Quote:
Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks
Show me the evidence that Tickford and WAU wanted to not be allowed to design their own uprights, or indeed if they even wanted the original control items in COTF. Why not go back to the golden era of teams designing their own darn racing cars.
Who thought control everything was a good idea? It seems to be a factor that has contributed to the series jumping the shark.
Nobody knows because the proper full-scale wind tunnel program and AVL dyno program has not been done yet. Hopefully a couple of the spare cars are sent over the to the US for this ASAP, if organisers insist on the control car idea.
But the control everything idea is fundamentally a bad idea IMO. It's too much pandering to the smaller "boltie" teams that just bolt stuff on and off. Perkins Engeering were happy to sell stuff to privateer "boltie" teams but it doesn't mean they felt that this should be the model of the whole series, indeed Larry Perkins found the idea of a control exhaust in the 90's preposterous (his words, "any decent workshop can fabricate an exhaust"), yet now that's exactly what the series has one control exhaust for each "model" -- let alone teams being unable to design more performance-relevant stuff.
A Holden Racing Team Project Blueprint VE Commodore may have only been good at street circuits and Bathurst, but at least it was good at *something* and that was their choice to build and engineer their car like that.
Despite moving to Melbourne with two customer HRT COTF Commodores, Erebus were smart enough to get off the 888 or HRT/WAU upgrade treadmill and build their own front suspension under the COTF regulations with some success, for example.
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The control everything is to try and keep the costs down, and the playing field a little move even. The small teams are still important. If it's going to just be cheque book racing, that just can't be sustained in todays world. Not enough rich guys willing to throw money at racecar forever, and sponsors have so much choice. The sport needs people and they only stay long term if they can succeed at some level. You have seen a little of that this year, next year probably a little less when the big teams work the cars out more.