Interesting Item on New Chassis in Indy Star (Merged)

[Flyin Ryan]

http://jalopnik.com/5468819/delta-wi...le-rocket-ship

Article responding to appearance at the Chicago Auto Show.

Half the comments to the article and pictures are:

"How will it turn?"

[Stefvh]

eeek

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

Hey Tim,

You saw the screen shot after countdown ended.

I say that was the first shot.

Think about it.

Pretty clever...

[icemachine]

Originally Posted by http://jalopnik.com/5468819/delta-wing-racer-an-indycar-batmobile-rocket-ship

It's currently only a concept, but it's got strong backing and has changed a lot of thinking about what open wheel racers can be.

Its barely got open wheels. A few inche of tire tread showing soe not make an OWR

[JagtechOhio]

Swift has said they will rely on their Indianapolis partner for parts fabrication, supply and repair.

Mark One Composites in Indianapolis looks like little more than a body shop with an autoclave (from their website). They presently repair damaged monocoques and attenuators for Series teams. No plans for great expansion have surfaced. All of Swift's well established facitilties are in California.

Lola made no announcement of plans to transfer business assets to Indy. This, despite the fact that a business investment team led by Mayor Ballard went to England last November to meet with motorsports manufacturers. They met with Menard and Aston Martin, and also went to Cologne, Germany for further discussions. Lola was not mentioned

Dallara has committed to constructing an assembly plant in Indy. The land is directly adjacent to the Speedway.

Game over.

[Purist]

It isn't game over by a long shot if the teams disagree, and put their collective foot down.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by Purist

It isn't game over by a long shot if the teams disagree, and put their collective foot down.

Put their collective foot down for a car that can't turn? The USAC Gold Crown and 6-wheeled Tyrrell look better thought out.

[Tim Northcutt]

Keep in mind that Ben Bowlby has a pretty long history as a designer and engineer...He was involved with creating the Lola...I just don't like the concept at all

I just don't think this car is an open wheel car, nor do I think it will turn, either...

Almost makes me want to whistle the theme song to "Speed Racer"

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally Posted by Purist

It isn't game over by a long shot if the teams disagree, and put their collective foot down.

JagTechOhio hinted at the same thing...I agree with both of you...

Keep in mind that if the various owners who support this Delta Wing walk, the IRL has few, if any teams left back there to race.

Panther already has sent out a formal statement of support, and allegedly Ganassi, Penske, the former team owner TG, and others are supportive of this as well...

[JagtechOhio]

To Purist:

No Sh*t.

It was right there in Ganassi's speech last month, I read the last line as a call to arms. Last week Pruett wrote a position piece to clearly express the team owner's sentiment. Panther publicly lauded Pruett's article.

"Sorry, it's too late."

We're starting on another path. You're with us, or you're against us. That's what the handwriting has been saying to me. I'm not much one for watching cartoons.

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

To Purist:

No Sh*t.

It was right there in Ganassi's speech last month, I read the last line as a call to arms. Last week Pruett wrote a position piece to clearly express the team owner's sentiment. Panther publicly lauded Pruett's article.

"Sorry, it's too late."

We're starting on another path. You're with us, or you're against us. That's what the handwriting has been saying to me. I'm not much one for watching cartoons.

Yep....

The first shot...as in across the IRL's bow

[ger80]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

Swift has said they will rely on their Indianapolis partner for parts fabrication, supply and repair.

Mark One Composites in Indianapolis looks like little more than a body shop with an autoclave (from their website). They presently repair damaged monocoques and attenuators for Series teams. No plans for great expansion have surfaced. All of Swift's well established facitilties are in California.

Lola made no announcement of plans to transfer business assets to Indy. This, despite the fact that a business investment team led by Mayor Ballard went to England last November to meet with motorsports manufacturers. They met with Menard and Aston Martin, and also went to Cologne, Germany for further discussions. Lola was not mentioned

Dallara has committed to constructing an assembly plant in Indy. The land is directly adjacent to the Speedway.

Game over.

Assembly plant? So getting the chassis from europe on bolt the front supension and some bodywork on it?

[JagtechOhio]

The first shot. Bingo.

Thank the Lord it is such a pig, IICS won't have to listen to the public scream as they congenially dismiss the Delta concept.

Just like always, the real battles will be waged behind closed doors.

I asked Dan Partel if Bowlby had used the 2012 F1 specs as a basis for his design. I was thinking that if the Delta was too radical for the IICS, perhaps he could adapt it to present as a submission for that use.

Partel said no. He wasn't kidding about that. Neither Bowlby, nor the owners who have voiced support for him, have a fallback plan.

They will jump ship, or they will blast off for parts unknown in the Delta.

And these are supposed to be smart men.

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally Posted by ger80

Assembly plant? So getting the chassis from europe on bolt the front supension and some bodywork on it?

I took it as actually construccting the cars here...from tubs and CF up...

Indy has so many motorsports industry suppliers, jobbers, etc., that Dallara would have no probalen building cars here, and if it is part of the Speedway redevelopment project south of the track, the local and state govts. will give them big tax incentives to locate here.

[JagtechOhio]

ger, it's not about race cars. I did exactly what you just described with new Tiga 82CA Can Am car.

It's about real estate sale, tax revenues, construction jobs, satellite businesses, design and manufacturing jobs, plant equipment sales, and the ongoing urban redevelopment of Speedway, Indiana.

On the side lawn of the racetrack.

Right where the Dallara plant will be built.

[JagtechOhio]

Tim,

I know, Swift made sure to pay lip service to the Indy production involvement. Then I went to Mark One Composite's web site. I got another pint of beer to bet you they never built a CF tub in their lives.

Why would Swift move? They have a complete design, testing and manufacturing facility. That will work great, it just doesn't grease any wheels in Indy.

Mayor Ballard is up for re-election in 2011. The IMS revenues are decreasing, the IICS continues to operate at least $20M in the red.

Lola makes great race cars. I'll love watching them when the vintage races come around.

Dallara can also build and sell the Topolino they just introduced here, and teams can send their young drivers across the street to pick out their cheap new ladder series chassis.

Or they can also add a road going version of the X-Bow they build now. More jobs. More plant expansion. Mr. Dalara and designer Andre Toso have already laid out the plan. Dallara said the propsect was first discussed in 2002.

If the Series splits and dissolves, none of it will come to pass. And NO ONE wants to stop and think about how bad 2010 was already shaping up to be.

Now you have an idea of what I have been doing for six months. And why I have been asking questions, formulating answers and shooting my mouth off, hoping to get some response from insiders. I haven't been able to get through. Yet.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

ger, it's not about race cars. I did exactly what you just described with new Tiga 82CA Can Am car.

It's about real estate sale, tax revenues, construction jobs, satellite businesses, design and manufacturing jobs, plant equipment sales, and the ongoing urban redevelopment of Speedway, Indiana.

On the side lawn of the racetrack.

Right where the Dallara plant will be built.

It's like how arenas are done nowadays. No one buys a sports team for the sports team. They buy the sports team as an excuse to make money on real estate.

Putting that aside for a second, let's go back to the owners of Delta Wing and the car:

Owners Michael Andretti, Eric Bachelart, John Barnes, Tony George, Kevin Kalkhoven, Roger Penske, Dennis Reinbold, Kevin Kalkhoven, Keith Wiggins and Chip Ganassi have endorsed building the protoype and formed a company called Delta Wing LLC.

There are a lot of racing smart and racing intelligent people in this group. Penske I consider to be at the top of intelligent people in all American auto racing. Ganassi is also incredibly smart. Some of these owners have rummaged around at the back of the field for a long time (Wiggins, Reinbold, Bachelart) and you don't survive there unless you know what you're doing (or have a steady supply of ride buyers). How do the racing smart people look at that car concept and think it works for turning and driver side-impact safety considering this series races on street courses and high-speed ovals? It's almost like they intentionally made their car outrageous to make it easy for Indycar to dismiss, knowing it was a joke they could use IRL's dismissal of it as an excuse to leave. I don't believe the Ganassi engineer had a full free reign and that these owners had no idea what he was drawing up either.

In that list of owners there's no Haas, no Foyt, no Coyne, no Beck. The absence of the last three don't surprise me, the first one does. No (Bobby) Rahal, although I don't think he counts anymore.

[JagtechOhio]

Ryan. thanks for that. It's an interesting insight that I hadn't gotten to yet, about using such an extreme re-design as an excuse to break away.

The point I would make to you is that when you look at all the owners you mentioned, the majority don't even have enough funding to run a single car for the full 2010 season.

Ganassi, Andretti and Penske are the power brokers: the rest are just the flock. Chip has already, in my opinion, made his intentions clear. Barnes has supported him publicly.

Transporters load for Barber testing in 11 days. There is no clear indication that Wiggins, Bachelart, Coyne, Haas, Beck or Rahal will be making the trip. No idea where Kalkoven stands, but no firm committments are in place.

[mountainstar]

Go the Delta Wing!

What's the aerodynamics when that thing gets sideways?

I notice they revised the price up to $600K with engine

[nickyf1]

Hang on, this thing is just a sidecar with a seat! And notice the complete lack of side-impact protection, no wheels, no side-pods, no nothing inbetween the driver and a wall/car. HOW DOES THIS DAMN THING TURN SOMEBODY TELL ME!

[nickyf1]

Oh god, its made from Poly-ethene... I would not go near that if I were a driver who wanted to stay, y'know.. alive.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

Ryan. thanks for that. It's an interesting insight that I hadn't gotten to yet, about using such an extreme re-design as an excuse to break away.

The point I would make to you is that when you look at all the owners you mentioned, the majority don't even have enough funding to run a single car for the full 2010 season.

Ganassi, Andretti and Penske are the power brokers: the rest are just the flock. Chip has already, in my opinion, made his intentions clear. Barnes has supported him publicly.

Transporters load for Barber testing in 11 days. There is no clear indication that Wiggins, Bachelart, Coyne, Haas, Beck or Rahal will be making the trip. No idea where Kalkoven stands, but no firm committments are in place.

Which is why we need to allow in garagistes as I believe the French call them, people like Dan Drinan that can build an Indycar and hire a driver to race it, instead of being beholden to one company and the costs are so out of whack you have to take a few million dollars from someone like Enrique Bernoldi, or rich gentleman drivers that can buy their way in like Marty Roth.

The money benefit from racing has gone down, the car has to go down as well for the sport to survive. I co-designed a sportscar for a friend. The carbonfibre roller is $225k. The tubeframe roller is $97k. 57% reduction in cost, and that's not even accounting for there being much fewer people out in the real world that are knowledge capable of working on carbonfibre versus a tubeframe (unless you work on military aircraft). Common available racing engines have to be used, not some specialized turbocharged 4-cylinder engine that no automaker outside of one maybe two is willing to manufacture. At the Night Before the 500 you can see big horsepower producing engines that fit into a car smaller than an Indycar and there are 6 or so engines on the entry list. No, the cars won't be as technologically advanced or approaching F1 but who the f*ck cares?

However, everytime I make this argument I got shouted down on the internet as a dumbass redneck that didn't want furriners to win Indy. So I've tired of it and am not going to argue again. 1930s satirist H.L. Mencken: "Democracy is the theory the common man knows what he wants and he deserves to get it good and hard."

The car costs have to be aligned with the purse money and sponsorship on offer in order to have a successful series. Ride buying will alleviate it for a couple years but sooner or later things balance out and it brings down everyone, which it has as you describe in your post.

[JagtechOhio]

Well. if it's $600K with what ever power plant they selected already installed, maybe not so bad.

Of course the IICS hasn't set the engine spec yet, either.

If it's a $600K price tag for a roller, then Ryan's idea looks even more valid. And only three teams in the paddock will be able to buy them.

[icemachine]

Originally Posted by nickyf1

Hang on, this thing is just a sidecar with a seat! And notice the complete lack of side-impact protection, no wheels, no side-pods, no nothing inbetween the driver and a wall/car. HOW DOES THIS DAMN THING TURN SOMEBODY TELL ME!

I think the tail fin turns to act like a rudder

[JagtechOhio]

Ryan. I feel you, bro. And I just laughed my *ss off at that quote.

The engine spec was at Long Beach in 2006. It was under the hood of Rhyss Millen's Formula Drift car. GM Ecotech 2.2 liter turbo, short stroked with displacement down to 2.0. At least 500 HP

They could set up an engine summit in Indy, and invite any independant builder to run what they brung on a dyno.

1.8 or 2.0 Audi, Mazda MRR-R, ARE PO7, GM Ecotec 2.2, Ford Duratec 2.3 All are currently raced.

Ford Ecoboost and the new BMW turbo are production engines that would fit the formula. Make it 2.4 liters or less, and....

Gentlemen, start your engines.