New Nissan to Race LeMans

[TomoHawk]

I thought it had only 1 wide front wheel, until I read some technical information on it.

Lazeum,

Thanks for the correction about the Classic. I'll try to watch it, (I would rather watch it!) but I don't think it will be on TV.

What is the greatest distance any of your group will be driving to the classic LeMans?

Edited June 17, 2012 by TomoHawk

[Lazeum]

Some are coming with their Z from the north of GB. I think that's nearly 1000km (with the sea in between).

You'll be lucky to find anything about the Classic race on TV. Best case scenario, we have a small review during the news.

The best way to watch something is on Youtube with videos from members who will attend. 2 years ago, the Datsun club had a 5 minutes topic on National TV

It is managed by a GB guy who's living in France, we all go to the same spot for camping, we have a dedicated area for BBQ with everyone close from the track + a spot to park our car in the middle of the track with other clubs.

BTW, here's a nice video of the Deltawing after the crash. I like it, it shows what happened on the side of the track, far away from the spotlights.

[Zedyone_kenobi]

I fail to see the point of the car. Three wheels configuration has always been unstable. They banned 3 wheeled ATV's for this reason. The Reliant Robin was a miserable failure. Two wheels up front and one in back makes FAR more sense from a stability point of view. They showed the cars under braking and it was not entirely stable. It showed the wiggle and required a bit of steering input to keep it stable.

Again, I like innovation, but what is the point of the delta wing. It has the stench of a spec series type of car.

LMP1 class is getting to be a bit more of an exhibition race to me. I love the LMP2 and GT classes running. The audi's are crazy impressive. And I respect them. It was interesting to see the differences between the etron and the ultra.

I love LeMans. I will always try to watch it, and I still think it is the ultimate test of motorsports. Kudos to all the winners.

[LeonV]

It has 4 wheels.

[Zedyone_kenobi]

yeah, but geometrically it is closer to the reliant robin than it is a traditional car (say 911)

If made to run equal specs, the handling will indeed suffer.

[LeonV]

yeah, but geometrically it is closer to the reliant robin than it is a traditional car (say 911)

If made to run equal specs, the handling will indeed suffer.

What does "run equal specs" mean, exactly? The Robin was not made to be a Lemans racer. There is a lot of cool stuff designed into the Deltawing, purely discounting it for the reason of it reminding you of a Reliant Robin doesn't make sense to me...

[26th-Z]

Stephen,

Although the front track is very narrow, the car has four wheels. Actually, the front suspension is quite ingenious. 75% of the weight is on the rear wheels but the underbody aerodynamics make a significan amount of down force. The Deltawing concept was originally proposed for the spec Indycar (the Dallara chassis was chosen). Development then went to Dan Gurney's All American Racing and from what I have read, Phil Remington was involved. Nissan, with their 1.6L turbo came late to the process. The transmission was custom built for the car. And the car is VERY light weight.

The point of all this work was to demonstrate that a very small engine, using far less fuel, could compete with the larger cars. It was expected that the Deltawing would use less than half the number of tires used by other teams. It's a 'green car' concept which is why everyone is so interested in it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing Read more here.

And now my comment about the driving I saw. I looked closely at three 'accidents' including the Deltawing shunt. In each case the overtaking driver was, IMO, at fault. I don't know about you guys, but when I did my driver training I was told that the overtaking driver is responsible for not hitting the slower car. I think every one of those drivers (including Allan McNish) should be penalized. You all may remember that Allan hit a red Ferrari last year also. My opinion of him and his driving skill just went down the tubes. Crash McNish!

Edited June 18, 2012 by 26th-Z

[Zedyone_kenobi]

I understand the comments guys, well put.

But to me green technology and racing do not go hand in hand. Or rather they should not. Green racing cars should be kept to green races. LeMans greatly benefits from improved efficiency, and that could be an advantage, but it is about outright speed and endurance.

