Motorsport questions

[Fredstar]

Hi, im a big fan of Formula 1, i love it for many reasons and recently ive started to try follow other motorsports as well, i started to like V8 Supercars (Touring cars here in Aus), DTM, MotoGP and WRC. I dont see any US motorsports on TV here very often, channel Ten sometimes show Champ Cars which i started to like as well.

Questions ive come across while discovering other types of motorsport:

1. Champ car/Indy/CART/IRL- different things or just different names? also wots the technology in those cars? i kno Champ cars have a sequential box but its a manual clutch without pedal-lift, am i right?
2. NASCAR - I know its just people goin around in a circle but im still curious as ive yet to see a race, so any reasons that should inspire me to watch an event?
3. V8 Supercars - I often see a driver shifting gears without clutch, so are they sequential? also, how does the reverse grid work?

Thanx for any answers as im very curious to try to understand different forms of motorsport...

 

[Aka]

Champ/Indy/CART/IRL all used to be the same series but split up I believe many years ago. Champ Car are all Ford engines, they have a push to pass button with up to 60 seconds of extra horsepower when pushed (75 hp). This series isn't doing too well and doesn't get much TV time. They didn't even broadcast the qualifying here in Toronto on any Canadian TV station (that I could find), and the race is just 6 miles away from me.

IRL does oval racing like NASCAR except open wheel. I don't follow this series at all so I'm not sure about it.

NASCAR isn't just people going in a circle... well ok, it is, except for a few races each year. They do 2-3? races each year on road courses, those are alway fun for me to watch because it just seems crazy. NASCAR is good if you want to see a crash with a lot of cars involved, that's about it IMO. I think nothing should inspire you to watch this series, except for the road events, where they turn left AND right.

V8 Supercars, I believe they're sequential as well, I think most professional racing is sequential or paddle (sequential) shifting.

Hopefully I didn't just spew out a bunch of BS there, but that's how I understand it, hopefully I helped answer something

 

[Fredstar]

Thanx for that Aka, I actually enjoy Champ cars as its sorta like a more competitive version of F1, y isnt it popular over in the US/Canada? Theres no NASCAR coverage here of any kind so I have to look for vids on the net but I will check out the road course races when its on (on Infineon Speedway from memory if im right). So out of Champ/Indy/CART/IRL which one is the most technologically advanced? Also I notice the drivers from V8 Supercars step on the clutch on downshifts but that could just be stopping wheelspin on the turns but not sure...

 

[Aka]

Champ car is pretty fun to watch sometimes. They're all very similar cars, so it's more of a driver series. I'm not sure why it's not very popular, but some how I think it's related to NASCAR. NASCAR is stupidly popular. My Dad and I think that Champ and IRL should join back up, because neither series really has enough cars. Do half oval, half road courses. That could help to bring them back, but I don't think it'll happen.

I can understand why there's no coverage of NASCAR there though, most of the world couldn't care less about it. I can only watch a car turn left so many times.

The V8 Supercars many only be clutchless shifting up perhaps? I don't watch them often, but they're tons of fun to watch. I'm not sure if you'd use the clutch to stop wheel spin, wouldn't that just burn out the clutch quicker?

I should stop answering, I obviously don't know enough about these things lol sorry.

 

[Fredstar]

They do use heel n toe technique so maybe thats y, also i heard Champ car drivers use the clutch a lot in corners but i dunno much either unless someone can confirm lol

 

[Mischief007]

V8 Supercars use the clutch when it is appropriate for the driver and how confident he knows he can get into gear without the clutch. Although I've seen them use the clutch on the 2-3 shift and on downshifts. On the rest of the upshifts they don't tend to use the clutch. I just watched Round 5 of the V8 Supercars and the racing is truly amazing.

 

[Hazardous]

Re: Motorsport questions

1. Champ car/Indy/CART/IRL- different things or just different names? also wots the technology in those cars? i kno Champ cars have a sequential box but its a manual clutch without pedal-lift, am i right?

Aka already answered this, but I'll try to clear the history a bit better.

After the world war all american top-class motorsport was sanctioned by US Auto Club(USAC) which still sanctions sprint car racing in USA. However, at times it's decisions could be rather controversial and some inhividuals and teams were not very happy with them, and subsequently formed Championship Auto Racing Teams(CART) which, after some arguments, started running the national championship series. USAC kept sanctioning the Indy 500 which, as the major open-wheel race in USA, was included in the CART championship. The championship was called "CART PPG Indycar Championship", hence the term Indycar.

Things were well for well over a decade but then there was "the split" in 1996. In 1995 Tony George(owner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway) had set up a new series, and promoted his series by giving the majority of places for the 1995 Indy 500 to the teams of his series and the rest to CART teams. CART did not like this at all, and this resulted in CART leaving Indianapolis out of it's calendar and George's series(called IRL) having the Indy and other oval races as well.

