Danica

[rublenoon]

What is wrong with skinny, hard tires, no wings and let the driver compensate and really "drive"??? Watch old Grand Prix and Indy films and watch the cars go thru corners in controlled 4 wheel drifts for hundreds of yards and you realize that it took far more to "drive" the car rather than the video game approach today.
Indy cars and F1 cars generate so much downforce that they could race on the ceiling quite easily. They generate more downforce than they weigh, that is how important aero is. Get rid of it and the racing would get much better.....at least you would be able to see who could really drive again.

the "who could reealy drive" question is valid, but it happens today at the 'solo II' type level today and almost NO one pays to watch them on TV. I have wondered if the best driver 'race' should be done with simulators today. Oh well...even there money cubed would probility be still faster than money squared :blink:

Remember TV racing [autos or bikes] is advertising... the sponsors get a tax break [Winston stopped when the advertising & tax break was forced closed] and always want max exposure for min $'s.

 

[twowheelnut]

Say what you will about aero, but nothing beat the sight and sound of a bunch of McLarens, Chaparrals, Lolas, and Porsches all bespoilered, ground effect clad (remember Hall's 'Sucker' Chappy?) Can Am cars rippin' up the tracks back in the early 70's. Revson, Andretti, Donahue, Fulmer, Stuart, Rodriguez, Gurney, et al - now those *******s gave a good show! I still remember the demo race those guys put on at Limerock Park in '71 or '72. Woof.

 

[throttlejockeyTJ]

I Love Racing and wanted to race from a todler. I started on MC at age 28. I went to Racing schools Formula Ford, Mazdas. Then ran my own Formula Car. I would have loved Danicas upbringing. At a young age in carting. Won numerous races (Championships?) kicking Horish Jr's azz regualarly. At age 16 she was in the tough European Formula Ford Championship. She Finished 3 in the Championship. Her big break was getting in the Toyota Celebrety Race (age 19)as a Professional Driver and then making the most of it by kicking multi Trans Am Champ Tommy Kendals azz. Bobby Rahal saw her potential and put her in a Formula Atlantic. She had one poll and several podiums. She always qualified competitively. When noting a drivers sucess at the IRL level you also have to look at the team. Danica has regularly out qualified her team mates & has had better finishes. Last year she had the Honda at Indy and was on the front row. This year at Indy she still out qualified and out finished her teamates. Rahals IRL cars have won few races and Buddy just accidently by play of the cards won Indy. Since nada.

Yeah TWN! I remember the Can Am days. At Laguna Seca the Pensky Porsche (1000 lbs 1100hp) had a fuel leak and had to start at the back of the field. Mark Donohue drove through the field like a lane splitting MC. Everytime I hear the song 'I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way' I think of that race. I saw most of the cars you mentioned run. :yahoo:

 

[Dallara]

First off, Jestal...

I never said anything about electronic gauges or dashes being in racing first... However, the first use of electronic data acquisition and logging I am aware of was used by Ford Motor Company back in 1965-66 for their Le Mans racing program developing the Ford GT40 Mk. II and later the Mk. IV. That's a bit before 1981.

Now certainly numerous advances were outlawed from certain race classes along the way (like moveable aerodynamic devices like Jim Hall's wings and fans and Colin Champman's sliding skirts and Brabham's fan), but still quite a bit got started in racing, nonetheless, and GM didn't invent everything automotive.

On reflection I did realize that I was wrong about electronic fuel injection as that was first developed by the Bendix Corporation for use on the 1958 DeSoto Adventurer. It was also arguably the first production throttle-body fuel injection system. The patents on this system were later sold to Bosch. But electronic fuel injection systems where in use on Porsche sports racing cars quite early, and they were developed by Bosch.

It was you that made the statement:

Kind of playing the devils advocate here....but.....anyone care to put forth an idea of a technical "innovation" from racing that made it to a passenger car? Besides the rear veiw mirror from 1903.... Just don't happen.

Nothing in that statement said anything about anything being "invented" in racing... Just an "innovation" that appeared in racing first, prior to passenger cars. If racers borrowed ideas from aircraft and aerospace development before the passenger car industry caught on, that's still racing be more innovative, right. Otherwise you entire premise falls apart, because then everything that makes up a production car was done somewhere else first.

Sure, monocoque construction was developed in airplanes first (but was it? Maybe not...), but it was then adopted by racers next, only obtaining widespread use in production cars quite some time later...

