Club Arnage

Have you seen the new design proposed for the next generation of indy cars?
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81386

It's different!

Is it April 1st already??

holy crap, thats very........................................

even to my untrained eye, that car may have stability problems going round bends

Ovals at 200+ ? :o

This is pretty laughable.  I suspect it will look radically different after the first test.  Was on the way home from Indy the other night and heard some of the IRL boffins yapping on the radio about the new car proposals from Dallara, Swift, Lola, etc  It sounds for all the world like Indycar is going to continue to be a one car, one engine spec formula, which gives me plenty of reasons to continue to not give a crap about Indycar racing.
Fax

Is Batman driving that Batmobile?

Ugly as hell !

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder  ;)

Personally I do not think it looks that bad, ok the track could be a little wider on the front ... each to his own, remember some people even like the look of a Porsche compared to an Aston!!!!

>Martini...LB

It would look great if it were a top fuel dragster design, but this device has to go around corners, they race on road courses as well as ovals.  I'm not a aerospace engineer, but I can't see that thing generating much downforce, or being very stable.
No one can figure out what the hell the guys running the IRL are trying to do.  They just announced a new CEO to replace the Idiot Grandson, some guy named Randy Bernard, who used to be the president of the Professional Bull Riders Association.  WTF?  The guy has no background whatsoever in motor racing, never been to a race in his life.  Guess they assume he can't screw things up any worse than the last moron.
At least the guys on the radio were honest, they said this car may define what a Indycar is for a new generation of fans, since none of the current generation are watching.
Fax

I hate to get technical, but cars have most of the roll stiffness at the front, so that the rear is a bit more flexible to get more traction.  They can't do this with such a narrow front end, so it won't go round corners.  It'll handle like a Reliant Robin  :o :o :o Sorry, what am I saying, its American, they don't do corners, (except for Sebring and they call them turns, which in English means a stage act, or a bit of a fit)

I think it looks like this
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2752/4079083613_ef61ce79b9.jpg)

But it'll be as effective as a Nissan Bluebird

Another thing I don't think the designers have thought about. Even if the car does work and handles. IRL cars race wheel to wheel on ovals at over 200 MPH, the drivers run inches apart because they can see their front wheels and guage the distance between the car next to them. How the hell can they do that when the front end is about a third the width of the back end of the car,  that they can't  see when looking forward.

Lots of crashes then I think if this design gets picked.

My take on this is, that if it gets accepted, they will test it, realize it doesn't work at all, put a conventional front suspension on it, strip off the rudder and replace it with normal fore & aft wings, and the damn thing will end up looking like a 1983 Brabham BT-52,
Fax

I very much doubt that car will ever see the light of day, but if you do end up with a BT - 52 then than wont be all that bad, other than it will prove the IRL is nearly 30 years behind the game and Bernie will want a wedge of cash for the use of the the design!

Marshall Pruett had only good things to say about him!!

Agreed Nordic, the BT-52 BMW was Gordon Murray's beautiful ad-hoc solution to JMB's sudden rule change over the winter of 82/83, and was one of the prettiest F1 machines ever built (for those not old enough to remember it, check out the cover of MotorSport from a couple of month's ago).  But as you so correctly pointed out, its a design that going on thirty years old, and fans think the current generation of Indycars look old and out of date, this will really look ridiculous.
Fax

It's a joke, like the rest of their pathetic continuing existence.  Please fold up the tent so that something decent can rise from the ashes of these fools' ruined plaything.

When a whiney brat of a girl that's never won anything is the cornerstone of your series and she's leaving, any straw-grasping that gets your name in the papers is welcome.  I've a feeling this ridiculous car is just that straw.  Word on the street is that the conventional (and still horrendously ugly) Dallara design has already been hand picked and will be the new spec chassis.  A shame considering the Swift proposals are far better looking and they've never put their name on a spine-breaking POS.