Club Arnage

As I read this press-release from ACO (attached), diesel cars will have smaller tanks in the future...

I wonder if this was what Henri Pescarolo tried to resist, when he 3 times during the after-race press conference said that the CURRENT diesel-regulations are good, and should stay UNCHANGED ... ?

I had a feeling he was planning for a return to Peugeot power in his cars, but with smaller tanks,this may not be that interesting.

Sounds all sensible to me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/5176398.stm

I suppose it was almost bound to happen.  Hats off to Audi though for this year.  They saw the regulations, built a car within them and trounced the opposition - whatever one's feelings about them (or diesel engines in racing) a fantastic achievement.

Looks like the competition will be a little tougher next year though if Peugeot enter the fray and the equivalency formula is adjusted.

As a recent (road) convert to turbo-diesel power I have to say I am quite interested to see the beginnings of succesful competition diesels.  On the road the useable power is fantastic at the sorts of speeds that can be realistically achieved on our traffic choked road network.  I look forward to the sort of developments that racing will bring being applied to road going engines of the future - particularly the 'no-smoke' thing the Audis were using.  Most road verions lay a foul smelling smokescreen every time the throttle pedal is pushed even slightly aggresively.

What do you guys think about the advent of succesful racing diesels in competition (especially at the Greatest Race)? 

I have to confess to being a bit of an anorak on this. I have often thought that the success of Le Mans and endurance racing overall is dependent on the need or the desire for competing car marques/manufacturers to experiment and test new ideas and technologies to the ultimate degree. So when there is a really significant break through as experienced this year with the first really 'successful' diesel entry then I felt and still feel that it is now up to the other manufacturers to raise their game to compete and as a result feel it has to be good for the sport.
In danger of moving off thread just a smidge, I am and have always been really surprised how little Audi use their extraordinary success to promote their products to the consumer. If I was in their marketing department I would be very tempted to make a real song and dance about their recent achievements. I feel it would deliver real results in supporting their 'technical prowess' strategy, would reassure the consumer that the technology has been thoroughly tested to say nothing of the good it would do in increasing awareness for the wonderful sport of Endurance motor racing.
Enough. I have stepped off the soap box and am going for  a kip.
 ;D
 

I'm not keen on the complicated handicapping system that has grown up over the last few years and adding diesel to it gives even more oportunies to find loopholes in the rules.

I expect a fair race, but with Audi's budget they are going to win whatever they use.  I also think that as they lapped faster than the LMP1 cars, their restrictors should be reduced, as well as the tank capacity.  However, a factory R8 would probably lap faster than the Pescarolos so perhaps the handicapper is right.

Bring back Group C

Handicapping and many different classes at LM is not new.

In the first race in 1923 we had the following classes -
751 - 1100 cc
1101 - 1500 cc
1501 - 2000 cc
2001 - 3000 cc
3001 - 5000 cc
5001 - 8000 cc

In subsequent years there have been -
501 - 750 cc
Index of Performance
Index of Energy
Index of Efficiency
Grand Touring Class
Sport Class
Experimental Group
Prototype Group

etc etc

all with their own unique handicapping formulae.

Handicapping is of course to even up the field of competition, so it’s a good thing that the R10 is going to be restricted, good for the other teams and good for us the spectators. Eventually somebody will come up with another car that will beat the R10 and the rules will be adjusted to suit again, otherwise there is no point to it.
As for diesel's in racing, it's a good thing because the technology developments will filter down to us eventually and the more teams developing into it, the faster and better that will be. Also being a diesel convert for business use I am a big fan of their efficiency, however they still have a relatively narrow power band which is not ideal for auto's (or have a 6 speed auto box like the merc) and not as quiet and smooth as petrol. Racing has to reduce the shortcomings, already the R10 is a lot quieter (too bloody quiet for racing) and less smokey than most road vehicles - imagine how much better a detuned version in a truck would be.

Audi don't seem to bother with the marketing side of Le Mans wins (do they in the States?)  Even Peugeot produced a 405 "Le Mans" with matching mudflaps, and Renault have  the F1 car appear at the end of their TV adverts

Had the Pescarolos won going away, could we expect them to be restricted?  Then it would be big bad Audi whining for return on their investment.

Funny that the Aston/Vette handicapping doesn't bother me the way this does.

Guess I'm just a hypocrite.  ;D

I thought there were question marks over the fuel as well, reports of it evaporating when spilt. The fuel is meant to be the same as bought in your local petrol station.
Why allow such big turbo engines? The one thing you have now with restrictors is the engines are less stressed and quieter!

