yoda
Nitro Member
... And it's place in the future of drag racing: An open discussion.
Old heads like me recall the days of mid-engined funny cars; I recall a photo thread that had the prominent cars as well as some one-night wonders. Evil handling, awkward and soon faded into the background like so many other racing concepts gone by.
Most of what made the cars what they were was the available technology of the era, and the idea that the cars should remain visually like their Detroit lineage. Today, all of that has had 40 years (at least) of engineering advancements in materials, fabrication and design. Parking Schumacher's Wonder Bread Vega- state of the art for the time- against the same owner's current stable of cars shows the clear-cut advancement of the class. Add to that the fact that aerodynamics and styling have allowed a 4-door sedan to have a better CD and downforce measurment than most exotic supercars, and its clear that body styles are representitive of the function, and not the form.
Is it time to start considering, for the same safety and performance aspect that caused the change in dragsters, a new design of funny car using the mid-engined concept in an application for the 21st century? The limitations that cars from the 70s and 80s due to the above mentioned factors would be all but eliminated on a modern car, as keeping the cars "looking" the same as the factory item is all based on what stickers are placed on the grille and tail lights; that horse has left the barn, and its not coming back again.
Chassis engineering to apply horsepower to tire is such that if one was to start with a clean slate, but use the current technology to create such a car, it could literally be 70% conceptualized, engineered and tested all inside a CADD program. Don't doubt thst modern race cars don't already use that technology.
As it seems that we are still slaves to the shortest wick, and we have already seen the results in one class of a re-thinking of tradition, would it not be time to consider an alternative?
Discuss.
Old heads like me recall the days of mid-engined funny cars; I recall a photo thread that had the prominent cars as well as some one-night wonders. Evil handling, awkward and soon faded into the background like so many other racing concepts gone by.
Most of what made the cars what they were was the available technology of the era, and the idea that the cars should remain visually like their Detroit lineage. Today, all of that has had 40 years (at least) of engineering advancements in materials, fabrication and design. Parking Schumacher's Wonder Bread Vega- state of the art for the time- against the same owner's current stable of cars shows the clear-cut advancement of the class. Add to that the fact that aerodynamics and styling have allowed a 4-door sedan to have a better CD and downforce measurment than most exotic supercars, and its clear that body styles are representitive of the function, and not the form.
Is it time to start considering, for the same safety and performance aspect that caused the change in dragsters, a new design of funny car using the mid-engined concept in an application for the 21st century? The limitations that cars from the 70s and 80s due to the above mentioned factors would be all but eliminated on a modern car, as keeping the cars "looking" the same as the factory item is all based on what stickers are placed on the grille and tail lights; that horse has left the barn, and its not coming back again.
Chassis engineering to apply horsepower to tire is such that if one was to start with a clean slate, but use the current technology to create such a car, it could literally be 70% conceptualized, engineered and tested all inside a CADD program. Don't doubt thst modern race cars don't already use that technology.
As it seems that we are still slaves to the shortest wick, and we have already seen the results in one class of a re-thinking of tradition, would it not be time to consider an alternative?
Discuss.
