Delta Wing Discussion ONLY

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

I bet you'd have more success if the car ever won a race.To me, in racing, that is sort of the ultimate proof of concept.

Deal!

Three hours. 120L of fuel.

Let's see who goes the farthest.

[nkoske]

Originally Posted by miatanut

Deal!

Three hours. 120L of fuel.

Let's see who goes the farthest.

That would be boring...there's a lot of distance cars built...and none of them go very fast.

[Maelochs]

The old SunRaycer solar car would win that ... traveling at 50 mph max and cornering at .1 G.

Sorry if "Win a race" was ambiguous. "Win an ALMS, WEC, or USCR race" is clearer?

Look, I like the car, but it Might not be the Next Big Thing, okay? It might be a small, fuel-efficient car that has decent straight-line speed and doesn't corner as well as a car with high downforce. Ref: Porsche in the 1950s and early '60s.

Also, I was under the assumption that aero for current cars is pretty well controlled, and that ground effects was limited by the rules, possibly because a ground effects car loses its downforce over hard bumps and flies off the track?

Let' see the DWing on the Long Beach street circuit.

Different rules produce different cars suited to different tasks. The DWing was Designed to be a good oval racer which could corner well enough, which wouldn't have mattered as IndyCar would have been an All-Dwing series, so no car would have had an advantage.

It has been pressed into service as a pure road racer, but it hasn't competed everywhere or won anywhere. The cars it is up against have to be able to run anywhere--not just at longer endurance races on smooth, wide tracks. Cars built to the current rules can do that.

Again, until the DWing can beat the current cars at any track it cannot be called superior. Interesting, exciting, stimulating? Sure but in racing "superior" is measured in a very specific way: race wins.

[seanyb505]

Originally Posted by miatanut

Deal!

Three hours. 120L of fuel.

Let's see who goes the farthest.

The problem is no other cars (that it is currently competing against) are built for this. A better idea would be to hold the race off road, and see if a truck could go farther. Of course it can, because the delta wing isn't built for it!

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Again, until the DWing can beat the current cars at any track it cannot be called superior.

Let's add this caveat: it has to beat cars racing to the same rules. Otherwise, as I said before, you've cheated and proved nothing.

[Pandamasque]

Originally Posted by seanyb505

Let's add this caveat: it has to beat cars racing to the same rules. Otherwise, as I said before, you've cheated and proved nothing.

This is such an obvious argument, yet it has been drowned in a relentless wave of PR manure.

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

on smooth, wide tracks. Cars built to the current rules can do that.

Again, until the DWing can beat the current cars at any track it cannot be called superior. .

Originally Posted by seanyb505

Let's add this caveat: it has to beat cars racing to the same rules. Otherwise, as I said before, you've cheated and proved nothing.

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

This is such an obvious argument, yet it has been drowned in a relentless wave of PR manure.

But apart from that, it's all good.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Again, until the DWing can beat the current cars at any track it cannot be called superior.

It's already done that. At RA it beat 28 cars which had larger engines.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by miatanut

It's already done that. At RA it beat 28 cars which had larger engines.

I'd expect a F1 car, with a smaller engine to also beat a Corvette GT car, but I'm not sure it means anything.

This argument hinges upon how a car built to no rules, compares to those who are encumbered by rules. Sure, it has actually finished a race now, and has done so ahead of other cars, but still hasn't actually won, which is the point. Run it against a car built to the same lack of rules, by a manufacturer and see how it looks.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

Run it against a car built to the same lack of rules, by a manufacturer and see how it looks.

That's the dream, although not exactly no rules.

Same safety rules as now, half the fuel consumption allowance as now, but otherwise, do your own thing. Call it PE for Prototype Efficiency. It won't take long before they have to cut the fuel limit to less than half that used by all the fuel pig cars because it will be threatening to win overall, and of course we can't have that!

[optica]

Originally Posted by miatanut

That's the dream, although not exactly no rules.

Same safety rules as now, half the fuel consumption allowance as now, but otherwise, do your own thing. Call it PE for Prototype Efficiency. It won't take long before they have to cut the fuel limit to less than half that used by all the fuel pig cars because it will be threatening to win overall, and of course we can't have that!

Much too intelligent a suggestion!....Don't forget we are in a world where economy is a swearword.

[seanyb505]

Originally Posted by miatanut

...and of course we can't have that!

This is not the feeling I would say most have. Efficiency is a fantastic goal which is very achievable through sports car racing. But the DW has no competition, and in it's current form has finished one race. It hasn't proved much of anything, against anything.

FWIW isn't WEC moving to consumption based rules next year? Adjust some parameters on the DW, have a car within the rules, and see what happens.

