'21 Generation 7 Car news

They won't be running V8's anyways so it won't matter. This is the stuff DW was eluding too when he said he doesn't like the direction things are headed I'm sure. I can tell you I won't watch if they go full electric. Even with hybrids I'm very on the fence.
They're taking away every single thing that made cup cars unique. Powerful machines? Pffft.

In 10 years I better see Honda, Mazda, Nissan, etc. in this sport or else all this talk was just a bunch of bull****.

Not running V8's is more of a bummer to me than any hybrid news. I was unaware they plan on further reductions in that way.

I threw full electric out there as a joke, but it sounds like it should be part of my long term concern as well as a fan, if they head down this road of catering to the manufacturers and open pandora's box of bringing on a hybrid system with a reduced V6, do they set the table for eventually moving over completely, if that is what the manufacturers start requesting 20 years down the road? I would definitely have to reconsider if NASCAR took it that far.
 
Kezelowski wrote an article about hybrids in Nascar
It’s time: The NASCAR hybrid
https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/05/29/brad-keselowski-blog-nascar-hybrid/
Does anyone know how the electric power is deployed in F1 and LMP1? Is it manually activated like a push-to-pass button, or is it just automatically used whenever the driver's right foot asks for maximum power? I think it's the latter. Keselowski's blog seems to be talking about the KERS power boost deploying like push-to-pass. Don't know what I think about that.

If they cut the downforce enough to get them to brake everywhere outside of Daytona and Talladega they could use a KERS. I don't see them running huge HP levels again but maybe they can get to something where they get 550-600 HP from the ICE and then 50-100 HP from the KERS.

Or if they opt not to go with a KERS, try to recover heat from the exhaust? That seems like the harder option at the time though.
Yes, please, I'll have the "Chef's Special 600 + 50" with low drag, low downforce, and a double order of low side force.

I'm opposed to heat recovery. First reason: braking is part of racing... in a sporting contest of driver skills, the energy recovery should be from braking. Second reason: heat recovery is complex, expensive, and problematic in F1. Third reason: I love the V-8 Symphony and heat recovery messes that up.
 
Is it manually activated like a push-to-pass button, or is it just automatically used whenever the driver's right foot asks for maximum power? I think it's the latter.

Just guessing here, but if it is an automatic switch over for nascar's hybrid, then I imagine they will be aiming to roll quiet under electric power on yellow's, coming down pit road, and in/out of the garage area mostly.

Watching pit stops might be an entirely different feel without them revving engine rpm anymore. Coming to get the green, if there is an immediate transition when asking for max power, how would that affect tire spin, transmission, or other failures? I imagine the electric could be used as an emergency backup system to move off the track depending on damage. What about safety with the batteries? Will they survive a collision? Where will they position them on the car? What is the propensity for electrical fire with them? Many questions to be answered.
 
Does anyone know how the electric power is deployed in F1 and LMP1? Is it manually activated like a push-to-pass button, or is it just automatically used whenever the driver's right foot asks for maximum power? I think it's the latter. Keselowski's blog seems to be talking about the KERS power boost deploying like push-to-pass. Don't know what I think about that.
KERS with the F1 V8s was a button you could push to deploy for something like 6-8 seconds per lap. The deployment of the current F1 hybrids depend on whatever power unit mapping they're using at the time, I think.
 
Just guessing here, but if it is an automatic switch over for nascar's hybrid, then I imagine they will be aiming to roll quiet under electric power on yellow's, coming down pit road, and in/out of the garage area mostly.
Not gonna happen that way. The internal combustion motor will not switch off. I'm sure of that.
 
Hybrids, not full electric, is under consideration. Here's the good news on hybrids...



The bad news on hybrids is, how are they gonna recharge the battery? I mean, usually the recharge comes from recovering kinetic energy from braking, right? But Nascar has almost done away with braking at most venues due to low power, high aero drag, and high aero downforce.

Maybe that leads to "more good news" on hybrids... a perfect rationale for returning to a rules formula with more power, less drag, and less downforce. I really *want* to believe that is where Nascar is going with Gen 7.

Off throttle time could be where the energy is recovered
 
Because of the complex batteries they use, it currently takes more energy to produce an electric car than a conventional one. And, disposing of those batteries creates an environmental hazard.
Yeah hybrids are the way to go.I think this just as goofy as wind farms. Somebody is getting ready rich.
 
Because of the complex batteries they use, it currently takes more energy to produce an electric car than a conventional one. And, disposing of those batteries creates an environmental hazard.
Yeah hybrids are the way to go.I think this just as goofy as wind farms. Somebody is getting ready rich.

pretty much. Planned vehicle obsolescence is good for the money lenders and insurance people along with the OEM's selling the latest whiz bang, but saving energy by crushing cars that are too expensive to fix and replacing them with new ones of any kind takes tons more energy and resources. Some of us are not buying into the hype. Not holding my breath to have simple fixable vehicles built to last any time soon though that are reasonably clean burning.... Coughing from California.
 
