Roger's Used CART Lot

[Uesque]

From speedtv.com:

".......Last month, a little birdie told us that Roger Penske would get out one of his old CART cars with an old CART engine (Toyota) so Sam Hornish Jr. could practice with it on road courses during the off-season. This doesn't break any rules because Sam is not driving an IRL car/engine and he was spotted at Sebring, Fla. earlier this week.....

[macdaddy]

Gonna move this to the IRL board, Uesque.

[Uesque]

It would explain why teams aren't willing to part with their Lolas.

[macdaddy]

Fair 'nuff. I'll move it back...

[Snrub]

That's very interesting! Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Ganassi sell of his equipment? Who's left with equipment that could potentially be sold to new or current CC teams?

Correct me if I'm wrong (again), but Toyota engines were on lease meaning that Toyota would have pulled some strings to let Penske have the engine. Those engines didn't last much beyond a race distance so what's going to happen when the engine is used up? Will Toyota rebuild them or do they have enough? My point in asking is if Toyota starts doing things with CC engines for Penske, etc, why stop there? Spend a small amount more and get your engines in CC.

[Uesque]

I was wondering about the leases myself, but being a flagship team, maybe they kept their stock. I thought Ganassi also kept his Lolas. He might even have some Reynards squirreled away. All of which should be out of date by this point. Toyota has too much going on to worry about updating the CC engine.

[Snrub]

Seems like there'd be some expenses if they started doing stuff with the engines that would carry over. Detuning their current engine probably means different cams and a selecting a different turbo (the Cosworths use an off the shelf Garret ballbearing) to match current lowered outputs and make power efficiently at the current lower revs. I don't think it's likely, but logically not impossible.

As for Ganassi, I thought someone was running his old chasis...Rocketsports is who I thought...

[camcartfan]

Rahal kept his, didn't he? Something about Honda wanting them?

[gttouring]

At TRD the turbo Champcar engines are stilll there.
ssitting in the shop in Costa Mesa Califonia a row of "indy V8's" turbo Champcar motors (same thing with honda at HPD)
now why would they hang on to these and not use them for special projects like a pikes peak car, a specially adapted concept or Lemans racer, or any number of things....
perhpas they met cosworth specs and have champcar ready motors that never took off and Roger has a few- to get around the testing loophole.
of ocourse how does set up from a lola translate to a dallara? and a naturally aspirated car and gear setting translate to the turbo?

[Uesque]

They're probably just getting the oval drivers (back) in the swing of turning right again. I'm sure they're not trying to exactly duplicate the IRL setup, but a champ car would be closer than a shifter kart.

[macdaddy]

That's exactly what they're doing - nothing more.
It's not as if they can get valuable testing data, as they cannot.

[GTRMagic]

Originally posted by gttouring
At TRD the turbo Champcar engines are stilll there.
ssitting in the shop in Costa Mesa Califonia a row of "indy V8's" turbo Champcar motors (same thing with honda at HPD)
now why would they hang on to these and not use them for special projects like a pikes peak car, a specially adapted concept or Lemans racer, or any number of things....
perhpas they met cosworth specs and have champcar ready motors that never took off and Roger has a few- to get around the testing loophole.
of ocourse how does set up from a lola translate to a dallara? and a naturally aspirated car and gear setting translate to the turbo?

Could those engines still be used in other applications given they are methanol-fuelled?

I cant imagine a conversion to regular pump fuel, or even hi-octane unleaded or Avgas would be as simple as filling the car up with these fuels...

[flatlander_48]

Originally posted by gttouring

of ocourse how does set up from a lola translate to a dallara? and a naturally aspirated car and gear setting translate to the turbo?

Not the car, it has to do with setting up the driver. Left-right-brake-accelerate-upshift-downshift...