IMSA GTP cars should have been 2,000+ horsepower cars

[Green Monster]

When a car wouldn't run faster than 200 mph because it was running out of horsepower, that's a good indication engine rules had become too restrictive.

[Fogelhund]

Originally posted by Green Monster
When a car wouldn't run faster than 200 mph because it was running out of horsepower, that's a good indication engine rules had become too restrictive.

False.

[Green Monster]

Originally posted by Fogelhund
False.

Hitting terminal velocity two thirds of the way down a long straight is okay if you want chumps driving the car.

A car that is ALWAYS accelerating separates the champions from the chumps.

[Fogelhund]

A car running out of top speed at 200mph is much more then about having a 2000hp car. Aero, and required downforce are much more of the equation, and with a car with approx 450hp should be capable of running 200mph.

Having said that, a car continuously accelerating is not what is particularly challenging, nor is it what seperates the champions from the chumps. It may be of some interest to drag racing, or salt flats racing, but it isn't what sportscar racing is about. Terminal speed is interesting, but lap speed is more important.

[Green Monster]

Originally posted by Fogelhund
A car running out of top speed at 200mph is much more then about having a 2000hp car. Aero, and required downforce are much more of the equation, and with a car with approx 450hp should be capable of running 200mph.

Having said that, a car continuously accelerating is not what is particularly challenging, nor is it what seperates the champions from the chumps. It may be of some interest to drag racing, or salt flats racing, but it isn't what sportscar racing is about. Terminal speed is interesting, but lap speed is more important.

A car that is continuously accelerating gets real challenging when the driver gets to the turn at the end of the straight. Chumps back off sooner than champions.

IMSA GTP cars weren't 400 horsepower cars. Depending on the year and the boost level they were as much as a 1,000 horsepower car.

[Fogelhund]

Originally posted by Green Monster
[B]A car that is continuously accelerating gets real challenging when the driver gets to the turn at the end of the straight. Chumps back off sooner than champions.

Sure thing. But what does it really matter?

IMSA GTP cars weren't 400 horsepower cars.

Did I say they were?

Anyway, IMSA GTP has been dead for what, 10 years now, so what does it matter? How does this relate to anything current, or relevant?

[JAG]

Late braking seperates the proffessionals from the amateurs, whether they are travelling at 100mph, 150mph or 200mph.

A

[Green Monster]

Originally posted by Fogelhund
Sure thing. But what does it really matter?



Did I say they were?

Anyway, IMSA GTP has been dead for what, 10 years now, so what does it matter? How does this relate to anything current, or relevant?

Seen any road racing lately that doesn't put you to sleep?

[RM40]

Yes. It was called Le Mans and it happened last weekend.

[Fogelhund]

Originally posted by Green Monster
Seen any road racing lately that doesn't put you to sleep?

Yes, plenty.

As mentioned, LM for starters, MotoGP was excellent this weekend, the F1 race was ok for a bit...

That was just this weekend.

Speed WC is almost always very entertaining, and these cars don't have 2000hp, or go 200mph.

So, what is the relevance again?

[mountainstar]

A 2000 hp car would burn the tires off and just where would you find all the components that could handle that horsepower?

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by Green Monster
Hitting terminal velocity two thirds of the way down a long straight is okay if you want chumps driving the car.

A car that is ALWAYS accelerating separates the champions from the chumps.

I think the point he is getting at is, the artificial restrictions used by all the sports cars series make proving which car is better a farce as the cars are not regulated by weight to engine size, which leaves it up to the tuner and driver to get best performance, but by artificial restrictors on the engines which controls the cars performance, factory design being irrelevant, in the same manner as NASCAR, contrived competition.
Bob

[PascaLM]

Who does need 2000+ HP ? I only see chaps of NHRA, because acceleration is their job.
No pilot would accept any regulations that allow such power on circuits. If it not the case, Pironi, Senna and some others would have protested for nothing.

We don't need so much power to make technology progressing and to have good races.
This is my opinion.

[Fogelhund]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe
I think the point he is getting at is, the artificial restrictions used by all the sports cars series make proving which car is better a farce as the cars are not regulated by weight to engine size, which leaves it up to the tuner and driver to get best performance, but by artificial restrictors on the engines which controls the cars performance, factory design being irrelevant, in the same manner as NASCAR, contrived competition.
Bob

Bob, sorry, but what you say makes no sense, at least the way I read it. Despite using "artificial" restrictors, it still seems that factory designed Audi's, are faster then the competition. It would seem that the factory design is afterall relevant, and that the NASCAR contrived competition comment is irrelevant.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by Fogelhund
Bob, sorry, but what you say makes no sense, at least the way I read it. Despite using "artificial" restrictors, it still seems that factory designed Audi's, are faster then the competition. It would seem that the factory design is afterall relevant, and that the NASCAR contrived competition comment is irrelevant.