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NASCAR has to go outside the U.S. for a new OEM as you can only beg and plead for Dodge for so long, and most of the rest of the world has new regulations that are forcing OEMs in that direction. I’m sure a lot of OEMs would love a raw race car but to get board approval for a new race project in this day and age requires some degree of road relevance.

Most of the higher-ups in F1 say their romantic ideal would just be a high-revving NA V8 or V10 but acknowledge they’d immediately lose power unit suppliers.
 

That is a Big Deal! Potentially a BOMBSHELL type of thing! I hope that Nascar continues with team-built chassis, not a common spec chassis that all teams must use. Although all Nascar chassis have to fit in a very tight box, I like that a Hendrick chassis has subtle differences from a Penske or a Gibbs... same as the engines. Using a common spec chassis would remove an area of intrigue to me. Just my opinion (and I do recognize that a spec chassis would undoubtedly be lower cost due to less R & D expense).
 
It wasn't that much of a surprise to me. Roger Penske was talking about the ridiculousness of having 10,000 dollar suspension uprights, four different sets of brakes and thousands of dollar driveshafts months ago. I doubt if there will be a whole turn key chassis, but standardized parts and pieces instead, and Dallara is set up to do just that.
 
This isn't the first time a concept like this has been brought up, but it was a long while ago.

The overall mass of the chassis may also be reduced and that could raise the prospect of a DTM/ GT500 style composite & steel hybrid chassis. “We could introduce both a new car and a new engine together and make it more relevant to the products we are selling today, smaller, lighter cars with lower displacement higher specific output engines. There are plenty of other ways we can reduce the mass of the cars, things like using composite materials, using other materials other than steel for body panels. It changes the demand on the car too, if you reduce the mass of the vehicle do you need as much roll cage? there are a whole bunch of knock on effects like that” Suhy continues.

https://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/nascar-could-abandon-v8-engines/

Common tub/monocoque with some other integrated control parts, and then some other chassis bits open for development. There is still a degree of development within IndyCar, and I imagine NASCAR is aiming for a middle ground between the amount of development of what they have now and what IndyCar currently has. I think this also alludes to the idea of Cup adopting the composite bodies being run in lower series now.

Over 50 of the 5,000 plus parts that make up the DTM cars are standard components, which are used on all three designs. One of these parts is the chassis with an integrated fuel tank, steel roll cage and additional crash elements.

https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/dtm-2014-new-bodies-better-racing/
 
Speaking at the Le Mans 24 Hours test at the weekend, Rushbrook suggested that hybrid power would only be used on suitable tracks, such as road courses and short ovals, both of which would generate the braking energy required to power a KERS-style system.

“There’s a lot of open discussion of hybrids in NASCAR,” said Rushbrook. “It’s just a matter of when, not if. It’s probably in the 2022-2023 timeframe.

“It doesn’t need to be at every track. If you put a hybrid in for the Daytona 500, where you’re wide open throughout the whole lap, it doesn’t make sense. For a short course like Martinsville or a road course like Watkins Glen, the hybrid makes sense.

“I would expect that when it gets introduced it would be some subset of races are entirely ICE and some subset of races are hybrid.”

Hybrids in NASCAR “a matter of when, not if” says Ford chief
https://www.motorsport.com/nascar-cup/news/hybrid-nascar-ford-chief-engine/4427029/
 
pretty much what I thought. Some form of "token" hybrid setup if any. About all it will It will accomplish is raising expenses but do very little to change the actual racing for the better. The hybrid will be politically correct enough to keep the environmentalists at bay.
 
Racing uses a minute amount of fuel and natural resources compared to the rest of civilization if they want to go greener make it up somewhere else. I see so many issues with hybrid power I wouldn’t know where to begin.
 
It's already hybrid power. It burns fuel to turn the alternator to charge the battery and make electricity to fire the plugs. :confused:
 
It's already hybrid power. It burns fuel to turn the alternator to charge the battery and make electricity to fire the plugs. :confused:

Excellent -- I've been Hybrid clean and green since my days of driving a used up 69 Dodge Charger! Yes, it was literally green (paint).
 
Trying to figure out where "poor sales" comes in to play. I see multiple of them every time I'm on the road down here.

The Challenger and Mustang are beating the Camaro in sales, but the Camaro is the better car IMO. Dodge and Ford have better advertising and sales incentives. That being said, Chevrolet is still making a profit from the Camaro and it's not going anywhere anytime soon, despite Mary Barra's ridiculous idea to waste a **** ton of money on autonomous nonsense.
 
The Caddy
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I was just going to start the summer time ‘dodge back to nascar’ rumor the other day... normally early June would have been a good time to bring it up... at least it’s before July.
 
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