proceedure since the "comeback" Lola of the late 90s.
One could can a say anything is worthless until tested. They have plenty of oval knowledge with ovals and experience with modern fluid dynamic flow software they can quickly be in the ballpark.
Well, to start with, are there fuel buckeyes on both sides of the car?
spin. the series called for 3 year replacements when they were flush with manufacturer cash, now that cash is gone and they are racing relatively old equipment.Quote:
Originally Posted by indycool
Wow, that's pretty funny. How about "they spent so much trying to make it road course worthy they could have almost bought a new car, and now nobody can afford one"?Quote:
Originally Posted by indycool
Didn't happen that way. In fact, the road-course kit wasn't that cost-prohibitive.
Yes, we've all heard the official party line ad nauseaum. The actual truth, however, is far different.Quote:
Originally Posted by indycool
Well, you can add an "IMO" to that.
Or I could be accurate and add an "I heard it from very reliable industry sources". The party line is fluff and spin, as you doubtless well know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by indycool
How hard it would be to retro fit if there wasn't? Also note, a lot of circuits on the road course side can have right or left side pits, so I would imagine that regardless of Oval aspirations or not, they should have buckeyes on both sides. Please IC, don't go down the road of saying the DP01 is unsuitable for ovals. Only an idiot would design a race car for the North American market and not have plans and the DNA in the design to go oval racing.....
I know you want to stand on the ground that this car isn't right, but any car is right if people want to make the effort. The DP01 is going to be the CCWS car for the next 5 years, and I would be shocked if it never saw an oval. Now if the IRL buys their own design; that is their prerogative and their right, and as I said, I would have preferred the IRL have taken a radically different road in 1995. That said, if they refused the DP01 only because CCWS is using it, and that reason alone, then it is obvious they are scared of their teams having too easy a time leaving the IRL once Indy was over. The thing is if you believe you have the best series and package....then what are you afraid of??? Really? I can tell you this much. If the IRL went to Panoz and CCWS blocked the sale of DP01's, then it proves that the CCWS is scared of cross pollination. The teams will go back and forth until one series dies and that is the real issue. The thing is, all the teams are pawns in this game....and until it ends, we will have endless arguments on here about who should have what car and whether it can be made to turn left all day....
I would rather talk about racing...
Mark, I don't know how hard it would be to retrofit a buckeye on the opposite side of the car....I'm no fabricator or engineer, nor do I know how the fuel tank is set in there, nor do I know how it would affect the fuel cell.
I DO know that the IRL, when it commissioned new cars, long before the IRL even was talking to anybody about a road race, commissioned the cars with buckeyes on both sides to start with....one less thing to retrofit "if come."
As you suggest, I won't go "down the road" of unsuitable for ovals. In its current form, it probably IS unsuitable for ovals. The truth is, no one probably knows because there is no "oval kit" for it even to be tested at this point.
Simply staggering. Is this the best you can do? Of course it has buckeyes on both sides. Do you think the pits are always on the same side? Heck, San Jose alone has had the pits on both sides.
You could've answered my question in Post #70, but I guess you had to play CW first.
Ooh, insults. My apologies, but I didn't notice #70 until Mark pointed it out. Perhaps if you put all of your misconceptions into one post it would be easier.
Speaking of "oval" packages, what exactly do you feel is necessary to make the DP-01 IRL-worthy? Given that the car was designed with ovals in mind and the IRL runs what amounts to a high-downforce roadcourse package at most events anyway, about the only addition needed is a speedway wing and a set of carbon rotors.
Why was the DP-01 designed with ovals in mind when CC has no more ovals?
I don't know mechanically or design-wise what it would need to race ovals, but I'd kinda like to see how it holds up in CC for a season first.