ChumpCar Cage Design

[Link to picture broke]
I found this cage design and think it may be what we should use for the ChumpCar. It's a bolt-in too. Thoughts?

Nostalgia: Formula 1 Championship 1983

The Brabham BT52

The first Formula 1 practice session of the 2010 season at Bahrain is less than 18 days away. To tide me over until the start of the season I have been watching some classic F1 highlights. In the next few weeks I will attempt to relive some of the epic past battles that took place in this new feature I call "Nostalgia." Who knows, we may make it all the way from 1983-2009 (but I doubt it). First up, the 1983 season. 1983 featured far less controversy than the 1982 season (reviewing 1982 will require a far lengthier post than I have time for today), but was still epic.

///Motorsports Stripe on the BT52's front wing

For the BMW F1 fans out there (I'm looking at you Hardflip) 1983 was one of the greatest seasons ever. Nelson Piquet drove his Brabham-BMW to the driver's championship in a year where it came down to him and Alain Prost in a Renault to decide the title at the final round. Piquet trailed Prost by two points going into the final round at South Africa. Prost's Renault broke down at Kyalami and Piquet finished 3rd to take the championship.


The turning point in the season though likely came at the Dutch GP at Zandvoort where Prost made a somewhat optimistic attempt to pass Piquet at the Tarzan corner and the two collided. Both went out of the race. This was a rare mistake for "Le Professeur" as Prost was regarded as a calculated racer and an excellent overtaker. Prost left Zandvoort with an 11 point lead over Rene Arnoux and a 14 point lead over Piquet with 3 rounds to go. Prost, however, would not finish in Italy or South Africa and come second in the European GP and Piquet would win both the Italian and European GP and come 3rd in South Africa to take the Championship by 2 points. Arnoux (Prost's teammate the prior year at Renault) driving a Ferrari finished 9th at the European GP and did not finish in South Africa to see his title chances slip away. Ferrari would win the constructors championship as they had in 1982.

Prost would move back to McLaren, the team he began his F1 career with, for 1984 but a similar fate awaited him (more on that later this week...probably).

Fun fact: Bernie Ecclestone (yep, the same one) owned and ran Brabham F1 in 1983.

Big Thanks

Dear OL Readers,

You may have noticed that the site got a bit of polishing a few weeks ago. The fancy new header and formatting are courtesy of Stelly and brought to you in part by Pabst Blue Ribbon and Pet Project Rescue (adopt Cora).

Thanks Stelly!

The OL Czar

ChumpCar Update - The Teardown Continues

Welcome back boys and girls. It's time (or perhaps past time) for an update on the ChumpCar project. The team got together last weekend with the goal of installing the cage and making further progress on the teardown. At least past of this was accomplished.


We continued to strip the insulation from the interior. All the insulation must be removed per the rules (I believe), which makes sense since its flammable (Inflammable means flammable! -- What a Country!!" - Dr. Nick). We had an air chisel this time which made much quicker work of the remaining insulation.


Then we started getting the cage in to see how it fit. We are using an Autopower 6-point bolt-in roll cage. Obviously we will be adding some SFI padding later to protect the driver. We will also need to reposition the headlight switch as the cage is directly in its way.

The biggest issue we tried to figure out was the fact that the drivers on the team are very different sizes yet we all need to fit in the car and be able to see over the dash, but the tall drivers also must be at least 2 inches below the top of the cage. In order to make it so that the shorter drivers (See, me) be positioned to see over the dash yet keep the taller drivers below the cage we had to remove the sunroof cassette

In the old E3os the sunroof cassette (which has all the mechanics of the sunroof) are held into the roof with metal brackets and then glued in for additional strength. Our soultion: Cut the Damn thing OUT!!! Wish I had more pics of cutting the sunroof out of the roof from inside the care, but honestly I spent a good bit of the time with the grinder cutting it out, so was unable to multi-task. Eventually we also had to cut the sunroof out from above (see top pic)


After that we did some further trimming to get the cage up as high as possible. We finally got it so that I can see over the dash and the taller drivers will meet the clearance requirements.


Looks like we will need to do some welding to get the cage where we want it and I hope to bring that to you next time. We also need to get the seat brackets and slider fabricated. The seat will need to move so that I can reach the pedals and the taller drivers wont be squished against the wheel. They challenges of team endurance racing...

Still a lot of work to do before the first race in June. We will also be raising money for charity so stay posted for updates on that as well.

And now for something completely different

In the immortal words of Monty Python I present the DeltaWing race car concept for the IndyCar series. A design team led by one of Chip Ganassi's engineers created this concept that is one of several concepts that have been unveiled this week for the new 2012 IndyCar chassis. An, well it's...different. Part soapbox derby, part jet fighter, part race car, part spaceship, it is vastly different than the current IndyCar chassis that dates back to 2003 (and looks like $h*t).

Current Dallara chassis.
Not sure what else to say at this point. Being somewhat of a traditionalist I'm not sure how I feel about this drastic departure from conventional open-wheeled cars. At this point, I think I like the Swift chassis the best, but am thrilled that there are some people in IndyCar who can have a creative idea. I look forward to seeing the next car, assuming the series can survive that long. But that rant is for another day.
Swift Concept

C'est Beau de BMW

First, my French is not very good at all. Second, there is quite a lot that I have failed to post the last few days that I had hoped to (Daytona results, F1 testing and car reveals, etc.) but I am afraid I have just been a bit too tired and busy. But thought I would at least post the GT2 entry list for the 2010 24 Heures du Mans.

#63 Corvette Chevrolet Corvette C6.R Magnussen, O'Connell, Garcia
#64 Corvette Chevrolet Corvette C6.R Gavin, Beretta, TBA
#75 Prospeed Porsche 997 GT3 RSR van Splunteren, TBA, TBA
#76 IMSA Porsche 997 GT3 RSR Narac, TBA, TBA
#78 BMW BMW E92 M3 Muller, TBA, TBA
#79 BMW BMW E92 M3 Priaulx, TBA, TBA
#80 Flying Lizard Porsche 997 GT3 RSR Neiman, TBA, TBA
#81 Jaguar RSR Jaguar XKR GT2 Pruett, Goossens, Gentilozzi
#82 Risi Ferrari F430 GT2 Jonsson, Krohn, TBA
#83 Risi Ferrari F430 GT2 Melo, TBA, TBA
#84 Modena Ferrari F430 GT2 Rusinov, TBA, TBA
#85 Spyker Spyker C8 Laviolette Coronel, TBA, TBA
#89 Farnbacher Ferrari F430 GT2 Farnbacher, Simonsen, TBA
#92 JMW Aston Martin Vantage Bell, TBA, TBA
#96 AF Corse Ferrari F430 GT2 Perez-Companc, Russo, TBA
#97 BMS Ferrari F430 GT2 Malucelli, TBA, TBA

The big news, as far as I am concerned, is that BMW will be entering two E92 M3 GT2s driven by some of BMWs WTCC drivers. At this point the teams need only announce one driver. More updates to come as this race is far too long from now.

Also, I hope to do a recap of all the f1 team launches and the first test that took place earlier this week. Stay tuned to OL.

De la Rosa and Kobayashi Wed

The ceremony was conducted in Valencia, Spain by the new Ferrari-powered BMW-Sauber C29. Most on hand said it was a beautiful ceremony.