Several teams running chassis 5 years or less old

[luke]

Apparently some teams are running Lola chassis that were used as far back as 01 and 03. Why not buy a new chassis well newish, there is the chassis freeze right? But still, wouldn't there be effects when racing with a car that's done 50 races? Are the teams that hard up? And open wheel racing this bad? It makes you wonder what could happen if there is no merge...

[mountainstar]

Have a look at this:

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/N...le.asp?ID=9796

[astinus4]

Originally Posted by luke

Apparently some teams are running Lola chassis that were used as far back as 01 and 03. Why not buy a new chassis well newish, there is the chassis freeze right? But still, wouldn't there be effects when racing with a car that's done 50 races? Are the teams that hard up? And open wheel racing this bad? It makes you wonder what could happen if there is no merge...

Merger or no merger we're going to see a brand new car on track next year, so let's look on the bright side and enjoy these beautiful lolas for the last time.

[Tim Northcutt]

Why buy a new Lola that would have a one-season shelf life???

I'd run the old car and save my money for the new Panoz chassis...

That would make the most business sense

[luke]

My point is I didn't think some would be running chassis that old!

[pink69]

Do we know which teams are running the older chassis?

[kipper]

I think the fact teams are running cars of such an age is just a reflection of the fact that all teams are businesses, who are probably keen to keep their outgoings to a minimum. Therefore, if this can be achieved by running old cars without losing performance, then I can imagine a number of teams taking this option especially as the cars will soon be obsolete.

[Tenoch]

Originally Posted by pink69

Do we know which teams are running the older chassis?

Rockesports has always been notorious for runing older cars. Remember last year they had to move RHR in Glock's backup cause he's LOLA was just completely shot. Then Phillipe left the year before saying that the team was using inferior equipment.

I know that the forthsye LOLAs are from 2003 and that Bruno has the newest car out there, its only about a year old.

Speaking of RHR does anyone know where he ended up?

[Big Mac]

That article suggests that 81 - yes 81! - chassis have been produced over the designs livespan. Where have they all gone?!? A couple would have been written off (post Surfers a few years back etc) and I assume that ex-CART teams (Ganassi, Rahal etc) must have a few laying aound? But 81 seems like a huge number of chassis to have produced.

[luke]

Especially when they are still used 5 years on etc...

[Jordi]

According to the Autocourse Champ Car book, last year people ran:
(The numbers might not be accurate as I don't know how many backups the teams had)

2005 chassis: (B05/00)
-Newman Haas (2)
-RuSPORT (1)

2004 chassis: (B04/00)
-RuSPORT (2)
-Forsythe (1)

2003: (B03/00)
-RuSPORT (1)
-Forsythe (2)
-HVM (2)

2002 (B02/00)
-Forsythe (1)
-PKV Racing (2)
-Rocketsports (2)
-Mi-Jack Conquest (1)
-Walker (1)

2001 (B01/00)
-Newman Haas (2)
-Walker (2)
-Rocketsports (1)
-PKV Racing (1)
-HVM (2)
-Coyne (1)

2000 chassis (B2K/00)
-Coyne (2)
-Jensen (2?)

The fact that Newman Haas were one-two last year with each driver having a B05 and a B01 car talks lots about the quality of Lola's updates and the attention to detail by Newman Haas.