Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

Nah... DW98 would be better IMO. DW77 sounds a bit macabre considering that he hasn't had any achievements or anything with that number... It was only the one he had for his last 2 races, that's all.

Big +1 to Jimmy Spencer anyway, although I'm yet to see a mention in mainstream medias over here(I was a bit surprised it didn't come yet, as Dana's death made it to some of the news in 2004. However it wasn't treated in a very respectuous fashion IIRC, they were a bit like "hang on everyone, have a look at this spectacular crash from the US; the guy died, scary eh?":really.

The news was quite big here, got the back page of the news paper in sydney.

But they seemed to be more concered with the safety of power rather the dans death(power is regarded as one of our best drivers currently).

Meh it should be DW05 in honor of his championship.

It should just be called the Dallara Wheldon, enough of the stupid codenames for every single-seater.

Quote from Senninha25 :

It should just be called the Dallara Wheldon, enough of the stupid codenames for every single-seater.

So the DW chassis?

That's fine with me too, don't really need a number.

Replace the Iconic tag with wheldon, numbers are pointless.

Quote from Kid222 :

^ That.

Also copypaste from one forums, it was said to be Tagliani's phone call with Bernard:

-I just spoke to Randy Bernard 5mins ago on the phone for 1/2hr.
-Starting today, I can guarantee you that there will be some unique developments to our cars.
-We are not saying we will never race on an oval again, but the cars of the future, once they arrive on ovals, will look like nothing we have even seen before.
-The wings will be removed, the nose of the cars will be modified, the rear wings will disappear, the cars will have less downforce, the wheels will be protected on the sides with added components, same thing for the rear wheels, the cars will not be the same and will not have the same look as cars that run road courses.
-Maybe this will bring us forward to a new technological level, to the point where we can say we still run on ovals, the Indy 500 is still an integral part of the series, but our cars are 99.9% safe.
-If we can get to this level of security, at least Dan's incident will not have happened in vain.

Wouldn't less downforce make the cars more unstable? Or are they trying to create understeer. But less downforce would also create more speed.

Unless this is a joke..

Quote from lizardfolk :

http://indiana.sbnation.com/ra ... that-indycar-should-leave



Thank you Mario and AJ...

Jimmie is just saying that he does not see a feasible way to make them 100% safe on ovals and that he would not put himself in those shoes. Though the no more ovals comment at the end was definately too blunt. But I do not think he meant it that way. I think he was probably meaning that they need to get safety straightened out first.

Quote from Bmxtwins :

Wouldn't less downforce make the cars more unstable? Or are they trying to create understeer. But less downforce would also create more speed.

Unless this is a joke..

Is this a joke? This isn't drag racing we are talking about.

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

Even if they wanted to, the FIA couldn't just take over running the IICS. There's a little known rule that when a series is both an FIA member and in its home country, it does not have to abide by FIA rules.

Which is just as well frankly. I have this inane fear the FIA would **** up Indycar racing as we know it and make it F1-like.

Calm down ffs.

Quote :

"As part of our standard safety protocol, a full investigation has been launched by IndyCar, with assistance from the Automobile Competition Committee of the United States (ACCUS) and Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the national and international governing organisation, to determine the factors involved in this accident.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95518

ps. Gian Paolo Dallara says here (otherwise unrelated story) that the car will be called "DW01 or something similar".

Quote from Bmxtwins :

Wouldn't less downforce make the cars more unstable? Or are they trying to create understeer. But less downforce would also create more speed.

Unless this is a joke..

No.
No.
No.

Not necessarily, I'm sure they would set up their cars to be stable enough with no downforce.

No, it's talking about removing downforce from both ends of the car.

Less downforce would create less speed, because they won't be able to run through the corners as fast (flat out).

Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

Less downforce would create less speed, because they won't be able to run through the corners as fast (flat out).

Well if you have no downforce front and rear with teh same poweroutput that these cars have, they will be spinning as soon as they get into the banking.

Quote from BlueFlame :

Well if you have no downforce front and rear with teh same poweroutput that these cars have, they will be spinning as soon as they get into the banking.

This is probably the stupidist thing I have heard, And where does it say there will be no downforce?

They said there going to replace the wings but they are likely to get down force from else where, besides what you just said is wrong on all counts.

Quote from BlueFlame :

Well if you have no downforce front and rear with teh same poweroutput that these cars have, they will be spinning as soon as they get into the banking.

why? The car essentially becomes an Ariel Atom V8 (at 1350lb, 500hp, no wings) , and those are perfectly able to navigate tracks without spinning.

EDIT : I am mixing Ariel Atom versions here I think. The V8 version has 500hp and wings, the regular has only 300 and no wings. Still, I think it'd be possible to drive the v8 with no wings, since wings provide little downforce at low speeds anyways (for the starts.)

Also, downforce can come from other areas.

traction isn't an issue at speed after that its a downforce issue.

Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

why? The car essentially becomes an Ariel Atom V8 (at 1350lb, 500hp, no wings) , and those are perfectly able to navigate tracks without spinning.

EDIT : I am mixing Ariel Atom versions here I think. The V8 version has 500hp and wings, the regular has only 300 and no wings. Still, I think it'd be possible to drive the v8 with no wings, since wings provide little downforce at low speeds anyways (for the starts.)

Also, downforce can come from other areas.