[Maelochs]

Indeed. While we have one poster claiming "economy is a swearword" we have the planet's premier sports car racing series instituting a fuel-economy rule. Maybe some people just can't reason well.

The DW is an interesting experiment. Possibly, in time, it will turn laps comparable with the cars which actually follow the existing rules (including fuel efficiency.) Maybe not.

Maybe in time P1 will be a bunch of 600-kg cars lapping just as fast as now with sub-2-liter engines and making the DW look like a fuel hog. Who knows.

Say, has the DW every won the Green-X Challenge? You know the ("economy is a swearword") actual championship which is entirely based on using less resources? Smaller carbon footprint, least environmental impact?

Seems to me if DW was all that and more, it would at least be locking up the Green-X trophy at every race. It didn't even win it a Petit.

Anyway, fighting over this stuff is silly. No one knows where sports car racing will be in ten years--maybe the Dwing will prove too small and light because there is no room for a serious hybrid system like the (by then) more-efficient cars use. Or maybe something else entirely new will come along. Or maybe everyone will be driving a 600-kg, 1.5-liter and hitting 245 mph on the Mulsanne Straight and cornering at 5 g as well. Who knows?

[TF110]

Wasn't long before a D-W argument came back. Opinions on the car aside, at least its not a D-P

[Fogelhund]

What is really daft, is that a D Sports Racer can run faster at Road America than the DW, with a smaller engine still, and get near the same fuel economy on a smaller budget. Maybe we should really be looking in this direction, because these guys can get it done, and still stay within a set of rules.

Originally Posted by miatanut

That's the dream, although not exactly no rules.

Same safety rules as now, half the fuel consumption allowance as now, but otherwise, do your own thing. Call it PE for Prototype Efficiency. It won't take long before they have to cut the fuel limit to less than half that used by all the fuel pig cars because it will be threatening to win overall, and of course we can't have that!

The point that you keep missing, is that "if" the Deltawing became a subset of the rules, that had any advantage, some manufacturer would build a car to these rules, and absolutely make the Deltawing look foolish.

[HJJ]

it would at least be locking up the Green-X trophy at every race. It didn't even win it a Petit.

It wasn't eligible. It ran unclassified.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

What is really daft, is that a D Sports Racer can run faster at Road America than the DW, with a smaller engine still, and get near the same fuel economy on a smaller budget. Maybe we should really be looking in this direction, because these guys can get it done, and still stay within a set of rules.

Can you post a lap time to confirm this? It that's true, I would agree. We really should go in that direction instead. D Sport Racers going faster than PC's using a fraction of the fuel.

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

The point that you keep missing, is that "if" the Deltawing became a subset of the rules, that had any advantage, some manufacturer would build a car to these rules, and absolutely make the Deltawing look foolish.

I'm not missing the point. What you are describing is exactly what I would like to see. True innovation coming back to sportscar racing, restricted only by safety. By safety I mean crash testing plus cutting the fuel allotment back every time the engineers get too clever and the cars start getting too fast.

Instead we get these little baby steps like the LM 2014 rules.

If there was an 'almost anything goes' class, I think more young people would find auto racing interesting, reversing the gradual aging of the fanbase.

[HJJ]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

What is really daft, is that a D Sports Racer can run faster at Road America than the DW, with a smaller engine still, and get near the same fuel economy on a smaller budget.

God knows what Tucker spent on his rules bending DSR. Wait, he bought the company!



A more applicable comparison would be IMSA Lites to DP's.

[optica]

D sports @ Road America: 1.58.997 which is pretty impressive. These lightweight bike engined formulas are pretty good at embarrassing most other classes especially here in the UK.... 250cc Div.2 superkarts also can cause some red faces at times.... Being fair to the Deltawing, though, is that we we are comparing long established, highly developed single seater formulas with a lone car running an ACO/FIA approved tub barely out of its nappies and having a lot of teething troubles. However it did get round in 1.55.3 on its single qualifying lap so it could almost certainly find more and leave a D sports for dead.
It would be disappointing if the whole Deltawing saga doesn't lead to a serious lightweight class of prototypes with minimal rules that give engineers like Bowlby a chance to vent their ideas. As far as Le Mans is concerned it might give the more innovative privateers a chance to get one over on the works teams and get us away from the same mega-money factory cars dominating the race year after year.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by optica

It would be disappointing if the whole Deltawing saga doesn't lead to a serious lightweight class of prototypes with minimal rules that give engineers like Bowlby a chance to vent their ideas. As far as Le Mans is concerned it might give the more innovative privateers a chance to get one over on the works teams and get us away from the same mega-money factory cars dominating the race year after year.