The huge amount of money spent by Audi is spent the same way it is spent in NASCAR, how to overcome the restrictions that was imposed by the sanctioning body.
Do not try to say these recent restriction rules are the same as the old basic displacement and weight rules. Beyond those, one could develope engines systems to create as much horse power as one wanted

Companies used to develope better engines for racing, which could then be taken back to the production cars. Any engine improvement here are worthless as street cars are not articficially regulated. This is one reason Cadillac could see no future developing a sports racer with an engine program that has zero relationship to the street cars.

You are probably to young to remember well, but back in the IMSA GT era, teams were continually trying to improve different aspects of the cars to meet the ever improving performance gains. Chevrolet engines had more than enough horsepower and tire companies were making increasingly large and better tires to handle this, but Chevy never improved the transmission available for the Corvette so rather than using the available power to run away from the Porsches, the drivers were more concerned about not destroying the tranny and having a dnf.
This aspect of racing was destroyed by the contrived rules first introduced by NASCAR and now being copied by other series including ALMS.
If you do not see the relevance it is probably that you simply have not been around long enough to get a birds eye view of how things have changed.
Bob

[JAG]

Cars today are constantly being improved in all areas. Look at how hard an R8 can be pushed, for 24 Hours.

Likewise look how Audi technology has improved MPG and engine efficiency. Surely this has far more relevance to a street car than upgading an engine from 800BHP to 1000BHP?

As for saying road cars are not artificially regulated, what about emissions, crash/saftey legislation etc.

Modern racing has improved all of these areas, and the alternative fuels being developed for Le Mans, have more relevance to the future of road cars than possibly any other development.

In the mid 80s competition cars, whether it was turbo F1, IMSA GTP/Group C, Group B rally reached a limit were they were too fast too race.

Since then we have had ever tighter regs to keep the pace of cars stable, but at the same time we have seen more development in areas such as transmissions, braking, aerodynamics, engines, electronecs than ever before!

[Cadete]

One thing were you can see that there is connection between the race and the road car is in the same R8 engine you mention.
The FSI (hope I got the initials right) is a technology that is used in both the race engine and in road-going engines.

Also remember that the horsepower figures quoted are almost allways the power at the driveshaft. The output at the wheel is very different, and I guess that is one of the areas where it has improved greatly.

The reason why there are restrictors is mainly safety, as was said in the mid 80s cars were too fast. But don't think this has taken away from building better engines, I daresay that if you took the restrictors from the Judd V10, from example, you would have more than enough horsepower. And those 1000hp you mention were more common in qualifying trim than in race trim...

[pirenzo]

Originally posted by Green Monster
A car that is continuously accelerating gets real challenging when the driver gets to the turn at the end of the straight. Chumps back off sooner than champions.

IMSA GTP cars weren't 400 horsepower cars. Depending on the year and the boost level they were as much as a 1,000 horsepower car.

Its not about who has the biggest balls mate, its about who goes around a lap quickest. Sure you can have 2000bhp if you like but this just results in a probably undrivable car. With that amount of power the grip of the rear wheels would easily be overcome in a corner situation, meaning the throttle could not be used until almost at the exit of the corner when in fact ideally you want to be on the power from the apex out. That would basically make a 1000 bhp engine in the same chassis much quicker around a lap than the 2000bhp so nobody would build a car with that much power anyway.
Just think of it this way. The Cam-am porsches were getting close to undrivable with 1000+bhp. In a hairpin aero has little or no effect, so you can imagine how hard it would be to put the power down. At the end of the day, drivability is the deciding factor.

[Bob Riebe]

"In the mid 80s competition cars, whether it was turbo F1, IMSA GTP/Group C, Group B rally reached a limit were they were too fast too race."

This "too fast" mantra is at best annoying. The trouble is people who have never raced and should not be running the show are.
Cars have brakes, use of them is a skill racing drivers have mastered. If some does not belong in racing, he will be weeded out quickly, usually by his own intelligent decision.

"Look how hard an R8 can be pushed for 24 hours."
I hope so, look how hard a MK IV Ford and a Lola GT were pushed for 24 hours and they only had 2 drivers, each, it didn't take a fist full of drivers to get the job done.
If the cars are REALLY "too fast" then ban racing, this contrived BS is not racing, it is more like slot cars, where some one else besides the driver is in control of how fast one goes.

