Quote:
Originally Posted by JagtechOhio
Here's the only written information I found:
"Differential features full torque vectoring active technology with driver control of gain for balance adjustment".
One way to give a little context to this is comparing it to a real IndyCar on an oval. By setting tire stagger and weight balance, you're actually making the car point into the corner with the taller right rear tire.
The Delta won't need tire stagger, the driver will will be able to adjust the torque application to the rear wheels.
There is very little weight or downforce on the front of the Delta Wing, which is supposed to have 4" wide front tires. So they're going to point the car, but there will also be a steer-by-wire system, in my estimation.
One way to achieve this would be a potentiometer around the steering pinion, signalling an ECU which then changes the torque balance at the rear wheels.
All the weight and downforce is at the rear, and the electronically controlled differential "turns" the car at the rear to follow the direction you point the front. That's the best I can figure, but I only know something about cars. This is not a car.
The Delta Wing is a marvelous execution of a set of design principles for a motorized vehicle. That's nice. When do the race cars get here?
It has nothing to do with the characteristics any racing driver is familiar with from other race cars they have driven. It has only a remote connection to road car technology in this respect, or to how you and I drive what we drive.
Of course this system has not been built or tested yet, it is a concept that has been simulated. The Delta Wing on display in Chicago did not even have body clearance for the front wheels to turn at all.
There was a real IndyCar at the Chicago auto show, painted in the colors of the Boy Scouts of America. Strangely enough, it was a DP01 since they don't often use Dallaras for show cars. The Boy Scout car is to be run by Dale Coyne Racing. He already owns two Dallaras, but has no operating budget to run them unless he spends his own money to fund one of them.
That's why the whole argument about the cost of the Delta Wing, or any new package, is a side argument. If you gave Vision Racing or Conquest or HVM or N/H/L two FREE Delta cars, they still couldn't afford to run them. Those teams all have race cars now, and there is no confirmation that any of them will be racing any place other than perhaps Indy.
Many of the public relations bubbles floated last Wednesday are just as easy to pop.
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We used to have people showing up at Indy with all kinds of funky stuff.
What happened to the spirit of Indy?
I would have to say I'm disappointed at the reaction of contemporary racing fans toward something new and funky.
Am I enamored with how it looks? No, I would prefer to see something with a wider front and a much smaller vertical stabilizer, but making the front wider would blow away the concept of lap times similar to current cars using only 300 HP.
I would like to see innovation come back to racing. Somebody does something innovative, and all the fans used to the same old, same old for the last 30 years blast it. I guess I'm just stuck in the good old days.