20 More Years: The Dallara Century? The 2012 Indycar Announcement…
This sucks…. more Dallara, only Dallara…. Here’s what we know. Dallara will build the “tub” and “aero Kits” will be used, with the possibility of a large number of aero kits, but in reality, probably not a whole lot, especially if Dallara build aero kits. It’s Delta Wing’s Open Source Bull Sh*t plagurized by Dallara, nice…. Also, this is basicly telling everyone outside of Indiana to go F*ck themselves. The first 28 cars sold to teams based in INDIANA will get a discount, but Dayle Coyne, Newman Haas, Penske, ect won’t. The cars will be built in Indiana, which is great for them, but DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER TO THE REST OF US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As someone who lives outside of Indiana, this Indiana first mentality is annoying.
Aero kits may be cool, but they don’t have any specifics… the cars will be branded Indycars and then the aero kit makers can brand them, but they don’t mention if Dallara will make a kit… But all the tubs will be built in Speedway Indiana…. As for the cost cutting, well, it’s an all spec series now, and Penske and Ganassi have won almost every race in the last 3 years, so….
I’m so pissed it’s not funny. I mean, seriously, this is retarded. They do a big announcement only had nothing to say but continued Dallara spec series. It looks like 2012 might be more Dallara/Honda spec series, WHICH IS STUIPID!!!! PEOPLE DO NOT WANT SPEC SERIES!!! LOOK AT THE F*CKING COT and how FANS ARE LEAVING NASCAR!!!!!!!!!!!! The aero kits may be cool but we don’t know if it will or not…. Also, the drivers on twitter cheerleading this thing, well, that’s why people say racing has no personality. The ONLY good thing is I think the cars are lighter than the current cars, so we might actually get a car with decent acceleration. On safety, I don’t feel like the Dallara is actually that safe. Indycar’s had 3 major back injuries in a year, yeah, that’s great safety. Has F1 had any major back injuries? NASCAR? I honestly don’t know, but I haven’t heard of any in GP2, either.
What a waste of time. The League hyped this up, and then delivered more of the same, without even making the “aero kit” idea clear. Maybe this will work out, but I have a feeling 2012 is just going to be more of the same, and i don’t think anyone outside of Barnhart wants that. I’m very disappointed, if we have to go spec, at least give us a cool car, like Swifts. I mean, I’m a Swift supporter, so obviously I’m not going to like this, but still, I don’t see how this is any different than what we have now, actually, it’s worse, because right now it’s spec by default, in 2012 it’s spec by rule, unless the “aero kits” work out, but I’m pretty sceptical about that… Hopefully we’ll see Swift again somewhere else, maybe ALMS, F1, or I’d love to see them in MotoGP or Moto2. But for Indy, it’s more Dallara spec racing, so I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of the crapwagons…
Posted on July 14, 2010, in Indycar and tagged Crapwagon's, Dallara, Epic Fails, Indycar fails, Things that Suck. Bookmark the permalink. 32 Comments.
The series and by far the biggest race in the series–biggest in world actually–is headquartered in Speedway, so it makes sense they’d want to bring the business there. Swift put themselves in trouble when they said they wouldn’t move. And considering they’ve basically said all along it was going to be a single manufacturer (something I think Swift wanted also) I think they’ve made the best decision.
It’s not COT. Aero packages could drastically affect the performance of the car, let alone the appearance. Sorry you’re so upset about this but I think it’s awesome.
(And Swift could still design and build an aero package, and it would be called Swift, and they could probably put lights in it if they wanted.)
I disagree on the Speedway thing, yeah, it’s important, but a lot of fans, myself included, don’t live in speedway, and thus don’t care. It really bothers me that the Indaina thing matters so much, I get why, but still I don’t think it’s the right aproach.
Starting to look like the “change” we can all beleive in.
Keep the “change” and enjoy the pasta.
A Ferrari engine could be acquired, but that doesnt fit the meretricious (cheap) model. Maybe if they throw in some more pasta fazul?
If Honda is the only engine supplier doesn’t that constitute a monopoly?
How clear did you want them to be? What depth of detail did you want them to go in to? Did you want them to list all of the aspects in play here, and start giving us the aerodynamic equations that’ll dictate how the sidepods will interact with the wings?
