Delta Wing Indycar WTF ?!!

[WorkingOnIt]

At first I thought April 1 arrived early this year...

[img width=533 height=322]http://assets.speedtv.com/images/easy_g ... inal_m.jpg[/img]

http://jalopnik.com/5468819/delta-wing- ... ocket-ship

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news ... ealed.html

Interview with designer Ben Bowlby
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/ ... g-project/
BOWLBY: “[re: the proposed 4 cylinder turbo] ...it's a function of drag and mass. This car will out accelerate a current Indy car and run 230 or 235 mph on 300 HP - if it had 500 HP it would run 270 mph around Indy! Today’s Indy car is an aerodynamic brick with a huge engine that spends its life burning fuel and components - it just shows how inefficient they are! That’s not surprising because for decades the regulations have mandated inefficiency as a way of controlling speed."
SPEED: Why no wings?
BOWLBY: “Wings are fragile, expensive, draggy and very turbulence sensitive. The geometry (shape) of this car’s bodywork and aero behavior is designed to allow better overtaking and closer racing.”
SPEED: Why cover most of the tire/wheel?
BOWLBY: “The biggest resistance for an Indy car is the drag of the exposed wheels and tires. At Indianapolis, 54 percent of the drag is the rotating wheels. By fairing the wheels there’s a huge gain in efficiency and a fantastic safety improvement from a contact standpoint.”

Wallpaper sized renderings available here.

[img width=533 height=322]http://assets.speedtv.com/images/easy_g ... inal_m.jpg[/img] [img width=533 height=322]http://assets.speedtv.com/images/easy_g ... inal_m.jpg[/img]

[ross]

It would be very cool to see a bunch of these things racing round an oval!

[benyeats]

[quote="Ross McWilliam"]
It would be very cool to see a bunch of these things racing round an oval!
[/quote]

+1. It would be amazing

[MonsieurX]

And there's more surface for sponsor stickers...

This is a nice evolution of car design if it comes to be. Not sure i like it though...

Front side stability when understeering must be completely off the scale too and im not sure how it will drift if you get that back wing flat into the wind doing 90mph/150kph... Snap steer drifts anyone? 

So how do "we" reduce our wheel air resistance in the atom?

[Heywood-Yablowme]

"So how do "we" reduce our wheel air resistance in the atom?"

By not going 230mph..     Even at 140mph,I am sure the drag is not that significant.  Open wheels are cool!

   That..thing...is hideous!        Might as well start racing the Space shuttle...

I know it's only a prototype,but there is NO room for the front wheels to turn,and no stability.Maybe all the turning is done with the back  rudder..like a plane. 

Indy cars on ovals are already boring...having them faster won't help matters..just up the carnage.Leave that for NASCAR..
 
That tricycle front end simply is not going to work on a road course,either. Maybe a drag strip.  I still think it is damn ugly.

[benyeats]

[quote="MadMaxAtom and company"]
"So how do "we" reduce our wheel air resistance in the atom?"

By not going 230mph..      Even at 140mph,I am sure the drag is not that significant.  Open wheels are cool!
[/quote]

Drag from the open wheels is surely a big factor for the Atom but as you say they are cool.

[Heywood-Yablowme]

At speeds under 120mph,I don't believe the wheels are messing up the aero much. Not helping things out..but not hurting as much as say,a large windshield. 
  I use to pull a snowmobile trailer with a small Nissan truck.The front of the trailer had a perfectly vertical 4'x8' flat bulkhead. I could pull it to about 70mph. Once I removed that (sheet of plywood) bulkhead,I could reach 85+mph and returned much better mileage,but the machines on the trailer got filthy.  I then cut the plywood and angled it in a 45 degree flying V. Didn't matter,I was back to 70mph. Wind drag is a funny thing.What seems would work or help out does not always in reality.

[dp35]

This thing is a joke! 

I don't understand how they get away with calling it an "open wheel" car.  Of course you can improve aero efficiency of an open wheeled car by enclosing the wheels!  Also, I'm not sure how much longer this thing is than traditional Indy Cars, but its obviously much longer.  That along with its triangular shape will make it garbage on a road course. 

IndyCar is desperate to get back to where it once was.  But I hope that desperation does not cause them to resort to gimicks like this one.  It would be interesting to watch these cars race one time, and after that it would just be silly.

[WorkingOnIt]

I rather expect, like most concept cars, if a production version follows, it would use some of the design elements, but not be nearly as radical.

A new car that could use ground effects and an underbody ventur instead of wings would be an advance imo.

And if speed is controlled by fuel flow rather than aero restrictions, we might start seeing more technology migrating from track to street again.