You mention composite materials being used in aircraft first, and of course they were... Fiberglass is a composite material, and it was used in aircraft long ago, and finally did appear on production cars (like your vaunted GM's Corvette), but it was on race cars long before production cars. Maybe you were trying to restrict your view of composites to more recent developments with carbon fiber and other fiber-based reinforced resin materials... Still, certainly developed in aircraft first, but then on race cars next... And if you are contending that carbon-fiber construction hasn't ever made it to production cars then perphaps you never heard of the Ferrari F-40, F-50, Enzo, etc... Or the McLaren F-1 street car... Or the current Porsche Carrera V-10... Or even one of dozens of other cars that use carbon-fiber composites in their construction. Hell, I have a Subaru out on my lot that has carbon-fiber bits on it!

First traction control systems were developed by Renault, and first put to use on some various race car projects they were involved in, subsequently to be outlawed in every class they ever stepped into damn near (still legal in MotoGP, though...)

Honda and variable valve timing... Well, first of all Honda was not the first to develop variable valve timing. Not by a long shot. Do you know who did develop the first workable variable valve timing system? (Hint - the first system proposed was right here in the USA, but the first one that worked was in Europe...). Honda's first application of their VTEC system used on an endurance road racer at Bol d'Or back in 1979, and then first appeared on Japanese domestic market 400cc inline four sportbike years later.

I won't even touch on the oval piston racers Honda developed prior to them producing a street version with oval pistons called an NR-750.

Nothing was invented in the IRL... And General Motors didn't develop the IRL they called an "Aurora", and certainly Olds had nothing to do with it. That engine was developed by TWR in England, and hell, I still have three of 'em! Some of the development engineers are still good friends. And it's electronics had nothing whatever to do with tire pressure monitoring systems... Those were developed a long, long time ago, and if memory serves me correctly, were first used by Peugeot in their Le Mans racers in the late 1980's.

Aero devices used for different purposes on street and race cars? Perhaps, if you mean that most race cars primarily try to use aero devices to produce downforce... But still, there are quite a lot of street cars that use aerodynamic devices to produce downforce, too. GM doesn't make any I don't think, but Bugatti, Ferrari, Porsche, etc. do... However, much of the shape of today's cars stems from ideas first pioneered in racing to reduce drag. You do remember Dr. Kamm, don't you?

Sure, disc brakes were on airplanes long before race cars... But they were on race cars long, long before production cars. Certainly production car engineers didn't wear blinders when they were around airplanes, did they?

Run flat tire inner liners led to the development of the sidewall and carcass construction that gives us our run flat capable tires today, and you know that. If not I have a number for you to call at Goodyear where you can talk to an old friend of mine about it.

And I never said a damn thing about CAD/CAM production, finite element analysis, rapid prototyping, or any computer modeling being developed in racing... Not one thing. Of course those technologies were developed elsewhere first, but it wasn't in the automotive industry. You can think aerospace for those if you want me to let you in on that little tidbit.

Seat belts? Well, the first auto racing sanctioning body to require them was the SCCA in 1954. The Swedish auto manufacturer Volvo was the first to make them a prodcution standard in 1956. Only then, that same year, did US auto manufacturers offer them (and Ford and Chrysler both did before the mighty GM did, oddly enough) as an option the same year. Seat belts were not required by law in the US until 1968. Actually, the very first seat belts were leather, and used horse-drawn carriages in the late 1800's. They were first used in a race car in 1922. In fact, the first commercial aircraft to have them was in 1926...

I could go on, but suffice to say, GM did not invent everything automotive, and racing had plenty of innovation that ended up on production cars. I won't even mention all the examples of my previous list you simply chose to skip completely.

Dallara

 

[radman]

I loves techno-*****-slappin.

 

[Hoog]

Did anybody mention that Goodyear's unidirectional Eagles have a direct linage to (or should I say from) their F1 rain tires?

 

[jestal]

Dallara,

Interesting discussion.

Any of the items mentioned (and many more) could be picked up for discussion purposes anywhere along the time line of development starting back in 1900. I chose some examples...you chose others. Most of the time when this discussion starts people tend toward the more modern end of the spectrum so that is where most of my examples come from.

"Racing" often takes many forms depending on the marketing take on the event. So there are many examples of things from different series and even different sorts of racing (boats, airplanes, etc.) that can come into the discussion.

I sit just across the room from the Olds Project Manager who worked on the original Aurora IRL engine. I well know that it was done by TWR. I also know where the origin of the electronics and control software came from...LOL. GM. If you were around the original Aurora engines you probably know DW from Olds. He worked for marketing at the time and was intimately involved with the program from the point where it was pitched to the IRL and the resulting IRL rules were written allowing the Aurora pretty much complete domination of the series for the first few years. Got Olds and Indy connection and got the IRL an OEM engine sponsor when they desparately needed it. I also know that the water pump for that engine was modified and developed on the cooling flow buck for the production Northstar engine in our production engine lab that I was the manager of at the time. TWR's version didn't flow nearly as efficiently as our production pump did and our production water pump engineer improved the pump to increase capacity which was one of the weak points of the early Aurora race engines.