What I'm saying is you can't just take downforce elements away and expect the car will still stick. If you took the current indycar and tookoff both wings you'd find it would spin almost un-aided. Lets say, if you catapult an Ariel Atom to 200 MPH, there's only so much lateral load it will take before downforce is crucial to car stability (i.e, not spinning). What keeps a car as light as the current Indycar into the banking is the downforce, because it's light. (lighter than say, a stock car)

Ironically, at high speed, what keeps a car more stable is its overall weight and weight positioning (without any aero devices). Take all the aero from a Nascar and Indycar, the Nascar will be 10fold more stable at high speed.


Take the aero off a F1 car, yea it's gonna slow drivers down, because the quickest way around the track would be to slow down, and not crash, but if you are already at vMax turning into a banking, you are relying on your tyres and weight alone.. You take aero away and you take a big amount of stability, and at high speed, stability is quite bloody important.

Clarification: FIA not formally involved in the investigation: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95531

Quote from BlueFlame :

What I'm saying is you can't just take downforce elements away and expect the car will still stick. If you took the current indycar and tookoff both wings you'd find it would spin almost un-aided. Lets say, if you catapult an Ariel Atom to 200 MPH, there's only so much lateral load it will take before downforce is crucial to car stability (i.e, not spinning). What keeps a car as light as the current Indycar into the banking is the downforce, because it's light. (lighter than say, a stock car)

Ironically, at high speed, what keeps a car more stable is its overall weight and weight positioning (without any aero devices). Take all the aero from a Nascar and Indycar, the Nascar will be 10fold more stable at high speed.


Take the aero off a F1 car, yea it's gonna slow drivers down, because the quickest way around the track would be to slow down, and not crash, but if you are already at vMax turning into a banking, you are relying on your tyres and weight alone.. You take aero away and you take a big amount of stability, and at high speed, stability is quite bloody important.

I'm not talking about you personally as I just cant split stuff up on my phone quickly and am sitting in class.

Okay so, they aren't talking about eliminating downforce, but reducing. They aren't going to completely remove the rear wing. It isn't going to be formula fords they are racing. The rear wing that is currently on there will be removed for a smaller wing or an innovative spoiler. The front wing will just not be as thick.

It's like the oval discussion we had. There's a difference in eliminating the superspeedways and eliminating all ovals. Eliminating wings or downforce just means eliminating a part of it to decrease the amount. I dont know if any of you have stood next to these cars in person, but they are freakin huge. The front wing alone is bigger than your body. They create massive loads of downforce when doing 225 mph, and they just want to reduce that.

If they dont want it flat out on those superspeedways, they are going to have to have less downforce than a NASCAR, as they weigh much less currently.

Once again not aiming it at you blueflame, its just the easiest way to respond on my phone.

Well if you remove all downforce all you have left is the body which produces aerodynamic lift. Which is not good for fast cars.

Also removing all the wings does not mean removing all downforce. There is still the undertray of the car which can produce tons of downforce very efficiently. The undertray might be the best way to produce good amount of downforce while not create pack racing at the same time because there are no wings creating big slipstream effect. But at the same time ground effects are kind of sensitive beast and you still need small wings to control the downforce balance between front and rear.

Of course with small rear wing you also give the drivers better visibility which can help avoiding wrecks happening in packs in front of you.

BlueFlame and Ray Kings might just be the two dumbest guys on this board, and that's really saying something.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

BlueFlame and Ray Kings might just be the two dumbest guys on this board, and that's really saying something.

I can often say fact and you'll try and dispute it. Eitherway, the problem can be solved by racing at different tracks. The downforce levels don't need changing (unless they insist on racing the same ovals.). But regardless it's not speed that kills, it's impact, and the type of impact incurred. You could crash at 80, and in the wrong way, still die. So racing on ovals in-general is still gonna create pack racing, at least in the following laps of a race start, and green flag situation. So maybe they should just stop racing ovals all together?

Quote from BlueFlame :

I can often say fact and you'll try and dispute it.

When have you ever said anything factual?

Something that just occurred to me, if they took off the wings all they would have would be the undertray, get on a bumpy oval and that's gone, it'd lead to more crashes wouldn't it?

Quote from BlueFlame :

So racing on ovals in-general is still gonna create pack racing, at least in the following laps of a race start, and green flag situation. So maybe they should just stop racing ovals all together?

The outgoing Indycar specifications preciptated races where cars ran side by side for lap after lap. Disregarding any safety issues, a racing series where cars can run flat out that easily is not a particularly challenging one, especially for what is supposed to be arguably the pinnacle of the American racing scene.

A series of cars with less downforce would definitely result in more cars ending up in the wall, but also a lesser chance of major pile ups (and the resultant flying cars). Modern Indycars can withstand a glancing blow from a smooth concrete/SAFER wall reasonably well, but no racing car tub can withstand an array of metal posts and wire at 150mph+ without unacceptable forces being placed upon the driver.

I think the most pressing need is a device which helps reduce the lift generated by an out of control car, Ryan Briscoe, Kenny Brack and Mike Conway have all lived to learn that flying into catch fencing hurts. Dan Wheldon and Jeff Krosnoff have paid the ultimate price. I think that's a clear enough sign that significant change is needed in several aspects of high speed racing.

The new Dallara chassis is a step in the right direction with its faired in rear wheels, I'm sure there will be purists that will object to it, but it will drastically reduce the risk of wheels interlocking and cars being launched skywards.

I think the Kenny Brack crash was a call that Indycar never heard.

Things like this make me mad.

In other news, I am asking all World TBO Championship Series drivers to wear a Dan Wheldon tribute logo on their car this week. I figure it's the least I can do for the man. (I didn't make the logo, but I don't think there's anything more fitting than the one being used this weekend by NASCAR)

World TBO Championship Series Dan Wheldon Tribute Logo