Where's Dallara?

[Salamus]

Today I was thinking about the future of sportscar racing and tried imaging Le Mans without a Lola and then something came to my mind. What happened to Dallara? I mean, these are the guys who helped with the R8 and that Chrysler prototype. I know they have been active with Grand-Am and Indycar in the recent past and present but any chance of them returning to ACO racing any time soon?

[GT3.14]

Last I checked they were still making the tubs for the Audi prototype cars. http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/audi-r18-tdi/

[Salamus]

Wow I just had a brain fart there! Thanks GT3.14!

[The Badger]

Thinking about what De Chaunac said , that Oreca isnt interested in making a new chassis , cuz theres no money in it , where does that leave other chassis builders , such as Dallara ?

[ss_collins]

Its about volume. If you make 50 chassis of the same design then theres profit - if you make 5, its hard to make a profit.

[The Badger]

That answer isnt really relevant to our type of racing .

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by The Badger

That answer isnt really relevant to our type of racing .

That answer is relevant to everything made on our planet. There needs to be a certain number of anything made, in order to turn a profit. Otherwise you need to sell them for such a huge price, that nobody will buy any.

The market is no longer big enough for boutique manufacturers to bother building chassis, nor engine. Houston, we have a problem.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

Houston, we have a problem.

I am not sure what can be done? Anyone have an idea?

I have heard crash testing and carbon listed over the years as the problem, or at least some of them. But, having seen multiple accidents now where the driver survived, as an example the Audi accidents at LeMans last year, makes me not want to move away from that level of protection.

That said, the cost of a GT these days stuns also-and not just a Porsche or Ferrari, but the cars running in smaller or lower tech classes is equally stunning.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by skycafe

I am not sure what can be done? Anyone have an idea?

Ensuring the biggest market possible, increasing the genre appeal across all series, stable rules, engine rules that allow for privateers to compete, manufacturer support and dollars across all series, competent series management, with a marketable TV broadcast.

[skycafe]

Right, I would agree with that. When it comes to engine rules and stability of those, isn't the influence of hybrid technology and other efficiency improvements going to have the effect of destabilizing, because of the development/operational costs?

Also, you want manufacturers to provide a product in a turnkey car that is available. The quantity they would need to provide becomes a challenge-what is the market?

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

The market is no longer big enough for boutique manufacturers to bother building chassis, nor engine. Houston, we have a problem.

Yes , I agree , so if nobody is interested in building chassis , then there is a design flaw that needs to be addressed , otherwise there there wont be anything to address .

Is it CF thats driving up the price ? While CF is not so expensive , the process for layup , autoclave and the need to ship the chaiisi back to the manufacturer for repair is . Plus crap like hybrid technology doesnt help either .

Fine , if you like to see technology , thats cool , I like it too but , if its deminishing the grids , I would rather not see it .

[Fogelhund]

I don't believe the cost of materials for chassis, CF etc. are the major factor here.

There is a fixed cost in design, develop and tooling that are by far the bigger issue. These need to be amortized across a number of sales.

We really need some developed chassis, such as the Porsche 962, 955, Spyder etc. that can be purchased at a price that they can be sold in numbers, and be competitive. Certainly a developed HPD in LMP1 should fall in the same category, if the ACO could come up with the equivalency of non-hybrid/diesel engines correctly. The gap between the manufacturers and privateers needs to be closed, even if artificially. There should be a probability of an upset win from the privateers on pace, even if it is still improbable.

There has been far too much pandering to Peugeot in particular, but manufacturers as a whole and short-term thinking.

How can they encourage the build and sale of developed competitive machinery? Can they give breaks to privateer machinery, such as weight breaks to true privateers running manufacturer equipment? Should manufacturer points be based upon all cars entered, with stricter rules around true manufacturer teams?

[wolfhound]

If you look at what Dallara builds now, they are effectively a builder of spec chassis racing cars and do not build cars in race series that offer strong chassis design competition.

[ger80]

Well, everybody that tried to compete went away, e.g. Lola in F3 or G-Force/Panoz in Indycar.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

If you look at what Dallara builds now, they are effectively a builder of spec chassis racing cars and do not build cars in race series that offer strong chassis design competition.

Coupled with a designer and program to run it, I wouldn't doubt that Dallara could produce a winning bespoke car. Their business model of 'mass production' is working for them and gives them economic stability, and results in well built series of cars at stable prices, which is good for the feeder series. They have made themselves somewhat immune to the boom and bust cycles we saw with March and Lola back in the Cart days, where one year you sold twenty chassis and the next year one because someone else was percieved to have the better option. You can not really keep a state of the art facility and staff when you have swings like that.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

We really need some developed chassis, such as the Porsche 962, 955, Spyder etc. that can be purchased at a price that they can be sold in numbers, and be competitive.

When you mention 955, do you mean 956 or 935?

Porsche is a good example in that they were offering a developed machine that could be purchased turn-key. You do have to admit that the early competition these cars in GTP faced were kit cars (for the most part- and yes you had G 44 and TWR and Nissan and Toyota coming along after that), with teams having to integrate power systems to chassis, and that competition suffered somewhat for it. Still, it was a great period because it was so dynamic. At points if you looked at an IMSA grid you would have seen several 962's, but were each developed differently.

At some point the 962 was a fixed target not capable of dramatic gains and that was exploited by Nissan and then Toyota.

Customer cars were always part of the sportscar tradition-Ferrari did the same with the 333SP. Going back, you had Testa Rossa's and GTO's, and 275LM, and Porsche the RS, RSK thru 904 to the 917 (the 936 I think was the only one never available for purchase).

It seems sometimes changing the rule set has an open door effect, and other times it does not (Group C versus the 3 litre era). I am of the opinion that limiting capacity, number of cylinders and configuration is not the way to go in sportscar racing because then you force any manufacturer wanting to participate into this arena where they start well behind someone else with an established program. Looking at the business aspect, it makes no sense to get involved as it becomes a spending war and you start well behind your opponent and the return doesn't match the investment. That would holds true if you are a manufacturer or a private team buying equipment.

So, in a competitive market how to you create an environment to give ROI to sportscars and how to you created a level field to have several companies offer car options for purchase?