A show about racing said the "devil may care attitude" has been replaced by safety.
A certain amount of consideration for safety, has always been taken into account. The day the racing was no longer the first concern and safety something that merely had to be addressed, was the day, racing lost it heart and soul. It has been replaced by greed, fascists and fascist wannabes.

I want to see, especially in mod. GTs, just hoe hard and fast a car design can be pushed; that shows how talented drivers are. If someone is not qualified to be a driver, it will be found out very quickly.
I am tired of seeing how slowmobiles, because some little Hiltler likes to pull strings.
Bob

[Bob Riebe]

---"The Cam-am porsches were getting close to undrivable with 1000+bhp. In a hairpin aero has little or no effect, so you can imagine how hard it would be to put the power down. At the end of the day, drivability is the deciding factor.'___

I have heard this statement before, undrivable, good grief, the cars by standards and equipment of the time were uknown territoty. I had zilch to do with being undrivable (I have never heard, or read where a driver said that yet, except maybe Sam Posey. Compared to Sam Posey's Caldwell the Porshces were tame)
How hard it is, is irrelevant, they are pros and there job is to learn to drive it.
Back then AA/f dragsters had 5,000 less horsepower than they do now, but they are still driving them.
Back then cars were lapping Indy with bigger tires and wings at barely 200 mph, that is a long way from the 236 Cheever drove for lap after lap at Indy, during a race.

At the end of the day the ability of the driver is one of the deciding factors. The other is the quality of the car.

I agree that 2,000 hp is impractical, as the size of the tires needed to contain, would implement a drag and increased turning radius factor that would be a point of diminishing returns.
Bob

[Cadete]

In my view it would be contrived racing if the criteria for the restrictors would be: this car is racing too fast, let's put him in restrictors smaller than everyone else with same displacement and in the same class.

As it is, with rules equal for everyone, it's not contrived racing, and I don't see you point.

Now onto your remark about the old Ford and Lola, no one is taking away the glory from those cars. Look at all the excitment we had over the Group C cars. And even people like me, who were too young to follow this kind of racing even at the mid 90s or that simply discovered in recently, love the old cars and want to know all about them. This said, nothing prohibites us from enjoying the current crop of race cars.

Cars designs are pushed hard and fast today. The rules are different, but the essence is still the same: you give a set of rules and the engineers make the best car they can from it, the best car-drivers-team combination wins, it's as simple as that.

To finish with the safety issues you mentioned, the concern over safety has increased because so have the performances. Ask Martin Short how he feels about the mandatory safety rules. Perhaps without them he wouldn't be able to post in here today to share with us how he felt about the accident. And this is just one example.

[Bob Riebe]

delete does not work

[JAG]

I honestly don't see the problem here. Modern cars are far, far quicker, can be pushed much harder, and have far more advanced designs than at any time previously.

Only NASCAR could truly be called a formula that is stuck in a time warp.

I'm sure a Ford GT40, and cars right upto the 1990's had to be nursed around for 24 Hours at Le Mans. Now an R8 can be driven flat out, like in a sprint race.

One of the driving forces in modern motorsport is exploiting new regs to the max. In F1 for example, in less than 10 years, we have gone from 3.5l V12's producing 750BHP to 3l V10's producing 900BHP+. Isn't this kind of development a good thing.

The Vette C5-R this year lapped around 7 seconds quicker at LM than last year, through gradual refinments and improvements to the car.

In the WRC, cars that are restricted to 350BHP are far quicker than Group B cars producing 600BHP due to improved tranmissions etc.

The best always rise to the top, whether it is Ferrari, Audi or Peugeot.

[Cadete]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe


At the end of the day the ability of the driver is one of the deciding factors. The other is the quality of the car.

You said it yourself. The Goh Audi wasn't the first this Le Man just because someone took it's name out of a hat. It won because it had a great car with great drivers, who battled with other great cars and drivers and managed to be better or to run into less trouble than them.

[Bob Riebe]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Bob Riebe


At the end of the day the ability of the driver is one of the deciding factors. The other is the quality of the car.

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



You said it yourself. The Goh Audi wasn't the first this Le Man just because someone took it's name out of a hat. It won because it had a great car with great drivers, who battled with other great cars and drivers and managed to be better or to run into less trouble than them.
------------------------------------------------------------
Cadete:
What I wrote was in response to the quote from Pirenzo, pulling it out of context is illigical.
That statement could be applied to Bomber dirt track cars as well any other type.
It does not just concern who won the race. Some one who drives a fecal box to a top five finish has accomplished more than some one who finishes one place in front of him in a first rate car.
Bob