I think you underestimate the Sprint Cup cars; less drag and even with plates, ~600 horsepower. they'd destroy a DTM car at 'Dega.

Road America, different story

 

what do you mean by "can the teams use them"?

the ECUs are pre-programmed and sealed, the teams can't tune the ECUs, if that's what you mean.

 

Not so sure, a m3 DTM is restricted to 480hp/2400lbs vs a sprint cup (at restrictor plate tracks) 445hp/3400lbs reducing the downforce settings and swapping out the final drive, me thinks the DTM would spank the sprint cup. With the better chassis and aero easily up to 680hp, after that who knows....

 

Maybe my understanding of the ECUs is flawed. Or maybe we're talking about the same thing. What I've been led to believe is that NASCAR gives each team an ECU that has a tune for their specific engine. The cars with Toyota engines get one tune and the cars with Chevy engines get a different tune. And yet another for the Fords. And as J Richard insinuates, not only can they not change them, but they can't even read a bunch of the usual telemetry that people in motorsports everywhere else can see.

Even when PMNA walks in and flashes your ECU with the "spec" tune for Daytona according to GA rules, a team with appropriate datalogging can see what is going on. In NASCAR a lot of the information that many of us take for granted these days is denied to the teams. How can they call it a "spec" ECU if the teams can't even verify what that tune is? How do they know that NASCAR isn't favouring Ford over Toyota because they've given a better tune to one set of cars versus the other?

 

on a superspeedway, it's all about power to drag, not power to weight....

Sprint Cup cars don't have a lot of downforce, so not a lot of drag. DTM's would have to completely re-work their bodies to remove downforce/drag.




at any rate I think we're now officially off topic

 

We are only talking 100 bhp, Sprint cup 600bhp, DTM 500bhp, that can be fixed by removing the plates, reprogramming the fuel loading and cam timing, et voilà - 600 bhp and the DTM cars are quiet slippy.

For all I know they may be running the same gearboxes (Hewland).

R+C

 

I mean can they gainfully use all the data that the ECU's make available. This is the sort of thing that DTM teams have been doing for years. F1 runs spec ECUs too, remember. Race teams new to FI might take to time to find their way through the data maze.

R+C

 

without wind tunnel data it would be hard to say but I think the Cup car would still have the upper hand.

Cup gearboxes are basically Borg Warner ST10s, I think only Jerico and Jasper supply.

not sure on the similarities/differences between NASCAR and F1 spec ECU's regarding telemetry data availability. that's a good question. I assume NASCAR allows less data, and not real time.

 

Here's Road & Track's take on the merger with some insight to possible class re-alignment:


http://blog.roadandtrack.com/behind-...and-am-merger/

 

Guy, OT, is your helmet a wrap or paint?

 

In talking to some staff at Sebring they were all told, including Stevenson, that they are all being let go and will be able to reapply for their jobs. Anyone that thinks this is/was a merger is dead wrong.

 

Oh I'm with you, great idea but there's no way Billy Bob and his buddies watching in top of their RV would agree.
"Hey there Billy Bob, WTF Is that eurotrash Audi doing here?! And have me another bud light. Daggone."

But as a class in new G-A/ALMS series? Hell yea.

 

Haven't been through too many mergers, have you? This is not at all uncommon.....

Scott

 

paint. done by Axcel Graphics in Arcadia, CA

 

Stockers run on track with us and MAN they are BY FAR the quickest on a road course. I mean ......by 10 seconds on a 1:40 track. WICKED machines, hard to fault in my experience. And they are not easy to drive.