I didn't think that I let out THAT many of your original list...LOL

The electronic data logging discussion is one of the items that depends on where you draw the line in the sand as to what is being defined as "electronic data logging". Telemetry was used on race cars and production cars back in that era, yes, but it didn't encompass the access to the electronic data generated by the ECM which is what I thougt you meant. That level of technology, where the pits can see what is going on and actually change the ECM or other functions came about much later. With the mechanical fuel injection systems of the 60's Ford was simply taking analog data and using telemetry. New yes, but not exactly something that has shown up on passenger cars.

No, I do not remember Dr. Kamm having never met him but I have read some of the papers surrounding his ideas. The aero argument can go on forever I suppose. I just find it hard to take any specific aero item that racing could claim to have invented or developed and see where it is applied to passenger cars. Certainly there are limited production, high performance cars such as the F40 and McLaren that owe a lot of their technology and aero to racing but I was talking about passenger cars that the general public buys and actually drives on the road. Not something that costs a mint, is designed for the racetrack as a thinly disguised race car and is rarely driven at all. What reduces drag reduces drag whether it is on the race track or on a passenger car. The wind tunnel dictates what the car needs, not what is done on a race car. Most "racing" looking addons and styling features actually are counterproductive to drag and high performance but the marketing folks have convinced people that they have to have something that looks like that to be stylish. My point is that the specific aero devices developed for racing have little or nothing to do with the aero on passenger cars. Some of the "racing" aero look is simply styling driven (that marketing is working, see...??) and is non-functional...i.e..the splitter look common on the undertale of some passenger cars and fake scoops and ram ducts so it hardly applies that it was developed in racing if it is non-functional.

You did mention a "damn thing" about all the analysis or whatever that "racing" does to optimize engine performance and connection rod design, etc... Read your post. That is what I was talking about. Much of that comes from aerospace, yes. Never said it didn't. I just said that racing didn't invent it as you implied. And the automotive industry did a lot of the work regarding computational fluid dynamics as it applies to port flows, combustion chamber and in cylinder mixture motion and coolant and fluid flow in the engine. Not racing. Racing uses it now but neither racing nor aerospace invented it.

Remember, this is just an interesting discussion. Nothing personal. I could argue your point of view pretty effectively also..... I just like to see what items people think racing invented or that passenger cars picked up from racing. I still don't see much if anything in passenger cars and passenger car engines and transmissions that comes out of racing. There are some limited production high performance vehicles that take cues from racing programs, yes. Much of this is driven by marketing. Sometimes the technology is actually invented for the passenger car and used on a race car for the marketing pop and/or durability testing.

One of the main things racing brings to passenger car development is the racetrack itself. Testing production cars on racetracks can definitely affect development in some program. It certainly makes high performance cars better on the performance end of the spectrum. But just because a car wouldn't work well on a race track doesn't mean that it cannot be an excellent vehicle in its own right...as some people could care less about how a car performs.

I find that racers feel very strongly about what racing has done (supposedly) for passenger cars but never seem to even recognize the amount of technology that comes from passenger cars to the race track. There is a far greater tide in the direction of production to racing rather than the opposite.

I'll leave it to you to decide whether inner liners for NASCAR developed in the 60's relate to runflat tires of today.... Maybe the idea took that long to germinate. I doubt that there is still a Goodyear engineer still working that worked on both so we'll never know. In any case, the idea may be the same to some extent but the technology to do it has NOTHING in common and no racing series uses production runflat technology in their tires. Runflat tires are generally regarded as the first thing that the real performance guys remove from their factory hot rod and replace with a non-runflat tire that offers greater performance. The sidewall technology that allows runflat technology is counterproductive to most things pure performance related. Check with your Goodyear guy.

I use some GM examples because that is what I am familiar with. I never meant to imply that GM invented everything or anything in racing or otherwise. Just some examples that popped into my mind reading your list. Every manufacturer has similar items that come along in passenger car development and racing and sometimes are related and sometimes aren't.

 

[jestal]

I never said anything about electronic gauges or dashes being in racing first...
I won't even touch on the oval piston racers Honda developed prior to them producing a street version with oval pistons called an NR-750.

