Variety of past/present design features would make 300 mph Indy car speeds feasible

[Franklin]

Given that Indy cars are interface vehicles rather than land vehicles (i.e., vehicles operating in the air/ground interface), there are a variety of past and present design features which would make 300 mph top speeds with Indy cars much more manageable.

1. Steering fins (first tested by Hermann Lang in 1952 for a Mercedes entry at Indy and since used on various land speed record cars).

2. A LARGE tail fin located BEHIND the gearbox (virtually standard equipment on many Bonneville streamliners).

3. Variable incidence wings (now being used on Sprint cars and Super Modifieds).

4. Air (i.e., speed) brakes (first used in the thirties on land speed cars even before being adopted for airplanes and used over thirty years later on the 1967 STP gas turbine car).

[Liz]

Tech Forum, I think. Thank you.

[Crash Test]

Well i could go on and on...but...

Of course they could make the cars go at 300mph, but why would they do that? The things are unsafe as they are (and dont give us the parachute lecture again), do you think making the cars faster will make it safer? Aren't they trying everything in their power to slow things down and make them safer?

[Franklin]

What they've been doing, Crash Test, is applying bandaid solutions to 20 to 30 year old configurations that have long since been pushed beyond their limits.

[Crash Test]

Well why dont they have parachutes or ponds of water?

Another thing, it would be fine to have the cars going at 300mph, but even a small accident at that speed would be like a plane crash. They first have to develope a more solid human being, because currently they are the softest part of the vehicle...