Lorry,
Audi doesn't use any of their LM success in advertising over here...zilch, zip, nadda.
A few years ago they ran some cool commercials using footage from some of the ALMS races with the ALMS radio broadcast as voice over, but nothing since then.  They show more footage of Group B Quattro's from twenty years ago than they do of the R8 or 10.
Fax

Not strictly accurate John. The current Audi Q7 SUV ad has an R8/10 in it. Fairly predictably it shows up as a 'reflection' in the streetside windows that the Q7 is passing. Quite what the Q7 and the LMP1 car have in common is not explained.
It made me laugh when it said, "Audi - Never Follow". The Q7 is a total rip-off of the Infiniti FX. Screw your eyes up a little and they look identical. Vorsprung my ass.

Hmm, haven't seen it yet Matt, or if I have it was so f**cking boring I didn't even notice it.  Probably the later.  Boring adverts for boring cars...Yawn
The old adverts with the WRC Quattro's were pretty cool though.  Kinda surprised Porsche hasn't cashed in on the RS Spyder yet.
Fax

Shell used the 24 hours this year to promote there V-Power diesel, as they claim that the same stuff went into the R10. We were already discussing this at MB, that it probably woldn't be wise to pour some of the Audi's gasoline into our genny, as it might not be completly compliant......

I thought that the fuel for all the cars was supplied by the ACO.

I have been wrong in the past, and am quite prepared for this to be the case again today though.

You are so fa right, that Shell is the official provider of the ACO, as they are mentioned on the tickets, the poster, and so on.

Ah, I think I understand now, the ACO say they will supply the fuel, and Shell comes along with a couple of heavies, and says to the ACO 'We've got some fuel, which we can let you have, after all if you were to get your fuel from someone else, you never know, it's awfully flamable stuff'

Not that I'm alluding to underhand practices.

The octane ratings and make up of the fuel supplied was listed on the ACO sites rules section, it covered both Petrol and diesel.

I doubt it was pump diesel but it would have had to conform to the regs and by all coming from the one supplier means some of the more exotic brews we have seen in the past did not happen.

Rather than slow down the Diesel cars, would it not have been better to speed up the petrol cars?

There was a mention somewhere that the diesel was distilled from coal. I know the Germans in WW2 used fuel distilled from coal, perhaps with the rising oil price it is viable again.

Was not the original diesel engine designed to run on nut oil?

And how green is bio diesel.
http://www.worldlandtrust.org/news/2003/06/how-green-is-green-diesel.htm

This 12 cylinder diesel engine you won't see at Le Mans, even thou it gives out 7780 horsepower!

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

Thats EACH cylinder, total power for the 14 cylinder version is 108,920 shp

Tooele, Utah – IMSA today published a bulletin that affects the refueling rig restrictor of the diesel cars participating in the American Le Mans Series, specifically the Audi R10 TDI cars. The change limits the refueling restrictor from the current 38mm permitted under the regulations to 33mm, effective immediately.

"As was highlighted in today's press bulletin issued by the ACO, there is an overall desire by the organizing bodies to work toward a situation where all cars, no matter what fuel they choose to use, have the same amount of energy on board," said Tim Mayer, Chief Operating Officer of IMSA. "However, that is not the situation with the current regulations. So as an interim step, we have restricted the R10 so that it cannot receive more energy in the tank in a given time frame.

"We notified the team of this change at the Lime Rock Park event. However, because of a variety of test and calculation methods that are possible to determine the energy content of fuels, we chose to hold the public release of the bulletin until we had verification of the numbers," added Mayer.

The current regulations permit the same 90-liter tank on both diesel and gasoline cars but permit the larger restrictor on the refueling rig of diesel cars because of the different viscosities of the fuel.

"The original intent was to permit the full volume of the tanks to be filled in the same time," said Mayer. "However, diesel is a more energy-rich fuel for any given volume. The change that we have implemented means that the energy delivered will be similar, for the diesel versus gasoline, for the same length of refueling. The goal is to ensure that competitors have the opportunity to compete without a quirk in the physics of the fuels creating a particular advantage. We are currently working with the ACO to come up with a formula for tank sizes for a variety of different fuels."

They're on pole.  We'll see how the rest plays out.  Too bad the Dyson Lolas are about as reliable as an '86 Yugo.

I'm anxious to see what Miller Motorsports Park looks like.  It's supposed to be pretty sweet despite being in the middle of freaking nowhere.

The Utah Grand Prix, the fifth round of the 2006 American Le Mans Series, is set for 6 p.m. MDT on Saturday, July 15 at the new Miller Motorsports Park just outside of Salt Lake City. CBS will broadcast the race from 2 to 4 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 16. MotorsTV will broadcast the race in Europe from 6:30 to 9:30 CET on Sunday, July 16. American Le Mans Radio will provide live coverage on americanlemans.com, which also will feature IMSA Live Timing & Scoring.