Yeah, try that in drag racing.
Hehehe, in the top classes, there’s no time for that communication loop. The driver either feels that something’s wrong and gets out of it, or they don’t. Lower ones, umm…nah, even then 13 seconds isn’t a long time for someone besides the driver to notice a problem and convince the driver to lift. Not much use for driver radio in a drag race, huh?
But hey, from my understanding a Top Fuel team needs around $10 million to campaign a car. Eating aluminum hemis is relatively cheap.
But if anyone is going to have the reaction time to do so, it will be those drivers.
Oh man, I didn’t respond to this before: but yeah, any talk about the sound of sports car, race car or anything engines that doesn’t mention Top Fuel makes me think that person has not stood down by the timing lights and heard a Top Fuel dragster go by. If you stand by the start tree, they actually lower in pitch as they rev up and drive away, which is impressive itself WRT the Doppler effect.
But if you stand at the timing lights, it’s more impressive in a visceral sense. You see the dragster move, the sound starts up, and raises in pitch and volume until it gets to you. Those fuckers scream and boom at the same time. Probably the most amazing sound I’ve heard.
Not the safest place in the world to stand, but I can’t resist.
Hehee, yes indeedy. I’ve got good reaction times ( I can pull as close as what matters to a .400 light pretty often) . But, I don’t really think I have the presence of mind to match my reaction times when even a 1000HP car starts to lose grip. When I’ve even had the opportunity to launch even 400 HP drag cars, I kinda felt like I was hanging on more than driving it.
To steer the topic back to the subject at hand: If you still follow Indy Car, what is the attraction? If it’s that it is a more pure driver competition?
I’ve been an IndyCar fan for 30+ years, and followed F1 off and on, especially during the Michael Schumacher era. While F1 had the technology and glamor (especially in the 60s), IndyCar has much, much better racing.
Downsides of IndyCar though are the spec chassis, only two engine manufacturers, and crashfests like we saw in St. Pete yesterday, which was disappointing. Veterans making boneheaded moves like that shouldn’t happen. Part of that was the offseason is too long; the 17-race season is too short.
@scabpicker “but after they started to restrict the engines to particular manufacturers,”
Sorry, but that’s wrong. The series has been trying for years to get more engine manufacturers into the series – it’d be better for everyone if there were more manufacturers involved. It’s a matter of justifying the expense; NASCAR has taken the ratings away since The Split, although CART/ChampCar/IndyCar merged with the IRL in 2008, so that can’t really be blamed anymore. So another downside is IndyCar’s marketing is piss poor. But they will be showing a “Drive to Survive” type show on the CW (…showing how piss poor the marketing is).
The upsides of IndyCar are of course the quality of on-track racing, and especially the diversity of tracks. No other series goes from street courses to permanent road courses to short ovals to superspeedways.
Finally, the attraction of IndyCar to me is the heritage of the series as a whole, the Indy 500 (both the history and prestige), the track diversity, and the level of racing competition. When the racing (i.e. passing, not just for the lead, but mid-pack as well) is good, it’s very, very good.
The Porsche 917/30 is usually credited with 1,100 hp in race trim (1,580 for qualifying). Are the current F1 engines more powerful than that?
Yeah, somehow I had got it in my head that the Honda V8 era was due to restricting mfrs. to keep cost down, rather than a lack of interest from other mfrs. That was incorrect.
They are at like 1050. In race trim (which is what I meant about “race engines”, not qualifying). And they only get 3 engines for the whole season. And I was specifically talking about F1.