After the split CART was clearly on upper hand, being very popular even in global scale but then the popularity started dropping while IRL started to gain ground. There were also problems with the teams(mainly due to some technical details) and several big teams jumped to IRL in early 2000's and shortly afterwards, after 2003 season CART almost went bust. It was bought by some team owners who didn't join IRL and they kept the series going, renaming it into "Champcar World Series" which you can watch these days.

2. NASCAR - I know its just people goin around in a circle but im still curious as ive yet to see a race, so any reasons that should inspire me to watch an event?

In the end NASCAR is a simple yet perculiar type of racing. You either like it or hate it. But the key to understanding it is understanding the challenge of racing, as it is very different from normal road racing, a different world, really. And very much more than "driving in circles". I won't even try to explain the whole thing here, but IMO the best way to learn it is to either watch a race with someone who understands the sport or try out yourself with one of the NASCAR racing sims there are. But believe me, there's much more to it that one might think, and it's quite entertaining stuff once you get into it.

3. V8 Supercars - I often see a driver shifting gears without clutch, so are they sequential? also, how does the reverse grid work?

The gearbox is already explained(not that I could explain it even if it wasn't) so I'll try to explain the grids. AFAIK it works like this: The qualifying determines the grid for the first race. The grid of the second race is the results of first race in reverse order. The grid for third race is the average of the results of the first two races. Complicated enough? I can't really explain it any better than that since I (sadly) am yet to see a full V8 Supercar race.

 

[fbc]

Re: Motorsport questions

3. V8 Supercars - I often see a driver shifting gears without clutch, so are they sequential? also, how does the reverse grid work?

The gearbox is already explained(not that I could explain it even if it wasn't) so I'll try to explain the grids. AFAIK it works like this: The qualifying determines the grid for the first race. The grid of the second race is the results of first race in reverse order. The grid for third race is the average of the results of the first two races. Complicated enough? I can't really explain it any better than that since I (sadly) am yet to see a full V8 Supercar race.

Almost - points are awarded for your finishing position in races 1 and 2 - with the points for the reverse grid race (race 2) being half the value of those for race 1. The grid for race 3 is determined by a driver's accumulated points from races 1 and 2.

Oh, and yes, V8Supercars rule

 

[Mischief007]

Re: Motorsport questions

Oh, and yes, V8Supercars rule

I concur. Nothing more exciting to watch. BTCC comes in close second but the sound of a 600 HP V8 is just amazing.

 

[fbc]

Update - after the next two rounds the reverse grid is dead in V8 Supercars, reverting to a normal race 2 with the starting order being the finishing order of race 1. Good riddance too.

 

[Mischief007]

About time. Reverse grid introduced way too much extra expense.

 

[fbc]

^ The extra expense hasn't been too bad (it hasn't been the total carnage-fest people feared). The problem is that the reverse grid race, along with the points structure, has seen the drivers taking a very cautious approach to race 1, and an even more cautious approach to the reverse grid race. So it's actually reduced the amount of overtaking & hard racing. Plus there's the problem of mid-field teams & drivers winning the reverse grid races, which is just a bit silly and meaningless.

 

[skip]

Re: Motorsport questions

3. V8 Supercars - I often see a driver shifting gears without clutch, so are they sequential?

No, they are still a 6 speed H pattern gearbox. They don't use the clutches on up shifts as the boxes are strong enough to handle it, plus it saves time. Must drivers use the clutch on down shifts to preserve the box. Cost is the reason they don't use sequential boxes, plus most drivers like the ability to shift from 6th to 2nd in one movement.

 

[Aka]

Oh they really do use a normal H pattern? Wow

 

[Mischief007]

Oh they really do use a normal H pattern? Wow

Yep. It is quite an amazing series to watch .

 

[Aka]

That does make it more impressive.

 

[Thrasher]

Re: Motorsport questions

Champ car/Indy/CART/IRL- different things or just different names?

Well to clear the name thing up if it hasn't already:


Indy and IRL (Indy Racing League) are 2 names for the same thing


Champ Car and CART are 2 names for the same thing (CART was just a little bit older name)

 

[Fredstar]

So:
Indy = IRL
Champ car = CART

Just two different series then? if so that clears it up for me as ive seen two different types of cars racing but keep hearing different names...

 

[PurgeTV]

Re: Motorsport questions

They don't use the clutches on up shifts as the boxes are strong enough to handle it, plus it saves time.

I believe the gearbox consists of dog-cut gears, which eliminate the need for the clutch on upshifts. This set up, also known as a crashbox, is used widely in different racing applications, including drag racing. It has nothing to do with the "strength" of the tranny per se.

 

[PurgeTV]

Champ Car are all Ford engines, they have a push to pass button with up to 60 seconds of extra horsepower when pushed (75 hp).

They don't use a Ford engine. It's all Cosworth engines, even in the Atlantic series (as of this year). Cosworth Engineering was an independent entity of Ford Motor Company for a number of years, but you really can't call it a Ford regardless. Cosworth was purchased last year by Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Fortsythe from Ford.