163 replies to this topic

[TSR]

The Asp had two axles and without its front wheels its is an instant tilter.
What may LOOK similar, may not work similarly...

[JohnnySlotcar]

Is that a "D" rail chassis? LOL

[TSR]

Yes, it D-railed alright.

[GotToRace]

The Asp had two axles and without its front wheels its is an instant tilter.
What may LOOK similar, may not work similarly...

Right Philippe, the Classic ASP had wide front wheels. I'm quite familiar with the ASP. It was my favorite car in 1966. Didn't race with it, just a neat car to play with. The Classic chassis has a number of issues being so loosely fitting. I took my ASP body and put it on a Dynamic chassis with a Globe motor and the fun level went through the roof. I "lost" the car over the years; another long story. I've spent a stupid amount of cash on eBay to recoup the memories. The DW body would sure be fun to play with in a modern scratch built chassis. I'm going to start working toward that goal.

BTW I think Dominator pulls the ASP bodies.

[MG Brown]

I am not quite sure what to make of this news?

 

Panoz Takes Over DeltaWing Project

[GotToRace]

Yeah! A DW Coupe! Now that IS a modern 1:1 Asp. Cooooooool.

[TSR]

Coupe design provides cleaner aero. When a car like the Deltawing is designed on pure aero, it is a desirable feature even if limiting the view to the driver.

As far as Dave Price, the only time Panoz cars truly performed was when he ran the team. As long as Dany Panoz (Don's son) stays away from this project, it might succeed.

[A. J. Hoyt]

I saw a front 3/4 view of the Audi (on the ALMS web site) and it appears that the front tires are very nearly (if not) the same size as the rear tires. I believe this is an AWD hybrid, with the front tires storing some of the braking energy (they receive the most of it) and regenerating it into a FWD contribution while on the straight later, kind of like the F1 KERS system (though I think the F1 couple in additional drive torque into the transaxle).

 

I can't help but be struck by how high the front tire fender arches are in front of the driver. I have sat in a modern IndyCar (was driven by Max Papis, was surprised I could get out of it) and was really impressed with how much the front view is obscured by those front tires! I couldn't see how the drivers could navigate to hit the corner apexes (they do seem to hit the corner humps pretty often). This Delta Wing car doesn't have that problem!

 

My comments on the (near) three wheeler draws me back to Mark Donohue's trail braking, where most of the braking is done on a straight line (sticking to the outside of the turn on entry), trailing off the brakes (exchanging longitudinal grip for lateral - friction circle theory) and transitioning turn-in to get the car rotating about the vertical axis. Shifting the brakes dominantly to the rear tires (behind the CG) is sheer genius because it is inherently stable!

 

In that case, the narrow front track is not an issue because the turn-in does not require a wide front track (or trail-braking friction circle management at the front tires!), instead, using the long leverage of the front tires to immediately induce rotation into the chassis, then go immediately into leaning on the outside cornering rear tire to apply power and create lateral traction. That is why modern race cars size the rear tires much larger, to carry huge amounts of lateral cornering and forward propel in the same friction circle.

 

The two larger rear tires create this wide track stability with the front tire really only a forward rudder to point the car out of the corner. The wide track at the rear allows the re-emergence of well designed venturi tunnels in the back (this is virtually "free" negative lift - very low drag / negative lift ratio and can be designed to stall at high speeds so that the drag doesn't continue to increase as a squared relation to the forward velocity). Also, one has the design lattitude to place the center of pressure right where you want it (fore or aft of the CG) to suit the style of the driver.

 

Tire theory has always held that the square inches of the contact patch of the tire is independent of its width (wider tires just create an oval shape of the contact patch that is wide laterally). This being the case, the two narrow (4 inch wide) front tires being narrowly spaced would create two nearly equal amounts of normal force with flat carcass contact (very little camber and very little camber change due to chassis roll). Conventional widely spaced wide front tires require lots of static initial camber so that the inside cornering tire is usually riding on its inside edge and not contributing much (doesn't have much normal force against the road surface anyway).

