Indy 500

BBShark

BBShark

Garage Monkey
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Anyone still watch this?

I used to go to the 500 with my dad as a kid and continued to go into the 80's. Lost interest after the split and don't even follow the race. I usually find out who won on the 11 o'clock news.

It's a shame what has happened to that series.
 
BBShark said:
Anyone still watch this?

I used to go to the 500 with my dad as a kid and continued to go into the 80's. Lost interest after the split and don't even follow the race. I usually find out who won on the 11 o'clock news.

It's a shame what has happened to that series.
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Same here. I lived about an hour north of the track for twenty four years. Went to qualifying and race days quite often, and even (without trying) I could rattle off the winners of every year from the late 50's to the late 80's. Once the IRL popped up, I found I neither knew nor cared who the drivers were. I still couldn't name more than about three.
Just don't care anymore.
 
I'm still going to watch, it's the only decent motorized sport on TV here with F1 getting lamer year after year.
 
I still watch every year who drinks the milk, but I will be in the air coming home this year.:search:
 
I still follow F1 religiously. This year is sure strange. I think Bernie might be "fixing" things. I don't know what the deal is with KERS, they should give them all a nitrous bottle.
 
This year is nothing but BS. Many teams misinterpreted the rules and did not build the diffuser as they could have - Brawn did it right.. .... the 45M budget limit fopr 2010 is simply ridiculous.... Ferrari and Toyota spend 300-500M and officially announced they will not sign for the 2010 season if this rule is not changed.... some races are decided in court and not on the track...
F1 was great in the 90's :smash::smash::smash:
 
Kinetic Energy Recovery System..... basically they recover energy to charge a electric motor that gives them 80HP extra for a few seconds.... brilliant idea but dangerous due to to high voltage.... not very dependable either.... some teams removed it because of failures.....
Supposed to make passing easier and fighting for position more interesting, didn't work so far.... only made them spend more money ...
 
MYBAD79 said:
Kinetic Energy Recovery System..... basically they recover energy to charge a electric motor that gives them 80HP extra for a few seconds.... brilliant idea but dangerous due to to high voltage.... not very dependable either.... some teams removed it because of failures.....
Supposed to make passing easier and fighting for position more interesting, didn't work so far.... only made them spend more money ...
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Going by memory here, but IIRC, one HP equals 746 watts. With the 80 hp number, and assuming three seconds duration, that's 180,000 Joules. Man, that's scary to think of packaging/storing that amount of energy in a small and light enough package to place in an F1 car. It's not like you can have a big chain link fence safety zone around it to keep people at a distance from it.
By comparison, I remember some calculations years ago done by an engineer at Delco Remy. He calculated all the energy losses from the ignition coil out to the spark plug. IIRC, most of the time the actual energy that makes it to the plug is in the .06 to .1 Joule. So, despite how uncomfortable a good jolt is when accidentally grabbing a plug wire wrong, this KERS system potentially has about two million times as much energy stored in it.
I'm an electrical engineer, but I admit I'd prefer to work on the far end of the car away from that thing.
 
they've had a few mechanics "hurt" in the testing phase.... the system weighs 50-80KG.... a lot of extra weight if the darn thing don't work... that's why some teams got rid of it.....
 
Kers is scary, Raikkonnen got out of the car in the 1st, or was it 2nd ?? race (CRS!!) because of the rain and he was afraid he would get electrocuted. The KERS equipped cars have big orange high voltage leads running around that might become a problem in a crash, What if a marshall or doctor touches an exposed lead?

In reality, KERS makes the races even more boring. A non KERS equipped car wil run up to the KERS mobile in the twisties but once there's a straight with some overtaking capabilities the KERS car will take off with the added HP. It's been the same race after race.

F1 is so damn boring it's not even funny, and I have watched every race from 92 on.

They should bring back the venturi cars with the slipper skirts, that will cut down on the need to run big front wings so they can run closer together and do some more overtaking.

There's another bonus of not having Kers, you can move the additional weight to where you want it.
 
They should remove all Driver aid's, computers and all the stuff that spoils the airstream for other drivers. That way they can slipstream again and overtake each other.
 
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Heres a picture of a crewman getting a liitle jolt:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DpDTDyc4g[/ame]
 
Holy crap, that would straighten his curls!!

I used to work at Fokker Ypenburg plant, that's the composite plant. When we had ailerons or rudders, out of the autoclave. The charge was enormous and usually discharged to the nearest object, if not properly discharged. That usually was the operator, now the tables where about 3 feet high, so the nearest object would be . . . . .

Hurt like hell nice sight though seeing blue arcs.

With Kers do they have electric engines hooked up to the tranny??
 
cajos1968 said:
They should remove all Driver aid's, computers and all the stuff that spoils the airstream for other drivers. That way they can slipstream again and overtake each other.
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I like technology, but I'm just annoyed by things like traction control and paddle shifters in a race car. For cripes sake, it's a race car. Make the driver show that he can actually modulate a throttle and shift a gearbox without destroying something.
FWIW, my interest in F1 peaked in the late 70's (and went down after that). I loved the car configuration and designs back then.
 
Did you know that in Moto GP and/or Superbike, they have gps sensors that adjusts the suspention with every corner. Talk about BS that is serious BS.
 
FWIW, the ignition system on a commercial jet engine is 20 Joules. I've seen that blow a hole in an aluminum cowling.

I'm with 69427- drop all the electrickery and let's go back to real racing. From go-carts up, can all the bs and back to best car/driver wins.
 
My only comment is to fantasize about a battery/electric storage device I can drive 300 miles on, and recharge in 20 minits, that weighs maybe 300 lbs at most....

I would love to drive a Tesla just ONCE.....5000 ft lbs at instant command....

snicker.....:goodevil:;)
 
mrvette said:
My only comment is to fantasize about a battery/electric storage device I can drive 300 miles on, and recharge in 20 minits, that weighs maybe 300 lbs at most....

I would love to drive a Tesla just ONCE.....5000 ft lbs at instant command....

snicker.....:goodevil:;)
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Gene, just for amusement, I did a quick calculation. Assuming 15 horsepower to drive the car at 50 mph for the six hours it would take to travel 300 miles, I calculate 15hp x 746 watts x 6 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds equals 242 mega Joules. Buncha energy. I was going to do a calculation to see what sort of wattage you would need in your garage plug-in to impart this much energy in a 20 minute charge, but I'm too lazy to go the next step. Your turn.
 
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