What were you refering to in your list when you listed "electronic instrumentation" then....???...LOL LOL

Please bring up the oval piston engine. Please. I would love to debate that. I was such a resounding success in "passenger vehicle" use wasn't it.....LOL. Oval pistons were simply a dodge around the rules that said the engine couldn't have more than 4 cylinders. Honda wanted more valve area so they took the valve area of a V8 and simply combined cylinders to make oval pistons. Technically it was a 4 cylinder per the rules. Practically speaking it was a V8. Even had two connecting rods per piston. Never could get out of it's way pretty much then or now. Notice a lot of oval piston engines running around. That is just a technical exercise at circumventing a contrived rule of the racing series that had absolutely NO impact on any production or passenger vehicle engine anywhere anytime. The ONLY reason Honda made a "street" version was to save face and so they could actually claim that the technology made it off the race track. They are all in musueums, aren't they? If you can claim a single technical advantage of an oval piston (other than being a contrived way to circumvent the rules about number of cylinders...) I would love to hear it. Aside from the hideous problems with machining the parts and rings and sealing issues of a non-round ring the combustion tendencies of that large of a combustion chamber flies directly in the face of current technology. It was an abortion brought about by an anomaly of racing. Not something to be brought up as an example of "racing technology" being transfered to the street. Please.

 

[jestal]

Say what you will about aero, but nothing beat the sight and sound of a bunch of McLarens, Chaparrals, Lolas, and Porsches all bespoilered, ground effect clad (remember Hall's 'Sucker' Chappy?) Can Am cars rippin' up the tracks back in the early 70's. Revson, Andretti, Donahue, Fulmer, Stuart, Rodriguez, Gurney, et al - now those *******s gave a good show! I still remember the demo race those guys put on at Limerock Park in '71 or '72. Woof.

There was another trend on the short tracks around the midwest that I remember in the same way. The short track stock car guys ("late models" they were usually called) started putting on huge spoilers and then started making them out of lexan so that they were clear and the driver following could see thru them and still see the track ahead. Randy Sweet built a special outlaw late model with giant, multi-element front and rear wings made completely of lexan that he toured around the midwest setting absolute track records. The wings were just awsome in size and complexity and function. The cars were completely glued to the track like slot cars and the the clear wings sparkled and shimmered in the lights at night. They didn't last long before they were all outlawed for various reasons.

 

[twowheelnut]

There was another trend on the short tracks around the midwest that I remember in the same way. The short track stock car guys ("late models" they were usually called) started putting on huge spoilers and then started making them out of lexan so that they were clear and the driver following could see thru them and still see the track ahead. Randy Sweet built a special outlaw late model with giant, multi-element front and rear wings made completely of lexan that he toured around the midwest setting absolute track records. The wings were just awsome in size and complexity and function. The cars were completely glued to the track like slot cars and the the clear wings sparkled and shimmered in the lights at night. They didn't last long before they were all outlawed for various reasons.

Holy crap!!!! Randy Sweet?! Lemme get in the Way Back machine, Sherman! I *vaguely* remember reading about him/the car some where in one of the bazillion rags I was reading at the time... (Kids. Huh. Could never get enough of racing, eh?) Thanks for the memories, jestal.

 

[Scab]

I loves techno-*****-slappin.

Hey, no fair. I didn't get no techno-*****-slap.

 

[twowheelnut]

I loves techno-*****-slappin.

Hey, no fair. I didn't get no techno-*****-slap.

Stand in line. There's plenty to go around.

 

[Scab]

Thanks, TWN, I was starting to feel neglected.

 

[fjrchik]

Dang. I thought this was about cuppycakes and advertising. now it's 5 pages of... well nevermind what i think.

don't feel neglected scabalicious! i'm here for ya. unless of course you prefer manlove. lots of that going around here lately.

 

[Woodstock]

Was the idea of "make it go faster" developed for racing first?

 

[Rogue]

Was the idea of "make it go faster" developed for racing first?

No, Racing was developed as an excuse for "make it go faster"!

 

[Fencer]

Did anybody mention that Goodyear's unidirectional Eagles have a direct linage to (or should I say from) their F1 rain tires?

I told you my stuff was "race inspired"

 

[JimLor]

Damn, can we get some college credits for reading this? Very, very interesting discussion. I'm with the crowd that wants to go back to cars that the drivers actually have to, well, drive! I'd much prefer to watch F1 of the 60s than today. Yeah, the cars are technological marvels, but when you have a car that once you get into a corner safely you can floor it and it'll keep you from spinning out, well I think that takes too much of the driver out of the race. Guys in short sleeve white button down shirts with loose ties, pocket protectors (oops, thumb drives hanging around their necks) and trousers that are 4" too short (show their white socks) w/cushioned wing tip "like" shoes are the real racers today! That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[L8RG8R]

Personally, I think its absolutely fantastic how far Danica has come. If I were her, I'd want to put my name and face on everything I could. Good for her!!

As far as racing goes, MotoGP, SBK, AMA, etc.... are about the only things that hold my attention. Maybe its the ADD... :hyper:

 

[twowheelnut]

Newman's on the pole today, Jr's starting 11th... Martin rolls off in 6th. Hmmmmm, GO MARK!

:****: