Bottom End : Racing

Formula Ford 'Kent' Engine to be Reborn in the U.S. Plus New Duratec 1600cc Now Available for Formula Ford Owners

bbaker — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:58:00 GMT

Ford is to throw a lifeline to thousands of historic Formula Ford racers worldwide thanks to a decision to put the legendary 'Kent' engine block back into production. Engineering work has already begun at Ford Racing’s Performance Parts division in the USA, with sales scheduled to start in 2010.

The 'Kent' engine began its production life 50 years ago, and was the perfect choice of power unit when Formula Ford was created in Britain in 1967. Though the engine was superseded at the top level of Formula Ford racing in the UK in 1993, between 5000 and 7000 'Kent'-engined cars are competing around the globe and engine parts are becoming increasingly scarce.

Now expertise gained by Ford Racing Performance Parts through its remanufacturing of classic Ford road car engine blocks, like that for the original Mustang, is to be put to good use on the 'Kent'.

“Our parts division has many years of expertise in re-making blocks,” says Ford Racing Engineering Supervisor Andy Slankard, “and we are going to take our knowledge of modern techniques to remanufacture the 'Kent' block and improve its durability. Our aim is not to make performance gains but to strengthen it and to make the unit more reliable.

“There are many thousands of 'Kent'-engined Formula Ford cars still racing around the world – particularly in the USA, which never adopted the Ford Zetec engine which replaced it in Europe – and we believe that the majority of owners of these historic machines will want to retain the originality of their car by using a genuine Ford engine.”

The news is welcomed by Mike Norton, Motorsport Manager Ford of Europe: “It is fantastic news that the legendary 'Kent' engine is to be reborn. This engine powered some of motorsport’s greatest names to their first championship successes – drivers like Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Nigel Mansell and Mika Hakkinen – and we very much hope that the plan to remanufacture the unit will lead to even more names being added to the list of Formula Ford greats in future seasons.”

Historic Formula Ford cars competing at Brands Hatch

New Duratec 1600cc, 108 HP engine

Another alternative for Formula Ford owners is the launch of an all-new version of the Ford Duratec 1600cc engine, offering 108 hp (110 PS). This engine is designed to complement the highly successful 152 hp (155 PS) Duratec unit, the engine which since its introduction in 2006 has powered Formula Ford back into the single-seater limelight.

The new Duratec 1600cc engine, which has been in development for the last 12 months, will be available from the end of 2009 with a price tag expected to be around £5,000. The new engine can be fitted into new Formula Ford chassis, or in older cars as a replacement for the 1600cc Kent or Zetec 1800cc engines.

“The new power unit will be ideal for fitment in new chassis; it will be a stepping stone to the more powerful Duratec engines used in the MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain and other series worldwide,” says Norton, “and the engine will be made available throughout world, from the US to Europe, Australia to Africa.”

The highly robust and efficient 1.6 litre Duratec engine, as used in the Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta road cars, has proven a very successful race engine in Formula Ford championships around the world.

Formula Ford historic car with the Kent engine

Current British Formula Ford Championship

The 1600cc 110 PS specification:

· Ford Duratec all-aluminium 1600cc 16-valve engine

· Unique induction system with K&N cone filter, bespoke throttle body and cast aluminium alloy inlet manifold

· Unique Formula Ford dry-sump system with twin scavenge, single pressure and separate toothed-belt drive

· Formula Ford specific ‘stretchy’ belt front end accessory drive to standard water pump

· Bespoke motorsport ECU

· Bespoke motorsport engine wiring harness

· Power output: 110PS @ 6750rpm

· Torque: 150Nm@5250

Photo of the low powered 1.6L 110 PS Duratec engine (Courtesy of Ford Racing)

New Audi R15 wins Sebring 12 Hour, Porsche's legendary 917 turns 40!

bbaker — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:38:00 GMT

It seemed an unlikely beginning to the season, given Audi's newly developed R15 TDI diesel race machine pitted against a potent field of contenders like Acura's new LMP1 and the always quick and stylish Peugeot 908 HDI at the hands of Formula One drivers no less. Still, Audi has a record of winning out of the box and put in its usual ho-hum, but somehow exciting, performance at the historic 12 Hours of Sebring this past weekend.

Audi R15 TDI Wins 12 Hours Of Sebring

From Jalopnik

Audi emerged victorious at the 12 Hours of Sebring tonight with their new R15 TDI racer piloted by Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen, taking the checkered flag 22.279 seconds ahead of Peugeot.

Audi's brand new R15 TDI whomped on the French with a 1st place finish over the 2nd place Peugeot 908 HDI. It was an epic battle between the two diesel powers and McNish in the #2 car was able to take the lead around the 42-minute mark when Peugeot driver, Montagny, made a final fuel-only pit stop. McNish was able to maintain his overall lead, clicking off faster and faster laps that allowed him to gain enough of a gap to eventually win the 100th ALMS race, the 57th Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring.

Can they repeat this epic win in Le Mans? We're sure that Peugeot will bring their A-game, but with Audi's amazing performance today, we're not so sure it the French will win on their home turf.

-----

Porsche did not have a great day at this weekend's 12 Hours of Sebring, but at least they can kick back and relish their past glories in sportscar racing.

from Autoblog by Sam Abuelsamid

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Porsche 917

Forty years ago this week at the Geneva Motor Show, Porsche rolled out what would become one of the most successful racing cars of all time. The Porsche 917 was born of new FIA homologation rules that required a "production" run of at least 25 examples before the car could take to the track. Over the next several years, 917 variants in several different body styles including short- and long-tail closed coupes and open-top "spyder" models would win wherever they went, including Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring and the Can-Am series.

All 65 examples that were ultimately built were powered by an air-cooled flat twelve-cylinder. The first coupes used a 4.5-liter normally aspirated 520 horsepower engine while the penultimate example was the 917/30 spyder. This 1,200-hp turbocharged beast swept Can-Am in the hands of Mark Donohue, bringing the series to a climax in 1973 before the combination of the economy and Middle East oil embargo caused most major teams to withdraw. Seven of the 917s can now be seen in Porsche's new Stuttgart museum.

Guardian Angel Motorsports looks to Rolex 24 to raise money for charity

bbaker — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:08:00 GMT

Fellow engine builder and occasional Engine Builder Magazine contributor, Dana Johnson, called me the other day to alert me to a good cause. Being from Boston and being a Porsche guy, he somehow became connected with a doctor from the area who ran a GT3 car in the Rolex 24 at Daytona this past week for a charity called Guardian Angel Motorsports.

Guardian Angel Motorsports gives money to benefit Childrens Hospital. He called me to not only try to get me to pony up, but more importantly to spread the word. After all, that is something I can do something about.

Although the race is over, it’s not too late to make a pledge. To make a pledge today, click here.

From Guardian Angel Motorsports:
We are entering a Porsche 997 Grand-AM Spec GT3 Cup race car in the famous Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona sports car endurance race. You can help us reach our charity fund-raising goal by making a pledge based on the number of laps we complete.

All pledges are in support of Children's Hospital Boston.

Here are some videos and photos from the race:

The Porsche 911 GT3

American Le Mans Series kicks off Green Challenge for 2009

bbaker — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:52:00 GMT

It seems only a short time ago that a $60 barrel of oil caused great concern among industry business leaders, politicians and consumers. There are now predictions that $200 a barrel may be likely. Gasoline prices have escalated to all-time highs while automobile sales are decreasing at rates not seen in decades. Combined with higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change becomes increasingly apparent.

While The American Le Mans Series will not portend to have a solution for the escalating price of crude oil, it will profess to have a solution for helping the auto industry - and ultimately consumers.

To further emphasize its commitment to help auto manufacturers find alternative fuel solutions and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the American Le Mans Series in concert with the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and SAE International announced at the North American International Auto Show earlier this year that it would implement the first ever Green Challenge™ at its signature event - Petit Le Mans, October 4 at Road Atlanta. Officials from those entities will be on hand to present trophies to the winners for that race-within-a-race. In 2009, the Green Challenge™ will include all Series events and culminate in a Green Challenge™ Championship Award made by these three organizations.

In recent months, members of the aforementioned entities have comprised the Green Racing Work Group commissioned with the task of creating the rules, regulations and protocols of that competition in which all race cars would participate in a competition measuring three critical criteria:

Performance

Fuel Efficiency

Environmental Impact

"This has been an interesting and challenging process," said Scott Atherton, President and CEO of the American Le Mans Series. "With four different classes of cars, 14 auto and chassis manufacturers, and three different alternative fuels to take into consideration, a formula of how to create a fair competition with real time analysis and a format that is easy to understand and communicate has been very difficult. It has taken hundreds and hundreds of hours and involved some of the finest technical minds in the automotive and energy industries."

The American Le Mans Series and internationally recognized Argonne National Laboratory have developed a Green Challenge™ ranking system to be used for all cars competing in the Series. Cars will be ranked by the:

amount of energy they use

greenhouse gases (GHG) they emit

amount of petroleum they displace

GM has embraced the Series' green focus with its two factory Corvette C6.Rs competing in 2008 on cellulosic E85.

In brief, race cars that go the farthest, the fastest with the smallest environmental footprint for the energy used will get the lowest scores. The Green Challenge™ point score differs from racing score totals in that the lowest number wins. Two awards will be given - one to the lowest score among the prototype classes (LMP1 and LMP2) and one to the lowest score among the GT classes (GT1 and GT2). Thus, the Prototype and the Grand Touring (GT) race car that uses the least energy, the least petroleum and emits the fewest GHGs on a distance and speed equalized basis will be the winners.

During the 2009 season, those teams will earn the same number of points toward the season-long Green Challenge™ Championship as those earned by the race winners each race in the overall American Le Mans Series Championship. All teams will participate and qualify for the Green Challenge™ and receive points for their Green Challenge™ scores for each race based on the Series' race point structure (i.e. maximum points for less than four hours is 20; for four to eight hours, 25; and for more than eight hours, 30). The twist, however, for winning the Green Challenge™ Championship is that each American Le Mans Series team starts off the season with the maximum number of points available for all the scheduled races (i.e. - 250 maximum in 2008). When teams win Green Challenge™ Championship points, they are deducted from this total. As a result, the points decline for successful teams over the course of the season with the lowest total at season's end, winning a Green Challenge™ championship for one prototype and one GT team.

The aforementioned ranking factors (energy used, GHGs emitted, petroleum displaced) will be compiled into a single weighted number representing the car's environmental performance. Race cars that use less energy and petroleum and produce fewer GHGs will score low. All measurements and calculations will be done on a well-to-wheel (life cycle analysis) basis, the most comprehensive and realistic approach to establishing the environmental impact of racing.

The GREET model developed by Argonne calculates all the energy consumed and the GHGs created from the time the oil is pumped out of the ground, the corn is seeded in the field or the wood waste is harvested, to its use as fuel in the car. [GREET stands for Greenhouse gasses, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation. It evaluates energy and emission impacts of advanced vehicle technologies and new transportation fuels, the fuel cycle from well to wheels and the vehicle cycle through material recovery and vehicle disposal.]

Audi revolutionized motorsport by building and winning races with its Audi R10 TDI powered by clean, sulfur-free diesel.

The difficulty of creating such a formula to rank environmental impact arises from the realities of racing that have to be factored to make valid energy comparisons. Faster cars and heavier cars use more energy and produce more greenhouse gasses than comparable slower or lighter cars. Cars that go farther during a race also require more energy.

To develop the formula, Argonne and the American Le Mans Series created "normalizing factors" for each variable so that they could accurately and fairly compare the environmental performance of each car in the race. The normalizing factors took into consideration such things as average speed, distance covered and car weight. These calculations were compared using sophisticated computer modeling with previous races to check their validity. In some cases, the cars that win the race will also get the best environmental performance score, but that will not always be the case.

"Motorsports has always enjoyed the distinction of being at the forefront of advanced automotive engineering," said Andy Karsner, U.S. Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, "and it has been a primary catalyst for moving new technologies to the showroom floor. The leadership role the American Le Mans Series has taken by embracing open and diverse alternative fuel technology platforms has not only set the bar for automotive racing, but it has helped redefine the future of the transportation sector."

The American Le Mans Series, where automobile manufacturers race to develop technologies for future consumer cars, is the only racing series in the world where all its cars race on not one, not two, but three alternative "street legal" fuels: clean sulfur-free diesel, E10 and cellulosic E85 ... with rumors of a next-generation hybrid soon to come. "Street legal" refers to fuels that are virtually the same as the consumer buys at the fuel station. The Series has 11 auto manufacturers/marques involved, more than any other major racing series in the world.

"We have always claimed to be the most relevant racing series on the planet," said Atherton. "Now, we hope to play a role in saving that planet by working with manufacturers on innovative alternative fuel solutions and new technologies. We believe this could be truly paradigm shifting by effectively putting the auto back into auto racing and taking the sport from a form that for some has been primarily entertainment-focused to one that is also relevant and issue-focused. We are working with the car companies on new technology that matters."

For more information on ALMS, visit www.americanlemans.com.

Tales from the Track (Part II): When Racing on the Edge, Weird Stuff Happens

bbaker — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:18:00 GMT

Editor’s Note: Dave Caracci, retired VP from Robert Bosch, has returned to his first love – racing. In this multi-part series, Caracci takes us behind the scenes on the road with Prime Time Racing, where he serves as Logistics Engineer. This time he writes about the trials and tribulations the team encountered in St. Petersburg for the Acura Sports Car Challenge. Stay tuned for more notes in the coming weeks from Caracci’s race team travel journal.

By Dave Carraci

For those of you who read the report of our Sebring race last month, welcome back. For those of you who didn’t, I’ll recap what the Primetime Racing Group is and what I have been doing with them.

Primetime is a non-factory backed (privateer) team campaigning a full race Dodge Viper in the American Lemans Series (ALMS) for 2008. The car was built and is maintained in Hollywood, Fla. , by Performance Technologies and is owned and driven by Joel Feinberg from Fort Lauderdale. U.K. native Chris Hall, who lives in Daytona Beach, is our co-driver. The race crew is made up of between 11 and 21 of us, depending on the length of the race. Some of our races are less than two hours long, while Sebring lasted 12 hours.

My job as a logistics engineer is to track data through out the entire practice and race week, and then use it to help make race strategy decisions. We track things like fuel consumption, tire wear, brake and suspension adjustments and every lap time of every session. We also keep track of other things such as how long it takes to change drivers, brake pad condition, suspension adjustments and competitor lap times.

FROM ONE RACE TO THE NEXT

When we left the Sebring race, the Primetime Viper had raced 1,080 miles in 12 hours, finishing in fifth place. Having beaten a bunch of factory Ferraris, Porsches and a Ford GT40, we were happy and excited, but the Viper was tired. In a little more than two weeks, we had to be in St. Petersburg for the Acura Sports Car Challenge, so the team semi took the car directly back from Sebring to the Performance Technologies shop to be prepped for St. Pete. Shop owner Brent O’Neill, car chief Frank Parzyck and the guys in the shop went through the car replacing all the brakes and wheel bearings, rebuilding the gear box and rear axle. During prep at the shop, Brent discovered that the transmission oil cooler thermostat had failed during the Sebring race. This small thermostat is a necessary part of the transmission cooling system. During a race, the six-speed transmission builds up so much heat, that an oil cooler and fan is installed to keep the transmission oil cool. But, if the trans fluid stays too cool, it causes frictional drag, slowing down the car.

Brent replaced the thermostat and thinking of the possibility of a transmission failure at a race, he ordered a spare six-speed transmission. This was no small decision since a racing sequential six-speed costs $21,000.

Of course after 12 hours of wheel-to-wheel racing at Sebring, there was a lot of body work to be done before the car could leave for St. Pete. But, with the race schedule for 1:30 Saturday, the Viper left the shop Tuesday night to arrive by Wednesday morning.

SETTING UP A RACING GARAGE IN THE CITY STREETS

The race track for the Acura Sports Car Challenge is made up of city streets running around the airport and marina in downtown St Petersburg, Fla. To build the track, race officials close several main streets for most of the week. The airport runway becomes home to temporary race car garages.

Between the Indy cars and our sports cars, we end up with more than 100 teams each setting up a temporary garage on the airstrip in the center of town. It’s one big traffic jam. So, to make some room and to help keep us organized, all team semis and trailers are moved to the sports stadium a mile or two from town. The trucks all park in the stadium and as the race officials pick each team’s space for the week, that team’s truck is summoned over to the race track. If you ever thought every detail about racing must be sexy, it’s not. I would describe this part more like setting up a three-ring circus. Once our alignment rack is set up, the car is unloaded along with the tools, golf carts, scooters, wheels and “race stuff.”

Primetime owner-driver Joel has only raced at St. Pete once and co-driver Chris has never raced here at all. At 1.8 miles in length, with 14 turns every lap, this is a complicated race course. So Joel and Chris take the motorcycle and scooter out to drive laps around the course while we set up the garage. This is a good way to become familiar with the course, before they hit the track in a 170-mph race car. By 8 p.m. Wednesday night, we’re set for the next day, so we head for the motel. On Thursday, we have a trackside breakfast at 7 a.m. If setting up temporary garages resembles a circus, so too does feeding the race teams. Ten to 20 people per team, who will spend at least 12 hours at the track each day for nearly a week, can’t subsist on hot dogs alone.

A businesswoman named Marion has developed a great service to keep the AMLS teams fed. A large event tent is set up that gives shelter to an entire cooking staff to feed hundreds buffet-style at each race. She is open every day as long as we are at the track. Each team pays her by the person, by the day and we eat whenever we want to. This keeps the teams from worrying about food logistics, with the only negative being that we each gain weight by the end of each race week.

After breakfast, we open the garage and ready the car for the day. The guys push the car over to the technical inspection center where the IMSA safety inspectors go over every car to make sure it is safe and meets the rules. We pass tech without any problems and spend much of the day readying the car for testing.

SETTING UP A RACE CAR FOR CITY STREETS

A race track on city streets is much different than a track like Sebring, Indy or Daytona Speedway. The streets have bumps, dips, pavement changes, and all kinds of other issues can force the car all over the place. Every time the car bounces, the tires lose adhesion, making it dart right or left. In a turn or under braking, this bump issue makes it impossible to drive at racing speeds. To handle the bumps, Frank installed softer springs giving the car a better feel as it rides over the bumpy streets of St. Pete. The only concern is how much the softer springs will allow the car to lean over during hard cornering.

Another issue with a street course is that it is tight. With 14 turns in 1.8 miles, the drivers use the brakes over and over in quick, hard succession. While the driver never brakes as hard at the end of the long straightways as they did at Sebring, he has to brake much more often. On a per-lap average, Chris will brake the Viper 11 times each lap. Thinking of it another way, he will be on the brakes an average of once every eight seconds! To handle this, the brake technicians worked with Brent and Frank to choose a softer “grabbier” brake pad for St. Pete. These softer pads won’t last as long as the harder Sebring pads, but the St. Pete race is less than two hours long. Frank has also changed rear and front master brake cylinders to allow more pressure on the rear brakes. This is done by varying the brake cylinder diameter. A smaller diameter cylinder applies more brake pressure for the same amount of foot pressure, but requires more brake pedal travel. A larger diameter master cylinder takes less travel but requires a lot more pressure from the driver’s foot to stop the car.

IT’S OFFICIAL TRACK TIME FOR THE ALMS

Friday morning, we are ready for our first official practice session at St. Pete. The Viper is polished, the tools, tires and equipment have been taken across to the racing pits and the drivers are in their flame-resistant suits. Since the racing pits are across the track from our garage, all the teams need to move cars and gear at the same time across the track, before the cars begin to practice. Once the cars are on the track, the only way back to the garage and semi is over a spectator walking bridge. It’s about a one-mile walk.

Thirty minutes before the cars are to go on the track, Frank plugs the computer terminal into the Viper and, for some weird reason, the on-board fire system goes off. An on-board fire system has a fire bottle with nozzles all around the car. The driver just pushes a big red button and the fire extinguisher squirts foam throughout the car. But right now, there is no fire, but the Viper has just “extinguished” itself 30 minutes before it needs to be on the track for practice! The entire team goes into action pulling the back window and windshield out of the car to gain cleanup access. The shop vacuum is used to suck up the foam inside, while the air hose is used to blow foam off the engine, fuel tank, and electrical connections. With a new fire bottle attached, Joel hops in a wet seat and starts to warm up the engine. At 8:05 a.m. , he pulls on the track for practice and we all breathe a lot easier.

The crew mans their race pit stations, while I start tracking data. Joel’s first lap is a 1:29.7 as he charges off around the track for more practice. Then the times are 1:26, 1:23, 1:22, as the lap times drop but soon he levels off, not getting any faster. “The front of the car is pushing out as I enter the turns” Joel reports over the car radio. “Adjust the brake bias” suggests Frank, back through the radio system. The viper has a red knob on the dash that allows the driver to adjust the pressure being applied on the front and rear brakes. The dash shows that the pressure is 55 percent front 45 percent rear, so Joel turns the knob to 50-50. The lap times drop to 1:21, 1:20.8, 1:19 and then level off again. He’s been in the car 29 minutes, so Brent has him pit to put Chris in for some practice. In order to run the Saturday race, a driver must have practiced at least five laps, so it is important to make sure each of these guys gets time in the car for the first session, in case we have a problem getting out for practice again before the race. Chris turns a first lap of 1:27 and gets down to a 1:186 in 12 laps when he reports in that the rear brakes are now locking up as he brakes for the turns. He pits so that Frank can adjust the shock rebound. The Viper has gas shocks that are fully adjustable both on the down or compression stroke of a bump as well as the rebound after the bump. By turning the shock adjustment knobs to allow the shocks to rebound quicker, Frank hopes to keep the tires more firmly on the track as the car brakes over bumps and dips on the St. Pete streets. Chris takes the Viper back out but is still having brake lock-up when the Audi TDI bumps him entering a turn. Brent decides to have him come in for a look over and at 9:02 a.m. , our first practice session ends.

Back in the garage, the guys and I measure the fuel used and I determine that we are burning .51 gallons a lap for an average of 3.5 mph. This will be important when we start the race on Saturday. The spare transmission Brent ordered arrives via airfreight, but we hope we never need it. Frank, Brent and the drivers talk over the brake-locking issue and Frank decides to reverse the master cylinder diameters, little in the front (more pressure) big in the rear (less pressure) and the rest of the guys go over the car looking for problems.

PRACTICE AND MORE PRACTICE

At 1 p.m. , Joel takes the car back out for another practices session. As the cars are getting faster with practice, he really needs to concentrate on traffic. While the Viper and other GT cars are fast, a Porsche or Audi racing in the bigger Prototype class is 20 to 30 mph faster on the straight. In a GT car it is easy to not realize you are being passed by a P car and if you cut one off you could cause a horrible crash. In fact, the classes each run different color headlamps to help the drivers know what kind of car is catching and passing them. A GT, like our Viper has yellow head lamps while a P car like the Penske RS Porsche has white lamps.

Keeping an eye out for overtaking traffic, Joel works his lap times down to 1:16.6 and after 17 laps of practice, Brent brings him into the pit and puts Chris in the car at 1:31 p.m. Chris runs 10 laps running around 1:17.2 when he calls in to report he is calling it a day until Frank and Brent can figure out what is making the brakes continue to lock up.

Back in the garage, Frank and the guys install all new brake rotors and change back to the harder brake pads that we ran successfully at Sebring. He also has the team install softer springs. I measure the fuel, double check the mileage calculations and put in 10 gallons for the upcoming qualifying session.

A look at our pit stop data shows that while the guys can refuel the car in less than 45 seconds and the tire change takes less than 40 seconds, it is taking close to two minutes to change drivers during the pit stops. Following a lot of kidding by the crew, Joel and Chris begin to practice and develop techniques that eventually enable them to make a driver change in less than 50 seconds. Practice, it seems, is not just for driving.

QUALIFYING, THE FIRST LET DOWN

With Joel having turned the fastest practice lap so far, Brent decides that Joel should drive the car in qualifying and he gets the Viper down to our best time yet of 1:15.8. That sounds terrific until we realize everyone else in our class went faster too, and we have qualified on the back row. It’s a far cry from the fifth-place finish at Sebring just three weeks earlier!

With the car back in the garage, the crew starts going over everything and Brent, Frank and Eric, our engineer start brainstorming over car handling and poor lap times. While they make a tweak here and a tweak there, my wife Mary calls on the cell. “I’m here to see the race tomorrow, but I don’t have a car pit pass,” she explains. She has parked in the city parking garage on 2^nd street and 4^th avenue and expects to be picked up! I jump on the pit crew Vespa and zip out of the pits into the St. Pete city traffic to pick her up.

As Mary and I re-enter the racing garage area, the track has closed for the day, so I suggest we take the Vespa for a spin around the track, so she can see what the drivers see, Vespa-style. As we circulate the course, we get to a very high speed left-hand turn skirting the marina boat basin. There is a concrete wall on both the inside of the turn and the outside of the turn. Having driven many race cars in my youth, I point to the outside wall and suggest to Mary that during tomorrow’s race, someone will drift into that wall at over 100 mph and hurt their car big time. We head back to the garage, then dinner and the crew rests up for our Saturday race in St. Pete.

RACE DAY RACE STRATEGY

With the race scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. , the entire crew is up, out of the motel and having breakfast in Marion ’s tent by 7 a.m. On a race day, you need to get to the track ahead of the spectators or you can have a really tough time getting to your garage.

The American Lemans Series has an excellent policy of allowing the fans to come into the garage area on race day to meet the crews, drivers and see the cars. It’s a great promo tool and actually helps us appreciate how much the fans love seeing our cars race. Joel and Chris set up a table in front of our semi and autograph driver pictures for the spectators. Frank and the crew go over every detail of the car, while some of the team goes to the racing pit to make sure everything is set up there for the actual race.

Brent and I review several classic pit strategies:

A) With lap times of 1:15 , if we pit during a green flag lap and it takes 1:25 for fuel, tires and a driver change, the field will lap us during our pit stop. But, yellow laps behind a pace car take about three minutes. If we can pit during yellow flags displayed as they clean up after a crash, we can pit and get out, before the field laps us. Some questions to be answered:

· How much will the car burn on each green flag lap?

· On each yellow flag lap?

· When is the earliest we should pit for fuel if there is a yellow flag?

· What is the farthest we should try to go before fuel is there is no yellow flag?

B) To qualify for championship points accumulated during the season, a driver must drive at least 30 percent of the race. Or to look at that another way, neither of our drivers More questions:

How does that fit into the refueling situation?
How do we make sure we don’t need to change drivers during a green flag lap?
Which driver is fastest in mid-day heat, early race traffic or rain?

C) For the car to qualify for season money and points, it must complete 70 percent of the total race length or it is as if it never entered that race.

Following our strategy session, I write all the pertinent times and notes into my data lap sheet as reminders. This way when we’re in the heat of the race, I am reminded what needs to be done before or after a certain lap. These are commonly referred to as “pit windows.”

IT’S RACE TIME

I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in some big things in my life, and I’ve been in hundreds and hundreds of races, but I’ve got to tell you that there is still nothing in my life that gives me a bigger thrill than putting on a fire suit and walking along with the rest of the race teams past all the cars, spectators, bands, TV’s and other gala to line the car up for the start. At 12:30 p.m. , we all cross the track along with the Primetime Viper for the last time before they close the track. From now on, the only way back to our garage is over the spectator bridge. Brent’s been here many times before and he’s one smart dude, so he has one of the guys drive the Vespa to the pedestrian bridge and park it there. “If we need anything from the semi during the race, one of us can just hoof it across the bridge jump on the Vespa and get to the semi fast,” he explains.

The cars are all line up on the front straight and my data center has the computer screens fired up and ready to go. The bands play as the spectators cheer. In a city street race, there are spectators on the balconies and roofs of every condo and office building. There are enthusiastic spectators everywhere and at 1:18 p.m. the race engines fire up and the cars roll down the front straight for the first of two pace laps.

Chris is taking the first stint as driver. He does a radio check. I can hear him, Frank and Brent on our car channel and I hear the race officials on their channel, as my radio scans for any important announcements. Frank and the guys have made a lot of changes to the brakes and springs on the car trying to fix the braking and handling issues and we just have to keep our fingers crossed. The rest is up to Chris, then Joel. As the cars come by on the first pace lap, it is quite disheartening seeing the Viper in the last row, where we qualified. But, it’s a nearly two-hour race, so here we go. The green flag drops and nearly 40 cars roar into turn one. They all make it through and Chris disappears with the pack.

Lap 1 takes more than two minutes as the traffic is horrendous. But over the radio I hear Chris. “The car’s handling beautifully and braking perfectly,” he says.

Lap 2: The Viper comes by still surrounded by traffic and turns a 1:51 . “The car has never felt faster,” Chris’s voice reports on the radio. “I’m going after the GT 40 this lap.”

Lap 3: The Viper comes by in 1:19 , followed by the GT 40!

Lap 4: Chris starts to chase down the Panoz. He runs a 1:185 and we know he’ll pass that Panoz in Lap 5.

Lap 5: Suddenly a voice with a British accent that sounds like Chris says, “Sorry guys.”

What?

When you start to go really fast, it’s like driving on ice. It’s the edge of a razor blade if you want to be really fast. At those speeds, as the saying goes “stuff happens.” Remember that wall I showed Mary on the Vespa ride? Guess who drifted into it.

Thirty or 40 seconds after we hear the voice on the radio, Chris and the Viper limp into our pit with a bent right front suspension. Frank and Brent immediately decide to repair it. Remember, we only need to finish 70 percent of the race to get points. The front brake rotor and hub are broken, so as Brent and Frank start dissembling it race mechanic Mike Ansbaugh heads for the semi to get a new hub, brake rotor and tie rod end. Hoofing down the pit straight through the spectators, over the bridge, he jumps on the Vespa Brent had strategically parked there, only to find that someone has been trying to “borrow” it. The ignition key hole is messed up. He jumps off the Vespa and runs on foot to the semi and back carrying the parts in a box.

I’m still tracking laps and race distance and by the time Brent and Frank have the car fixed, 32 laps have been run by our competitors. Joel’s in the car and as soon as the air jack drops, the wheels hit the pavement, and he smokes it out of the pit! After he catches his breath, I report to Brent that we should finish the race within 69 percent and 71 percent of the total length depending on the lead cars and how fast Joel can push the Viper. With a suspension put back together on the pit lane, without alignment equipment, Joel will need to sort out the car’s handling. He’s pushing the car hard, turning laps of 1:45 , 1:31 , 1:25 , 1:21 , 1:20 , 1:18 and he is starting to move.

On lap 21, Joel passes the GT 2 Aston Martin and enters a fast right-hand turn just before being lapped by one of the super-fast Prototype cars with the white head lamps. Pat Long, driving the Penske RS Spider, is fighting for first overall and doesn’t want to wait to pass Joel, so he ducks under the Viper’s inside rear fender and as Joel turns into the corner, Long spins our Viper into the outside wall. At more than 100 mph, Joel and the Viper bounce off the wall, wiping out the left front and rear suspensions before spinning 180 degrees to face the exit of that corner. Out of the turn shoots the GT2 Aston Martin. The driver tries to fit between Joel and the cement wall, but he can’t fit and hits Joel, tearing the entire right side off the Viper, body, suspension, and all. The Aston Martin is wrecked, the Viper is totaled and Pat Long doesn’t win the race anyway.

Joel is O.K. but at 2:35 p.m. Primetime’s St. Pete race is over.

After the wrecker brings the car back to our garage, we assess the damage: All four brake assemblies, wheels and hubs are gone. The body is pretty much destroyed, but worst of all, the chassis is bent at least six inches. There’s no time to fret now. We load the car in the semi so it can head back to the Performance Technologies shop. The guys only have two weeks to build a spare car and get it to Long Beach where we’ve got an ALMS race to run.

Photo credits: Richard Prince

Story courtesy of sister publication AftermarketNews.com

More View From the Shop>>

Big E Look-a-Like Reads Engine Builder Magazine!

bbaker — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:19:00 GMT

No, it's not a ghost, it's a Dale Earnhardt Sr. (aka, Big E) look-a-like, Bob Brinkerhoff. We have been running into Bob, er, Big E on the trade show circuit as he was hired by Professional Products to work the SEMA and PRI booth to freak people out who see him walking around. When Big E stopped by our PRI booth in Orlando, we had to capture the moment on video,otherwise who would believe it?

View From The Track: Dave Caracci Takes Us Behind the Scenes at Sebring's Famed Sportscar Race

bbaker — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:12:00 GMT

Dave Caracci, retired VP from Robert Bosch, has returned to his first love – racing. In this multi-part series, Caracci takes us behind the scenes on the road with Prime Time Racing, where he serves as Logistics Engineer. Stay tuned for more notes from Caracci’s race team travel journal.

What Goes Around Comes Around

by Dave Caracci

In 1962, my dad took me to see my very first sports car race. It was the 12-hour endurance race in Sebring, Fla., and I was 14. A rich Mexican named Pedro, driving a factory backed Ferrari won. My dad took me to Sebring 12 hours, every year after that until I was old enough to drive myself.

Between 1963 and 1966 three Americans, acting as individual “ Privateers ” decided to build cars themselves, here in the U.S., to end the Ferrari dominance. They were called privateers because they raced without the big dollar backing of the car manufacturers.

The privateers , Carroll Shelby, Jim Hall, Dan Gurney and a few others, started putting big American street car motors into sports cars, to compete against the exotic European race cars. Each year, my dad and I watched as the Shelby Cobras, the Gurney Ford Lotus and the Jim Hall Chevy Chaparral chased the factory Ferraris and Porsches around Sebring for 12 hours. To us and the 56,000 other spectators, those privateers were America. In 1966 Jim Halls Chaparral finally whipped ‘em, winning the Sebring 12 hours.

By 1970, I had grown up and started racing myself. I’d also met a young man named Brent O’Neill, who was 14, and he came with me as my friend and assistant to every single race I ever ran, until I decided to stop racing full time in 1976. Brent, who now owns and operates a successful auto racing shop in South Florida, has been one of my best friends ever since.

Last fall, Brent invited me to be a member of Prime Time Group racing team. With a home base in Hollywood , Fla. , the team would campaign a Dodge VIPER in the 2008 American Lemans Series. So here I am, 32 years later, helping Brent at the races, instead of him helping me. What goes around comes around.

Owned and driven by Joel Feinberg ( Ft. Lauderdale ) and co-driven by Chris Hall ( Daytona Beach ), the Prime Time Viper was built at Brent’s shop, Performance Technologies Inc., in Hollywood , Fla. Through out the fall of 2007 the Viper was prepared by Prime Time Car Chief Frank Parzyck. The car was finished in late February and other than two days of testing at a Savannah race track, the car had never raced until Sebring.

The Prime Time crew consists of nearly 20 people (mostly volunteers from the Florida area who love the sport) and there is so much interface and job sharing between the team members that when discussing the car and the operation or the team, people’s names don’t seem to enter the conversation, but instead the effort is a general “we.” We are fast, we are late, we have a brake issue, we need to get to tech, we should go to dinner, it is 11pm and we are worn out. Even though each of us has an assignment or area of responsibility, Brent and Joel’s team seem to know that it is a “we” -- all of us and each of us at the same moment.

But most of us do have a responsibility or specialty. Mine is logistics engineer.

When Brent gave me my responsibility, I didn’t even know what a logistics engineer does at a race in 2008. But, what I’m doing is a blast. Simply put, I track data during the race to calculate and brainstorm pit strategies with the team manager (Brent), car chief (Frank), the drivers and a ‘real’ engineer named Eric. We calculate such things as when we should stop for fuel, when we should stop for tires, how to combine and plan those stops to coincide with driver changes. Can we stop for all or some of the above during a yellow caution lap while the competition is going slowly behind a pace car in order to not lose much distance? Or, do we pit when our competitor pits? And if so, which competitor is the most important? Which competitor is gaining on us? Who are we gaining on? Just like racing a sailboat, where we do the input and the final decision is up to the captain, Brent makes the final decision and he or Frank relay the plan via radio to the driver.

To collect the data, we have some awesome tools, all in what I would describe as a data center on top of our pit tool cart. Joel bought a tool cart that carries all the car tools, and has a five person padded bench seat, with desk, on top of the tool cart. We have to use a ladder/steps to climb up to our seat and desk. There is a canvas roof over our heads (so my head won’t get sun burned) and five computer monitors. The five monitors can display any data we choose and the data is all “real time” transmitted directly from race headquarters.

We can see:

What position we and our competitors are in.

How far ahead or behind we and every other car is.

How fast we are going every lap.

How fast our competition is going every lap.

When each competitor pits, for how long and what they did while in the pit.

And a whole bunch of data as needed.

A few of the monitors can show the Speed channel coverage of the race, allowing the team and guests to watch the TV coverage as they stand behind our pit cart.

At left: Caracci (center) on the pit tool cart with other crew members.

Another awesome tool is the head set Brent has me wear. With that head set, I can hear everyone on the crew if they talk on a radio. I can hear/talk to Brent and Frank and I hear everything the driver says to either of them. The same headset scans race control and anytime race control talks to each other on the radio, I am the one on our team who hears it. At anyone time, I may hear the TV helicopter report an accident on a turn, the pit marshals call for a penalty on us or another car, the safety car and most importantly I hear the race chairman as he tells the pits to open or close or the race starter to wave a yellow or green flag. As anything I hear fits into or affects our race and pit strategy, I report and discuss what I heard with Brent, Frank or Eric.

So, enough explanations, now for the race report you all asked for:

We have been here since Monday. Practicing, testing, and qualifying: Sebring is not just a 12 hour race, but a four-day survival test of car and team. If, you’re not running Saturday morning at 10:05 race start, you don’t count!

It is Saturday morning and is just like it was in the 1960s when my dad brought me here, we are an American Privateer team racing an American Sports Car race prepared in a private race shop in South Florida. And, like the 1960’s, the competition is four Ferraris, six Porsches and a myriad of other Grand Touring cars prepared or back by the car manufacturers. We are the little guys with a brand new car and conventional wisdom is that we will not be running at 10 pm when the race ends!

From here on I am writing in the “we,” because the team (including the car) really acts as one.

Race strategy:

Knowing that you can’t win a race if you are not on the track when it ends, we limit the engine shift points so the engine never runs over 95 percent of its capability. This will help the Viper last and save fuel and reduce brake wear. No matter how slow we are compared to the other cars, we will go our set speed of around 2 minutes 9 seconds a lap and save the car. The car can go under 2:05, but Joel and Chris will hold it at about 2:09 or 2:10

We know that we and everyone else will have to stop once to replace the front brake pads, which takes about five minutes. If we push too hard and use too much brake, we may have to stop twice losing another five minutes. So, we want to be easy on the brakes as well as the engine. 2:09 to 2:10 lap times.

At this engine speed, we will need fuel every 40 to 55 minutes along with tires. That can be done in a pit stop lasting about one minute. Changing drivers takes over two minutes, so we will change drivers every 2^nd stop, saving a minute plus on the fuel/tire stops in between.

We are all in our fire suits, Joel is in the car, there are Helicopters, TV guys and 36 cars (our 15 car class plus three other classes of car – all bigger and faster) and at 10:05am Saturday morning, the Prime Time Racing Group Viper rolls across the starting line !

Joel does a great job staying out of trouble in the horrific traffic of the first ten laps, turning lap times between 2:08 and 2:0996. This is an amazing consistency, on a 3.7 mile track with 17 corners every lap and 35 other race cars all around him. We still plan to pit for fuel and tires around lap 24 but at lap 12 two cars crash, bringing out the yellow flag and the pace car. We pit under the yellow for a “splash and go” – fuel only, no driver, no tires. My data shows that from the time Joel entered pit lane, stopped for 15 gallons of fuel and exited pit lane took 56 seconds.

At lap 17 the leading Ferrari in our class laps us. He is flying, but will he be here at 10pm tonight?

With fuel in the car at the yellow, we readjust our scheduled stop to lap 41, but at lap 28, our lap times drop from 2:09 to 2:15 and Joel calls in for a driver change. Unexpected by all of us, the Florida heat has taken its toll on Joel and he can’t keep u the pace.

At lap 31 (ten laps ahead of schedule) we pit under the green flag, changing drivers, tires and taking on 13.5 gallons of fuel. We get lapped during the 2min. 49 second stop. We are now down two laps, But Chris is fresh and in the car turning laps between 2:08 and 2:10.

The lead cars in our class are still turning 2:02s and by lap 46, they have lapped us three times

We are scheduled to stop for tires and fuel at lap 56, with a driver change at lap 81, but at lap 50, our lap times suddenly drop from 2:08 to 2:15 and Chris calls in for help. Just like Joel, the heat has taken a toll on Chris and he needs a driver change.

At lap 51, we again must pit under the green and the Prime Time crew puts 17 gallons of fuel and tires on the car while the drivers change. Time from pit entrance to pit exit is just over two minutes, but as Joel exits the pit, I get a call from the from the Race Chairman that we exited pit lane too fast (there is a pit speed limit for the safety of the crews) We have to call Joel back in for a “stop and go” penalty!

We are less than two hours into the race and already down by 5 laps. But, we are 11^th out of 15.

The same scenario goes on for a several hours, with the car running perfectly, the drivers dealing as best they can with the heat, but having to change before schedule and the Prime Time crew doing trouble free refuel/tire stops. Eric uses my data and calculates that we are getting .8 of a lap per gallon of fuel. IT IS HOT. But that is COOL, because this is an endurance race. By lap 94, four hours into the race (2PM), we are six laps behind the leading Ferrari and in 8^th place, as other teams wear out the equipment or drivers take chances and crash.

Again Joel and Chris continue the laps (2:08 – 2:095) for hours. From my perspective it is a blast, sitting on top of my little data collection center helping Brent and Frank plan. Lunch arrives, diet cokes arrive, people stop by to visit and ask questions while Chris and Joel keep running 2:09.

At lap 150, 5 ½ hours into the race (3:30pm) my radio suddenly reports that the 2^nd place Porsche tried to pass the lead Ferrari and they took each other out! Not half way through the race and they are history. How dumb is that? The Prime Time Viper moves into 6^th, 9 laps behind 1^st and 4 laps behind 5^th, with a whole bunch of GT2 cars chasing us down from behind. We are suddenly living in interesting times.

Of course, life does not come without its little problems and as Joel exits the next pit stop, the Vipers instrument display goes dead. Joel calls in and Eric working through Brent tells him to shut the ignition off while going down a straight then restart the car.

For those of us that have had to reboot a lap top, ever done it at 150 mph?

Eric’s idea works and the instruments come back on. Whew.

At six hours into the race most of the cars start pitting to put on new brake pads. A brake pad stop takes five minutes. At green flag speed, that puts us in the pits for 2 ½ laps, so Brent refuses to call the change until a yellow flag. The brake company engineer warns of brake pad failure, but Brent hangs in there, waiting for a yellow flag. “Take it easy on the brakes”, he tells both drivers.

By 3:30 pm , the sun has fallen to an angle that drops the heat so the drivers can stay in the car longer.

The Andretti team creates a timing and scoring issue with the officials, creating a 19 lap yellow. We pit for an 8 gallon splash and go. With the lower sun and the yellow laps, Joel drives 36 laps and his last lap is a 2:09.970. Amazing stamina.

We pit at 4:03 pm for fuel and to put Chris back in the car as Joel has driven an hour and 36 minutes. The stop takes 2 minutes 11 seconds from pit entrance to pit exit. No tire change and still no new brakes.

It is really cooling down. Eric calculates that the fuel consumption is dropping. Instead of getting .8 laps per gallon, we have moved into the 1 lap per gallon range. Being an engine guy originally, I speculate it is the cool air making the car run more efficiently, but who knows?

Chris is holding up well, running 2:079 to 2:085 laps and he stays in the car long enough to finally take maximum advantage of our fuel and tire calculations. We run the tires 62 laps and when we finally bring Chris in for a change, the car takes 231/2 gallons. It only holds 25 gallons.

There are 3 factory Porsches and 2 factory Ferraris running WAY ahead of us, but the Prime Time Viper keeps on ticking and at 5:38pm , my data monitor suddenly shows the fastest Ferrari slowing rapidly, running 2:20 lap times and dropping. As a Brazilian co-worker I knew would say “the car, she is not feeling very well.”

On lap 192, 5:52 pm Brent pulls Joel in for fuel, a driver change and new brake pads. They have lasted 710 miles for 7 hours 52 minutes. We now are only 4 hours 8 minutes from the finish line. The pit stop, including new front brakes takes 5 minutes 22 seconds and as Chris leaves the pits. Brent radios him to kick the engine speed up to 5,800 which is 97 percent of capacity. We know we have enough brakes to make it and the cool air has brought the mileage up.