This exactly what I would like to see come out of this.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by HJJ

God knows what Tucker spent on his rules bending DSR. Wait, he bought the company!



A more applicable comparison would be IMSA Lites to DP's.

The budget was crazy for a D Sport, I heard around $1.2 million all in. I suspect that is still a fraction of what the DW has cost so far.

-------------------------------------------------------

Innovation? Sorry, I don't see it.

[brandscooper]

Lets not forget the Tucker D Sport was not built to the same FIA crash test regs as the DW and significantly lighter. I'm not sure it would last 24 hours either (not the DW has yet!).

[KA]

Originally Posted by optica

It would be disappointing if the whole Deltawing saga doesn't lead to a serious lightweight class of prototypes with minimal rules that give engineers like Bowlby a chance to vent their ideas. As far as Le Mans is concerned it might give the more innovative privateers a chance to get one over on the works teams and get us away from the same mega-money factory cars dominating the race year after year.

You'd need to factor something into the ruleset to exclude or at least discourage the factories from playing in the new class, because otherwise you'd just end up with it being dominated by a whole new breed of ultra-lightweight mega-money factory cars.

Cast your mind back 30 years or so to the start of Group C, when the FIA allowed the old 2-litre Group 6 cars to be grandfathered in for one last year as grid fillers,- and Lancia promptly rocked up with a pair of brand-new lightweight 1.4 litre turbo spyders built to the old regs, not subject to the Group C fuel limits, which won several races and nearly the championship...

http://img.favcars.com/lancia/lc/lan...pictures_1.jpg

[Maelochs]

"What you are describing is exactly what I would like to see. True innovation coming back to sportscar racing, restricted only by safety."

Of course, an ultra-light formula wouldn't necessarily breed "true innovation." (What is "true" innovation anyway? Seems to me diesels, ERS, wide front wheels ... seems to me just about every year engineers find new ways to do old things and new things to do. Not every innovation results in something really different .... but aside from wings, the Chapparal J, turbine engines and the six-wheel phase, not a lot of really "radical" innovations ... yet no short of (I guess) "untrue" innovation.

Thinking that because the DWing was a design no one had ever seen on a road-racing track, means that the rest of a class built to that weight limit would be equally off-the-wall is ... well ...

The DWing is so notable because it did something never done before int he history of road cars, that is made its near-tricycle, triangular design work at very high speeds. Thinking that imposing a 600-kg weight limit is going to inspire a dozen people to do a once in 120-year breakthroughs seems .... well ...

Those sorts of designs are notable mostly Because they come along once in a century. Make rules for an Ultralight cl;ass, and you will see IMSA Lites and D-sports racers on steroids, and DWing clones, which of course would be the opposite of innovative.

And as it stands, it is likely the class would be won but a multi-million dollar microcar like Tucker's record-setting DSR---huge bucks into a conventional platform, where the only "innovation" is the idea of spending P2 money in a class meant for entry-level garage-builts.

I am not opposed to an Ultralight class (though I don't think sports car racing needs more classes (fewer, in fact) and I don't think they'd be safe on a track with P1s with all that speed and half again as much weight (or GTs with twice the weight and steel fenders,) but I am a realist.

Once-in-a-century designs come along well ... do the math. Unless the rules state that every car has to be ground-breaking in a phenomenally huge way, you aren't going to get ground--breaking designs, and if the rules did say that, you's only have one car in the class.

Besides, what you are excited about seems to be the fact that the DWing is almost as fast but uses fewer resources, not the odd design. As others have pointed out, that is as much a function of being outside the rules as anything else. Put the Dyson motor in the back of an IMSA Lite and run it on really hard tires and you might get the same result—in fact, if low resource consumption was the point of the class … well seems P1 is already heading in that direction and Not sacrificing speed to do it.

Recap: an Ultralight class will Not guarantee “true innovation” any more than any other ruleset does. You need to decide if you want an Ultralight class or a High-efficiency class, and then you have to accept that “true” innovation on the scale of the DWing might come along once in a generation.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by KA

You'd need to factor something into the ruleset to exclude or at least discourage the factories from playing in the new class, because otherwise you'd just end up with it being dominated by a whole new breed of ultra-lightweight mega-money factory cars.

If it was slotted between P1 & P2, it wouldn't compete for the overall win, so manufacturers wouldn't be interested, although some might find it appealing as a place to show off innovations.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by miatanut

If it was slotted between P1 & P2, it wouldn't compete for the overall win, so manufacturers wouldn't be interested, although some might find it appealing as a place to show off innovations.

It will be slotted in at P2 in USCR.