I understand it was an innovative car, but its efficiency is a meaningless metric when it runs in a class of one. If made to run in a actual class with the same rules as everybody else it would not fare so well. 1300 lbs with fuel is crazy light, and while that is noteworthy, not having to stick to any rules what so ever makes it little more of an exercise in material selection and design. Being fast and outside of the rules is quite a bit easier than being fast and staying within the rules.

Trying to improve fuel efficiency of race cars to save gas for the environment is completely emotionally driven, and not at all realistic. Race cars use up a trivial amount of fuel. Further when race series become an exercise on who can get better mileage it starts to become boring. At least in shorter style races it does. At LeMans, fuel efficiency is a very important metric as you all know, but more so is speed. Thus the Audi Juggernaut with its diesels. Audi did not sacrifice speed for efficiency. They worked within the existing rules and made a blisteringly fast and fuel efficient car.

The delta wing is a car in search of a race. A car built that right now nobody wants. The only people saying it is the future of racing are the inventors of the Delta wing. Saying people care about it because it is a green car is also a bit of a stretch. Most racing enthusiasts I know really could not care a bit about the fuel efficiency of a race car. They want speed.

If the delta wing gets accepted, it will be in a spec race (like you mentioned it was designed for) against other delta wings. It will not be chosen because it is faster.

I hate to sound contrary and argumentative, so please do not take it that way. While I can appreciate the work it took to make, what I see is a neat marketing toy vying for acceptance in a world that did not ask for it to begin with from people who are trying to make a lot of money building cars. It the answer to a question nobody was asking. The solution to a problem that did not exist.

But, at the end of the day anything can be raced and can be entertaining. Speed is relative. Do people want to watch a bunch of delta wings in a spec race? Well they watch a bunch of miata's, a bunch of Sprint Cup cars, a bunch of Diesel Jettas, so why not.

This to me is just another company looking to cash in on the 'green' marketing monster to make a buck.

[240260280z]

I think the distilled essence is that small light sports cars do not need a lot of HP to be fun.... like a 240z.

[Lazeum]

I understand your point of view regarding the Deltawing but I disagree.

I think it is a brand new concept which looks like no other. They went outside the box with quite an extreme machine. Who would guess a machine with a track as wide as what they've done in the front could perform that well for a first trial? Who would have thought about putting 75% of the weight on the rear axle?

They did not follow any rules of course but on the other hand, you'd notice they've tried to get low numbers instead of going all out with crazy numbers! It was by far the less powerful car of the race. It was also the lightest by far also due to the lack of rules.

Bottom line, they have done an amazing piece of engineering with very innovative solutions that works. To see how it could perform against real race cars was actually very interesting.

That's my point of view

Regarding accidents & overtakers, if you look closely about the Toyota passing the Ferrari, you'd notice that the one making a mistake is the Ferrari which did not anticipate the gap of performance between the 2 cars and went into the Toyota. Toyota driver could have been safer & lose 4 seconds to avoid the crash but they were leading the race for a few minutes. The slower car should have been the one getting out of the way.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Lazeum

[Zedyone_kenobi]

I admire you for that. Your willingness to accept new things far exceeds mine.

I am more resistant to change for the sake of change. My last comment is this. They built an amazing piece of engineering. Yes. I agree. But I would disagree to calling them solutions. In order for it to be a solution, there must first be a problem. What problems were they addressing (surely not efficiency)? There is nothing wrong with Cars as they are today. They built something out of the box for sure, but without a common metric to weigh it against, its performance is just a data point. Why wouldn't a 500kilo car with 300 HP be fast? They could have put more power or sure, but then the fuel economy they were bragging about would suffer.

As far as the weight goes, where else would you put the weight? The weight bias in back was a necessity of the trike design to make it able to corner without picking up a rear wheel in the slightest corner under braking.

I think the car has some cool attributes, but lets call it what it is. A rolling sales pitch. I would rather see Nissan take the fight to Audi with a full on LMP1 car, OR, bulid the deltawing to LMP rules and destroy Audi.

[TomoHawk]

I think they ought to have the same race, but with bicycles. They could even call it the Tour de France.

Nissan could hire the best riders in the world, which happen to be AMERICANS.