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As an engineer I was very happy to read this yesterday, may even have to submit some questions of my own
"It’s a four-turn road course. It’s not an oval, and there are four different corners there. If you are a good oval driver, it doesn’t matter there" -TK -
Second half, explains where some of those Lotus chassis have gone.
Anti-stall is now required."A good example of this is Lotus bought three cars from us, then they were bought from Lotus by teams like [Buddy] Lazier. HVM had a chassis that he brought to Andretti last year. Dragon bought a chassis and now Schmidt bought it like you say, so it is sold three times now. Conquest bought a chassis from us and used it once at Indy, then it was purchased by Andretti. We don't get involved in those sales, but the teams sell to each by themselves."
I also got in the aerokit question for Cosworth, although that was largely answered by Cosworth's CEO.No argument there, Max. Thankfully, IndyCar has changed the rules for 2014 and now require manufacturers to enable anti-stall. It was optional from 2012-'13. It isn’t the same as having on-board starters, but provided the systems work consistently, it’s a decent workaround.
To be competitive, yes, but there’s no requirement for any of the manufacturers to produce aero kits for their teams, nor do the teams have to buy them. With Chevy tasking Pratt & Miller to design their kit, and Honda using Wirth Research to do theirs, any manufacturer running the stock Dallara bodywork will be at a significant disadvantage."If your car was a dog, then you had to figure it out and test your own limits. And we didn't go to a wind tunnel – we did it in the first turn at Indianapolis."Comment
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I really liked his explanation of the third spring/shock. Makes perfect sense to add spring rate when both sides of the suspension are compressed, it's a good way to control ride height under high downforce situations. However, with the rocker on the top of the third spring, it acts as a summation point. So if one side of the suspension compresses and the other side does not, then the third spring/shock compresses half the distance and you still get some additional spring force. If one side compresses and the other side actually goes up an equal amount, there is no movement of the third spring/shock and no additional forces are added. Very cool, but also would drive me nuts trying to tune the darn thing!!!
Spike, I know you have had race cars in the past, did you ever have one with a third spring/shock set up? If so, I'm sure you can add to this conversation with your knowledge. Thanks.Comment
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