My point: when Apple comes out with a new iPhone, they don’t read off the code that runs the thing during the announcement press conference. They couldn’t start listing off dimensions and specifications today because the media’s eyes would have glazed over and people would have started thinking about where to go for lunch. It’s gotta stay light and sort of vague for today. There are a LOT more details to come. You have to be patient.
Redd is right about the Indy thing. NASCAR embraced Charlotte (and vice versa) long ago. Indy and Speedway are doing the same with IndyCar. As to the teams outside of Indy, they’ll still be buying their chassis at 60% of the cost of the old Dallaras, so they probably oughta not complain too much. In the meantime, if any of the sports car teams or Lights teams or whatever that are based in Indy want to come play, they’ll get a lower buy-in. Anybody who wants to move their team to Indy in order to be a part of the IndyCar cottage industry (where mechanics can leave one team and roll their toolbox down the street to another, like they do in Charlotte), then they’ll get a discount as well. It’s not an F-you to the rest of the country, it’s an invitation. And let me reiterate: if you have a race team in any of the other 49 states, you’re still getting off far cheaper than you were before.
The back injuries thing: apples to oranges, the way you put it. Do any of those series that you listed have the same sustained high speeds in close proximity to walls? NASCAR gets close, but they have far more crush structure available around the driver, so they don’t count. Meanwhile, F1 spends about 2% of its time at speeds that the typical IndyCar oval race AVERAGES. It stands to reason that there are less back injuries in F1. Back injuries are far less common than they used to be (and in the old days, Conway’s or Vitor’s crashes would have been fatalities, not broken backs), and the 2012 car is pledging to be even safer.
I understand your hatred for a spec series, but your beloved Swift has said all along that they could only participate as a full CHASSIS supplier if they were sole supplier. That is a spec series. This way, they can use their big, fancy, expensive Cray Supercomputer to come up with their own aero kit. They are not out of this game by any stretch of the imagination. Chassis competition would be too expensive. Almost every person from within the sport has said that.
Can I ask, what was your solution? How were you going to propose multiple manufacturers and open specs without pricing Sarah Fisher and Dale Coyne out of the game? I’m not sure I’ve seen your proposal there, though I may have just missed it here.
I guess we’ll agree to disgaree on the Indiana thing, I really think it’s the worst type of sectionalism and to me goes against how Indycar should be marketed, but that’s another LONG topic. Besides, I think it’s a mistake for NASCAR to have embraced Charlotte the way it has. It takes away the possiblity of having “home teams” and stuff, which to me makes things a lot less interesting.
Aero kit thing, might be interesting, might not. I’m trying to reserve judgement, although quite honestly the whole “open source” idea they stole from Delta Wing always sounded dodgy to me, lot’s of ways it could go wrong.
On the Swift thing, A. if it’s going to be spec at least be a cool car, and B. I always took their insistance on being spec more as a way of pressuring Indycar than fact.
Saftey issue, I’m not saying I think the Dallara is unsafe, it’s just I’m not sure if it really is that safe. Also though, two of the injureis, Power and Phillipe, happened atInfenion, a road course, which is comparable to F1.
I supported the idea of Lola, Dallara, Swift, with some restrictions on development, not a ton. I want SFR and DCR to suceed, but if they can’t, well,their are sometimes causualties….. But again, I don’t see how lower costs and spec is going to help make the racing closer, because Indycar, especially on ovals, isn’t that close between teams. I don’t feel like cost savings mesures have don a lot of good in any series.
I’d have rather seen something like Swift, Lola, Dallara, and they only get three times a year to add an update.
Fair point about Philippe and Power last year, but if we saw two F1 cars hit like that, I’d bet that we’d see some pretty serious injuries as well. We just haven’t seen a t-bone hit in F1 in years, that’s all.
As to teams going away because they can’t cut it, that’s all well and good in a good economy for a series that’s in high demand (like was the case for NASCAR in 2005 or so when there were 48-50 cars showing up every week), but that’s not the case for IndyCar. There are no teams lining up to come play, so if you don’t make sure that the new chassis aren’t affordable (which they most certainly have done), then not only do Sarah and Dale go away, but then nobody replaces them. You get what ChampCar had in 2005 and 2006: big teams dominating, small teams going out of business, smaller car counts, decreased visibility.