The sick Ferrari drops out. We are in 5^th.

On lap 216 Joel comes on the radio. Something is wrong with the power steering. It is making noise (I would too after 800 race miles) and it is difficult to turn to the right. Sebring is 3.7 miles each lap with 17 corners and 9 are to the right! This power steering issue is not good. No turning back now guys, so Brent says just keep driving. He figures the power steering fluid is leaking. With 17 turns every 2 minutes trying to turn the tires that are about 14 inches wide gives the power steering a real work out. Frank installed an oil cooler on the power steering, but it must not be able to keep up with the heat and now with a leak, most of the fluid is probably gone. We can add fluid. But, who wants to bring the car in and pull the hood just to add fluid. We’ll have to tough it out for a while.

Just before dark, the GT 40 collides with us in a turn. We win. The Ford GT is out, but the race chairman tells me over the radio that we are dragging something. After a few laps, the car comes in and the crew pulls the hood off for some body damage control. Brent refills the power steering with fluid and the Viper heads off to do battle at night.

Darkness sets in around 7:42 and the left headlight does not work. The rules say we only need one headlight, so the guys keep driving. At night, every cars times drop, probably because of the poor vision. But, Joel and Chris are still running 2:10.42 to 2:11.29, with one head light.

The car keeps making laps in the dark of night. The power steering keeps making noises and the one headlight never comes back on, but the fuel use keeps dropping. We have improved from .8 laps a gallon to 1.2, so we begin to stretch the fuel stops out a bit.

At 9:03 pm Joel pits and Chris gets in. New tires, more fuel and he’s off. We calculate that Chris can finish the last 57 minutes of the race and still have 3 gallons of fuel left. Brent decides to go for it, no more pit stops.

Brent and I have been here before. You can not believe all the things you can hear going wrong in the last hour to the finish line. But, you just hang in there.

At 9:45, my monitors show that we can not catch the Ferrari ahead of us and the Porsche behind us can not catch us unless the car breaks. Brent radios Chris to ease back on the car and bring her home for a top five finish in one of the Worlds three biggest sports car races. Chris runs 2:14 lap times for the last 15 minutes to save the car.

At 9:59:59pm I count 21 people wearing Prime Time Racing Group fire suits standing out on the pit wall straight, waving at Chris, as he and the car drive by to the finish. The fire works start and we have done what folks with conventional wisdom knew could not be done.

The Prime Time Racing Group Viper not only finished the Sebring 12 hours but we also took 5^th in Grand Touring and placed the highest of any American car in GT2. And, Joel received the “PRIVATEER CUP ” for being the highest finishing non-factory team.

In 12 hours the Viper had run 1087 miles or the equivalent of the Daytona 500, immediately followed by the Indy 500, with 87 miles left to drive home!

We took all our tools back to the semi, patted the car a bunch of times and drank a few of beers. Around 1pm I decided to sleep a few hours in my truck and head for home just before sun up.

I hugged Brent, said a bunch of farewells and as I walked back to my truck, across the Sebring paddock there was that warm tropical breeze I grew up with as a kid and I thought: “American privateer verses the European factories just like the early 1960s with my dad. I sure wish he had been here to see this.” I stopped, turned to look at the quarter moon and there was one bright star, all alone, looking down at us. I then realized that my dad had indeed been watching the entire event with me. How cool is that?

Remember, what goes around comes around.

Dave Caracci, the retired V.P of Robert Bosch Corp, was born and raised in Miami Beach. He currently lives in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Attention Race Fans: Champ Car World Series Goes Up for Auction

bbaker — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:37:00 GMT

After years of two competing open wheel champ car racing series in the U.S., only one Indy-type series remains standing: the Indy Racing League. The assets of Champ Car World Series, LLC, which filed bankruptcy earlier this year, will sell to the highest bidders at auction early next month.

Gallivan Auctioneers, of Speedway, Ind., have been approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to liquidate all remaining assets of Champ Car. The sale will include pace cars, race car transporters, race cars, shop equipment, scoring and timing equipment, memorabilia and more.

This auction promises to attract interest from race teams, racing organizations and enthusiasts across the U.S. and around the globe. It will be conducted on-site, plus feature a live online webcast of the sale, allowing bidders to bid online, in real time, from anywhere in the world.

The auction will be held at the Champ Car headquarters, 5350 W. Lakeview Parkway, South Drive, Indianapolis, Indiana 46268 on Tuesday, June 3 at 10 a.m. EDT.

Several Champ Car teams have already joined the Indy Racing League, promising to increase competition and bring more excitement to open wheel racing. Champ Car World Series, LLC was formerly known as CART and CART/PPG SERIES.

For more information, visit http://www.njgallivan.com.

NASCAR's Biggest Crash

bbaker — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Who needs the Car of Tomorrow (COT) when the car of yesterday worked just fine, thank you very much. I'm willing to bet these cars were quite a handful to drive as well. All totaled, 37 drivers were knocked out of the race, and no one was seriously injured. Boogity, boogity, boogity, let's fire up the Hudson Hornets!

Pictures of Entire 1952 Indianapolis 500 Starting Grid Found

bbaker — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:17:00 GMT

I wholeheartedly agree with this writer's opinion about how much cooler vintage racing cars are than today's modern marvels. Dig deep enough and there's a really awesome photo of Mario Andretti's hero, Alberto Ascari in a 1952 Ferrari Special. The Brickyard used to be a magical place during the month of May. Let's hope the unification will help bring back some of the glory of this historic race.

From Jalopnik

As much as we like open wheel racing and modern car designs, there's something far more awesome about vintage racing cars. This is undoubtedly the opinion of one Jim Rogacki, an engineer from Buffalo, who, while digging around for vintage car parts, managed to run into an amateur Indianapolis 500 historian. After shooting the breeze for a while, Jim convinced the man to let him scan his fantastic collection of photos for all 33 cars in the 1952 starting grid. We swiped a couple, but go take a look at the very neat complete collection and the story behind it over at Jalopy Journal.

What Revs to 19,000 in a Parking Lot?

bbaker — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:02:00 GMT

Answer: The BMW Sauber F1 car.

BMW's Nick Heidfeld recently demonstrated his spectacular driving skill to a crowded parking lot at the company's Munich plant in a show of support for employees, only a minor mishap made for some extra fun. BMW's F1 engine is 2.4L pneumatic four-valve engine capable of revving to 19,000 rpm. At full song it'll split eardrums.