The Lone Holden

[jaytor]

Why is it that 6 fords were behind the Murphy/Kelly car and none of then could catch them, not even the mighty SBR. Even with the safety car periods from laps > 100, the Kmart Car Kept pulling away to extend their lead out to >10 secs on many occasions, the way Ambrose does all the time at any of the other tracks the V8SC's run at other than Bathurst.

Is it that the Fords chew up the rear tyres too much in the longer races, or is it that the Fords find it harder to adapt to the mountain. The Pirtek car was not clearly as fast as it usually is, but Bowe and Jones were as quick as they usually are at Bathurst.

I'm not sure what the issue here is. hrug:

[Bimmerhead]

Could Roland Dane be right after all??

[lcfp2297]

The Murph/Kelly car was pulling away from everybody...not just the Fords...

[manwell]

Originally posted by lcfp2297
The Murph/Kelly car was pulling away from everybody...not just the Fords...

Its easy to pull away from a Holden if its parked in the pits getting a new alternator belt, or getting repairs after hitting a roo/wall/other car.

[bartman71]

was it only the fords with problems with RHF tyres again.
the same thing happened last year and i think to make up for the lack of aero they need more negative camber thus over heating the inside edge of the tyre

[GTRMagic]

Originally posted by Bimmerhead
Could Roland Dane be right after all??

I dont think he has had a BA run in an endurance race long enough to make a judgement

But seriously... the way the BA's are set up to make them quick is not the same as a Holden, despite similar specification underpinnings.

It is said by three or four L1 team managers that they would like to run an AU at certain circuits, with the full house engines in them, to see just how quick they could go... that they may ultimately be quicker than a BA.... over a single lap anyway

[Aquarius]

What about that KMart has the best race strategy on the day

Or if FPR had the same amount of pit stops as KMart- what was it for FPR, 2 extra? What does a pit stop take, 40-50 seconds? Add 2 of them together and then subtract that amount of seconds from Murphs lead over FPR, you do that and it puts a lot of credibility on FPR's second place.

BTW, not being a prick, but the thread should be Lone, not Loan - sorry.

[lcfp2297]

Originally posted by manwell
Its easy to pull away from a Holden if its parked in the pits getting a new alternator belt, or getting repairs after hitting a roo/wall/other car.

LOL

Obviously watching a different race to me...laps 100-161 there was one car that was consistently quicker than every other, whether they be Holden or Ford. Even though Skaife was tucked away in the pack, he was still one of the quickest during this period, but still not as quick as that 15 car...check the times http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/re...004.MOUN.R10.I

Both Holdens and Fords had front tyres deflate...

[Dazz]

This debate is a tough one.

But realistically it is always going to be hard to prove anything either way using lap times alone anyway.

Looking at various things that happened during the race tells us more, but still does not really tell us any one single fact.

When Bowe and Lowndes were dicing, Lownde's car was a rocketship between the cutting and the beginning of Conrod. Bowe's car pulled away easily on the straights but lacked pace across the top.

The lap times ultimately between these two and Murphy's car was very little when you look through the lap times, with any car on any given lap being the fastest at some stage.

But what if we had Bowe's engine in Lownde's car? What lap time would you get with the straight line speed of Bowe's eninge coupled with the obvious speed across the top of Lownde's car?

This is a simple exapmle, however unless you know that ultimately every other single component in the cars is the same, trying to pull out aero as the one defining culprit is hard to do.

If the Falcons have a rear downforce issue, how come they are chewing out front tyres? I don't think you can realistically say that they need to run more front camber to counteract the lack of rear grip, or can you? It seems to me that if rear grip was a problem then rear tyre wear would be more of an issue than front tyre wear.

You also when looking at the numbers have to take into account restarts after the pace car, and look at car position, how many cars are between contenders, and also the fact that the leading car will always have a clear track and no pressure from behind, unlike cars further back in the pack which may be dicing with each other, like Bowe and Lowndes in the latter stages.

There are so many contributing factors to take into account that it is almost impossible for anyone sitting here behind a keyboard to categically say that they have the answers to the problem. It's just to damn complicated.

I agree that the cars in a wind tunnell would be a good idea, as well as some simple and repeatable tests that could be carried out. But until that happens none of us are in a position to say one way or another who is right and who is wrong.

The bottom line is that both sides signed off at the beginning of the Blueprint era and were happy with the final figures achieved. Do you really believe that if Ford was at a disadvantage in the figures that they would have signed off on them? Or maybe they were happy but didn't really look into it hard enough. Either way, they signed off and happily went to war.

It was mentioned that possibly Ford needs an adjustment for Bathurst. Dangerous stuff that. Either the cars are the same or not, becasue you cannot have a different aero for each track, that is crazy stuff and impossible to police.

It's a tough call and is making for an intense debate, but until someone in power forces a new test and compares the results with great scrutiny, nobody is going to win this debate.

You will all simply go bald from continually pulling your hair out!

[Dazz]

Oops wrong thread!

[lcfp2297]

Originally posted by Dazz
Oops wrong thread!

Nah, works in both threads...

Cheers

[Luke Plaizier]

Gurney Flap.

Holden has one. Ford doesn't. Simple. With a gurney flap, you can configure for more downforce, but not take the hit of extra drag on the high-speed sections.

It was only going to take having a single Holden on the lead lap for them to win.


Lukeyson