ninjacoco

Holy crap--that hug to the right just says it all.

winders

I hope this is tongue in cheek.....

Flying Finn

I'd think you can put the car in the tunnel backwards but if I'm correct, I don't think that was VR's point but just the fact that professional racing series is running completely new (major) aero parts that have not been tested in wind tunnel.

Fully agree with VR, especially when the test was at very high speed track such as Daytona.

Also agree with the Turner hugging Westbrook on that photo comment... Very telling, damn.

flatsics

Evan strikes again

Doug007

Maybe if they had done more windtunnel testing (in the forward direction) they would have realized there were dangerously high loads on the rear axle at 190 mph, especially the outside rear in cornering at Daytona. Most high aero cars will lift off the ground if they end up going backwards at those speeds.

kurt M

Hell even I tested my aero package backwards.....






<......

kurt M

windtunnel testing does not point out that the tires are going to overheat unless someone is clever enough to be looking for air flow rates around the tire and through the wheel. Reduced cooling to the tires (and brakes) can be a part of increased aero. Tire failure is not simple loading, it is being able to shed enough heat from one loading event before the next. If you can't the heat simply builds up and the tire fails.The tire heats from internal and pavement friction as well as brake rotor heat dumping into the wheel. Hard to calulate this outside of real world. I guess you could note that there was a large change in airflow through the wheel and wheel well. Sometimes all that is needed is a small less notable change to tip the scale from works to fails.

Veloce Raptor

ROFL

Yes, that was my point, IMSA provided these new parts for 4 different cars WITHOUT EVEN TESTING THEM.

Way to make your drivers guinea pigs, morons.

Mvez

Glad nobody died. Seriously.

Let's face it. DP's suck, and although the P2/DP's may be faster, the real top class for now is GT-LM. Nobody ever went to Grand-Am races besides Daytona, and the 5 people who did, were there to see GT racing.

This testing disaster, just like Obamacare rollout, is a desperate attempt to hold on to something that needs to go away.

Meanwhile, they are literally turning away full year GTD teams because of car count issues. One look across the pond at the huge car counts in the Blancpain Endurance series and you can see where the future is.

They need to split all races, GT-LM and GTD race, then all Prototypes. Will save a lot of grief from the inevitable NASCAR style DP crash up derby that will totally ruin all the fantastic GT racing.

I will be utterly stunned if 2014 is anything but a total cluster-F of a disaster. Hopefully the TV broadcasts will remember who pays the bills, and focus more on the GT's.

Mvez

No more "ro-vals".....problem solved. Everybody wins.

Less NASCAR, more SportsCar please.

Polesitter

When you try to speed up a pig like a DP to run with a real P2 car, you're gonna have some problems sorting the car. The DP needs to go away, as do the other France Frankenstein ideas

Doug007

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/tusc/dp-testing-to-resume-next-week-teams-wait-for-answers/

Looks like continental will come back with a reinforced rear tire and they will revise the aero package.

“We were running more downforce than we would probably race with when we had our incident,” he told Sportscar365. (Spirit of Daytona owner Tony Flis.

“I think we’ll be able to run [the 2014 aero] and get the load off. I think we were asking too much of the tires. But I’m a little bit concerned the sanctioning body is not going to want us to go faster. Then how are they going to slow us down?

“The only real way to do that is to put more load back in the car, so putting drag on the cars. They’re going to have some struggles with that.”