bob palmer

I find it interesting that NASCAR has it's own little clique of Dodge, Chevy
and Ford-and it gets all the media attention. I am assuming all the rules
and regs for their cars are to mainly keep out Toyota and Honda from
breaking into their little club. When I grew up, the Indy cars had all the
attention. I wondered why you have to really dig to find news about Indy
now. I find the cars are all Toyota and Honda. Thank you Danika Patrick for
bringing some attention back to Indy. When I hear who ever won the recent
NASCAR race, I think to myself, "It must have been his turn to win."

mike hunter

Perhaps that is the reason nobody suports indy car racing any more.

mike hunt

hachiroku

Man, have you seen the Antifreeze commercial with Danic?!?!
Whoooo Hooooo!

flobert

Yes, they're all the same engine. The cars are all made by raynard to
the prince's spec, and he bought all 50 for the teams (2 per team, 25
country-teams). Cars designed to make a big hole in the air behind, to
help with overtaking, plus a push-to-pass boost button. All engines
made by a company called Zytec, and lots of scrutineers around to make
sure everyones the same. Everyones even running the same cooper tyres,
although theere are 2 different compounds available


Driver AND pitcrew. There's a manditory pit stop to change all 4 tyres
in the 'feature race'


no probs. For those that don't know, the race format goes like this...
Theres a free practice on the friday
saturday a little practice, and then 4 qualifying sessiosn. Each one
is 15 minutes long, and teams are allowed an out lap, a flying lap,
and a in lap in each. something like 5-10mins between each sessions.
They then take the drivers best TWO times, and add them together, and
base the grid for the sprint off that There is only one car for each
team, so no blocking, team orders etc.

Sprint race is about 18 laps, or half an hour long. Takes place about
1:30pm on the sunday. No pit stops etc. 10 for first, 9 for second and
so on, down to 1 for 10th. Finishing order is then the grid for the
longer feature race that takes place around 3pm. its a hour/36ish lap
race, with a manditory tyre change pitstop. Standing start, F1 style.
Pits are one person per wheel, and no-one to leave the garage, except
the flagman, until the cars stopped. , and the cars must make a pass
over the start-finish line at racing speed with both sets of tyres.
Same points layout for the finish of the feature race, and therse an
aditional point to whoever gets the fastest lap over the two races.
Thats is basiaclly. The engines are 520hp standard, 550hp when under
the 'power boost' (get 4 in the sprint, and 8 in the feature - they're
limited to 30second length, and only work when you've got your
throttle wide open, press the button when you're braking, and you've
wasted one.

Very good, close racing, and a wide range of experiance too, from
former F1 driver jos Verstappen for Holland, down (i don't know if the
russian and chineese drivers ever really did single-seater racing
before)

hachiroku

After today's race, Chevrolet dropped out as a supplier of engines to the
Indy Racing League (IRL)

Interesting. Although previous Indianapolis 500's have had their share of
British engines as well as American iron, the 2006 Indy 500 will most
likely be a fight between the best from Honda and Toyota. There may be a
stray entry of an older car with a Chevy, but IRL is now All Japanese when
it comes to engines!

jim beam

do you find it ironic?

hachiroku

Not really. The Japanese have been creeping into the world racing scenes,
and their engines have been getting better and better. I am curious as to
why Cevy dropped the ball, though.

brent secombe

Still, it seems an odd digression from a quest for more economical
engines, doesn't it? As the public becomes sensitised to squandering
our grandchildren's energy supplies, will corporations benefit by being
associated with the waste?

Brent

jim beam

paradoxically, it's not. to get every watt out of a racing engine, you
have to design to get that energy out of the fuel. in terms of energy
output per liter burned, F1 engines are some of the most efficient in
the world. and it's no coincidence that F1 racing is also fuel limited.
that technology is directly usable in the world of domestic economy
engine design. whether detroit /chooses/ to use it is another matter
entirely. look at the specific output [watts per liter] of honda &
toyota engines and compare them with detroit hunkojunks.

hachiroku

Hmmmm....interesting take on the problem.

Except, you DO know these engines run on Methanol, right? And that
methanol is made from Corn (methanol is actually a form of grain alchohol,
or "White Lightening" or "Moonshine")

If anything, the means to ectract 700+ HP from an engine running Grain
Alchohol should be commended. Add to that the fact they've been doing it
for almost 20 years now, and the real question SHOULD be, why aren't we
developing this technology for street cars.

Now, at the current time, methanol is VERY expensive, mush more than
gasoline. IIRC, the current price for methanol racing fuel is about $6 per
gallon, but this is a purely refined form.

If the technology came into use more, there is no reason why the car
you're driving couldn't un on 25-30% methanol. And if the government had
taken note, instead of playing ball with the fuel companies for the last
20 years, there would have been plenty of oil if there had been more
widespread ethanol replacement. I have been running a 10% mixture of
gasoline and ethanol in one of my cars for almost 20 years now (I seek the
stuff out!) and it still seems to be running just fine. Now the IRL has
announced it will be running an Ethanol/Methanol mix beginning for the
year 2006.

ALL CART/Champ Cars/IRL cars have been running on Methanol since 1979 or
1980.

Actually, I'm wrong. From the IRL page:
"Methanol has been the fuel of choice in cars running in the Indianapolis
500 since 1965. A fatal accident involving drivers Eddie Sachs and Dave
MacDonald on the second lap of the 1964 Indianapolis 500 prompted the
switch."


http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/activitybook/fs-alcohol.html

http://www.mocorn.org/news/2005/News%20Release3-03-05.htm

http://www.g-forse.com/archive/news356_e.html