Interesting Indy Car Design Project

[indycool]

http://www.speedtv.com/commentary/37699/

http://www.gordonkirby.com/categorie...t_is_no63.html

[Fish_Flake]

Bravo on the behalf of the IRL and Honda for having the forthrightness to establish this initiative. I sincerely hope that all parties involved will take this project seriously and apply the fruits of this labor into the future design of open-wheel race cars.

When one looks at the Dallara teams current run, the immediate impression is that the chassis is, well, big. The airbox creates a very high transverse profile, the wings are very prominent on both ends, and the sidepods jut out from the tub quite aggressively. The car also has a lot of rough edges if it is viewed at certain angles, and the end result is a machine that, even though it races at similar speeds as the cars of the late 1980s and early 90s, fails to leave the same impression as those cars, both on camera and in person. In addition, the low-rev V8s that power today's cars don't sound fast, either. The comments made in those two article lead to same speculation: the CART-era cars presented a far more spectacular package. Going back to those regulations, though, would be a huge step in the wrong direction.

For the future, the new chassis has to be sleek, yet it has to be safe enough for the speeds that Indy necessitates. It has to remain on the cutting edge, yet it has to be economical enough to bring smaller teams back into relevence. I'm not an aerodynamicist or a mechanical engineer, so I'm not going to speculate on how the IRL should make that happen.

The engine situation is much easier to figure out: the formula simply must avoid being restrictive, expensive, or exclusive. Every time a major racing series makes mention of a new engine formula, I say the same thing. No purpose-built engines: every one must be based on a production block. Two types of engines are allowed: four-cylinder turbocharged engines of any piston configuration with a maximum displacement of 2.2 liters, or six-cylinder normally-aspirated engines of any piston configuration with a maximum displacement of 3.3 liters. Every automaker in the world has a engine that can be easily modified to those regulations under the hood of their sport compact and midsize passenger cars. Add to the mix an innovative fuel package, and suddenly IndyCar provides a diverse playing field that the manufacturers and their marketing execs are going to eat up.