H
HardScrabble
Guest
And the aero push is repotedly worse than current configuratons.
From an article at ThatRacin'
NASCAR's attempts to develop Winston Cup cars with a bigger "greenhouse area" to improve driver safety and aerodynamics appears to be hitting a roadblock. NASCAR used 2003 versions of three car makes – Dodge, Ford and Pontiac – in a test Tuesday at Lowe's Motor Speedway to gather data on the new greenhouse – the area encompassing the driver compartment.
Driver feedback, however, was not what NASCAR officials hoped. "When the drivers come in and say the car is not driving well with this configuration, we pay attention to that. We don't say, 'Deal with it,' and go on," said Gary Nelson, NASCAR's managing director of competition. "We want to find solutions." Nelson said on-track testing results were not turning out similar to wind tunnel tests done with the larger greenhouses on the cars.
The teams of #41-Jimmy Spencer, #10-Johnny Benson and #26-Todd Bodine participated in Tuesday's test. The larger greenhouse area is an increase of approximately one to three inches in the roof area and up to four inches in the length measured from the front windshield to the rear. The design would assist larger-sized taller drivers in exiting the cars because of the larger window space more freedom of moment in the driver compartment.
"We tested the bigger greenhouse car at Kansas City and we learned a lot. We thought everything was working out really well. Now, we have three cars and we get on the race track and we are actually worse than we thought we were," Spencer said. "Our push is actually worse now than the current aero push we now have. Plus, the cars were unstable. So is it the tire? Is it taking away too much downforce? We don't know, but we're not going to stop working." Nelson said he would not give up on the project. "What we would like to accomplish is an equally as stable car or more stable car with the bigger driver's compartment," he said. "We're just not there yet."(
From an article at ThatRacin'
NASCAR's attempts to develop Winston Cup cars with a bigger "greenhouse area" to improve driver safety and aerodynamics appears to be hitting a roadblock. NASCAR used 2003 versions of three car makes – Dodge, Ford and Pontiac – in a test Tuesday at Lowe's Motor Speedway to gather data on the new greenhouse – the area encompassing the driver compartment.
Driver feedback, however, was not what NASCAR officials hoped. "When the drivers come in and say the car is not driving well with this configuration, we pay attention to that. We don't say, 'Deal with it,' and go on," said Gary Nelson, NASCAR's managing director of competition. "We want to find solutions." Nelson said on-track testing results were not turning out similar to wind tunnel tests done with the larger greenhouses on the cars.
The teams of #41-Jimmy Spencer, #10-Johnny Benson and #26-Todd Bodine participated in Tuesday's test. The larger greenhouse area is an increase of approximately one to three inches in the roof area and up to four inches in the length measured from the front windshield to the rear. The design would assist larger-sized taller drivers in exiting the cars because of the larger window space more freedom of moment in the driver compartment.
"We tested the bigger greenhouse car at Kansas City and we learned a lot. We thought everything was working out really well. Now, we have three cars and we get on the race track and we are actually worse than we thought we were," Spencer said. "Our push is actually worse now than the current aero push we now have. Plus, the cars were unstable. So is it the tire? Is it taking away too much downforce? We don't know, but we're not going to stop working." Nelson said he would not give up on the project. "What we would like to accomplish is an equally as stable car or more stable car with the bigger driver's compartment," he said. "We're just not there yet."(
