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So a video surfaced of a DOME car running on the Twin Ring Motegi Oval from the late 90's that has piqued my interest. It is supposed to have been DOME's "oval racer". Were DOME thinking of entering the IRL or CART? I know they had built a F1 car that never raced due to funding but I am curious about whether or not they had any serious interest in Oval racing over here
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Originally posted by senorsoupe View Post
Quick thinking.
IRL mandated specified and accepted chassis by (eventually) either G-Force and/or Dallara.
If Dome had intentions to go to IRL then they must have had to make that public in order to be accepted as manufacturer. And no doubt that would have made the news bulletins. Pretty sure that IRL would have used this kind of interest expressed to boost their reputation.
Dome is not known to insist on using Japanese built engines. So no matter had it been IRL or CART, they could have been open for teaming up with whatever engine supplier was willing to supply them. Or use engiens that were used by whatever team decided to use their chassis.
But somehow, I would expect them to be more open for Japanese brands than for others. IRL then had only a single option: Infiniti. And that was anything but a success.
CART on the other hand had Honda that by now was well arrived and serious business, while Toyota was trying to get a foothold too. But Toyota wasn't very much of a success at all and alrerady kind of comitted to another chassis builder: Eagle.
Anyway, with the IRL policy in mind of allowing only contructors they approved, it looks to me that CART was their more likely option.
I realize that the following thought comes close to promoting virginity within a brothel but still....
Remembering that between '96 and 2K CART had already chassis builders involved like Penske, Reynard, Lola, Eagle, Swift,. Had Dome joined the club, I don't know if they would have been successfull, the strides of all brands but Reynard during that era in mind. But for sure that it would have been quite a sign of strength for the CART series to see that kind of participation of different brands. But as history approved, it was a strenght at the wrong places to survive.
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The car is briefly addressed in the book "Unraced..." in association with Dome's stillborn F105 F1 car. I believe the ML was intended for a potential Japanese series focusing on Motegi, sort of an Indy Lights over in Japan, presumably to act as a feeder to Honda backed CART rides. I have to wonder if the ML thus would have stood for "Motegi Lights".Originally posted by senorsoupe View Post
I can't access the Japanese Dome Museum website website right now, but the Google search result has the following line: 1998 ML PROTOTYPE. A next generation formula car built for the oval course races to be held by Mugen.
Here's a link to some photos in both road course and oval configs, it definitely has some resemblances to CART cars of the era. especially with the sidepods, but it has more junior formula dimensions: http://dome-museum.com/041_ml.htmlComment
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OK so the video piqued interest and apparently DOME and Honda were looking to launch an oval racing series in Japan called "Motegi Lights"
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Amazing thanks! I just loaded up twitter and there is a lot of chatter on that thread, much of it in Dutch!Originally posted by ACCP View PostComment
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