 

The narrow front track creates what we think (intuitively) as a low drag shape. However, the teardrop (or rain drop, with front end bigger and rounder, trailing edge narrowing to a point) has a much lower drag coefficient at sub-sonic speeds. The rain drop assumes this shape naturally for this reason. At sub-sonic speeds, any aerodynamicist will tell you it is much more important how you "release" the air behind the vehicle (avoiding drag-inducing trailing vortices, etc.) than how you pierce the air in the front. Underwings do a better job of releasing air that can quickly become laminar where rear wings with gurney flaps or sedan bodies with spoilers create all manner of drag-inducing turbulence.

 

Therefore, this design is actually sacrificing some overall drag efficiency for negative lift efficiency (drag vs. lift).

 

There are a lot of things on this car that look intuitively correct that aren't and a lot of things that look intuitively incorrect that just may be correct.

 

I do Multi-Body Simulation at the highest level as a vocation. MBD and CFD predictive simulation (properly used) will keep any concept that does not "deliver the goods" from ever advancing to the hardware level - especially when there is no racing series "home" that has paid for and is awaiting for these vehicles to arrive.

 

It is hard for a group like Ganassi or Panoz to expend so many resources on a whim - follow the money trail and you will see that this idea MUST have actual performance merit. If nothing else, they might be better "trainers" as you can actually see the corner apexes (no front tires in the way).

 

I think the corners at most established road courses are going to get much bigger in radius (like the GP bikes or narrow karts can typically exploit to good advantage) because the inside front tire is tucked in at least 3 feet to the outside (while cornnering) with this design. That will come when drivers learn to "pitch" the cars into the corners and aim to hit the curbs with the inside rear wheel.

 

I think Don Panoz got into the act too late. With the Grand Am and ALMS merger, it appears that the NASCAR-run Grand Am is running the show; the P1 class is going away (in 2014) and these Delta Wings will be relegated to the P2 class if allowed to run at all. How will any US teams get an invite to the LeMans 24 hours in 2014? I hope they have figured this out. I'm sad to see the top level prototypes disappear from US soil.

 

A lot of food for thought.

 

Keep it in the slot (our corner radii are fixed by the slots),

 

AJ

[TSR]

NASCAR destroys everything it swallows.

[TSR]

Deltawing now sporting a Mazda engine and Bridgestone tires, CLICK HERE.

 

While a bit behind in preparation, it should run at Sebring. Two more are being built. Put another 100 HP in that thing (still 150 to 200 HP less than its competition) and it should clean up in P2. I really hope it does.

[MG Brown]

New livery for DeltaWing starting with Sebring.... a little too close to McLaren F1 for my taste.

 

http://www.alms.com/...livery-unveiled

 

 

[Zippity]

And what's wrong with the McLaren F1 car? 

 

I'm rooting for Jenson this year.

 

 

PS Can I change my opinion on the DeltaWing?  It's kinda growing on me

[A. J. Hoyt]

This is the most exciting thing to happen to race car design since the original Indy turbine car, in my opinion.

 

I wrote my post before watching any of the videos (awesome driving impressions and interviews with the designer). I think Ben Bowlby is a genius and was given a platform to develop a very radical concept. The cool thing is, they legislate a maximum tire width and track width for the front tires and this violates neither! It SHOULD be allowed to run in the open cockpit P2 class with no special designation (except, now the rear tires seem to not be covered by bodywork - close those up!)!

 

Ben took big risks to develop this car because a race car designer is only as good as his most recent design. If he had "flubbed" this overall concept, he would be a forgotten footnote in racing history and had to pick a new career. He did a great job implementing radically new ideas that all have significant merit and should be commended.

 

This is exactly where prototype racing SHOULD be allowed to go! Now, please consider allowing radical power trains and alternative fuels - wait, that didn't work out so well, did it? Besides, next year these will all be obsoleted so that the NASCAR-ized (dumbed-down) Grand Am "prototype" racers are the top tier attention-getters.

 

Enjoy each and every race in this last year of true prototype racing on US soil!

 

Lamentations, all,

 

AJ

[MG Brown]

DeltaWing in new livery during first practice day, Sebring.