It isn’t the cost savings that’ll make the racing better, at least right off the bat. The first year or two, we’ll see more teams competitive, just because Roger and Chip won’t have much better idea how to make these new cars perfect than anybody else. Meanwhile, the decreased price to enter may attract sports car teams who are looking for alternatives to their dying series elsewhere (and to be sure, ALMS and GrandAm are both in trouble right now). The is exactly how the car count ticked up in ChampCar in 2007, with Pacific Coast coming over from ALMS. I think more teams may have done the switch if ChampCar had stuck around for a few more years, and that was WITH a split in open wheel still existing.
I’d have like to have seen Lola, Swift and Dallara, too, but I’d also love to win the lottery five times. It was about as likely to happen. Swift ALWAYS said that they couldn’t do it if they weren’t supplying every chassis. The way that we’re getting it, all of the chassis pieces that we can’t see all that well are all the same from team to team and all of the pieces that we can see will be able to be open for development. Swift can still be involved, and given the fact that they’re so big into CFD (as they talked about all the time over the last six months), I think they’re a top candidate to do an aero kit. I think it’s the best of both worlds.
Swift doing an aero kit, that would be something that might make me more positive on this. I’m just very skeptical that the Aero Kit’s will work out…
“I guess we’ll agree to disgaree on the Indiana thing, I really think it’s the worst type of sectionalism and to me goes against how Indycar should be marketed, but that’s another LONG topic.”
Sectiionalism? Dear God, what cult are you preaching to? The supposedly best racing series in the world has almost all of their teams based in England, it hasn’t detracted from that series selling itself as the best racing series in the world.
Where do all the people that wind up working for Indycar teams come from do you think? They come from the Midwest. Indycar always has been and always will be a racing series with its strongest presence in the Midwest. Sure you can have races elsewhere but if you try and do it too much going off to stupid places you might as well be selling ice hockey to Mexicans.
“Besides, I think it’s a mistake for NASCAR to have embraced Charlotte the way it has. It takes away the possiblity of having “home teams” and stuff, which to me makes things a lot less interesting.”
This is complete bullshit. Charlotte is one of the strongest markets for NASCAR in the country and the city is stronger for the massive NASCAR business influence and NASCAR is the stronger for it. Do you think NASCAR should instead have far off teams as outposts where the host city doesn’t care like the Phoenix Coyotes? It also makes sense Besides, do you honestly think there will be a team based in California or New York? Cal Wells tried that 15 years ago, there’s a reason he’s no longer in business. Certain cities will always have more people because they’re in central transportation points. You’ll always have outliers though like Furniture Row Racing in Denver, Colorado. But it’s not like Coloradans have become gung-ho to see the #78 car race.
So I guess you’ve not heard of a little Forumla One team called Ferrari…
Dylan, Ferrari is a dreadful example considering their base was set up a good few decades before teams began to migrate to the UK
I’m very disappointed in your reaction, Dylan. Not surprised, but disappointed. Your reaction is like many other “fans”:”I didnt’ get my way, so now I’m going to throw a tantrum and whine and cry like a baby.” I’m sorry, but your comments regarding the decision are childish, immature and juvenile, just like most “fans.”
I am a fan of the IndyCar series. Please read that statement again. I am a fan of the SERIES. Not a car. Not a chassis. Not a driver. Not a track. The series. Even if I disagree with decisions that are made by the series-or any entity in any of the other sports I love-I accept it and move on. You, on the other hand, are pulling a Dan Gilbert-if you don’t know what I mean by that, please do a search of that name.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how I view it. But let me say this as well; you are a fan of this sport as I am. Neither of us was on the ICONIC committe and neither of us has the depth of knowledge that the people on that committee do. Bottom line, they made a decision that they feel is in the best interests of the sport. You don’t have to like it, but if you truly care about this series and not a car, chassis, driver or track, you will find a way to come to terms with and accept the decision.
I’ll come to terms with it, it may take awhile, but I’ve got about 18 months… I’ll revise some of the critisism if/when the “aero kit’s” come out. And I’ll still follow the series, even if it is a Honda/Dallara spec series. I know they “think” it’s in the best interest of the sport, but the whole Indiana thing well, makes me wonder a little who this was about…
Also, this is my first reaction, I’ll write up a more balanced/thoughtful one within a week.
Here’s a thought – I wonder if any aeronautics companies would be interested in having a go at something like this, as opposed to just racing teams/designers.
It could add an interesting element if that was the case.
Yes, it would. The issue though is with the price cap and stuff, does anyone else have a motivation to build aero kits???
If a company who already has the infrastructure in place (autoclave, fast computer to run CFD program, people with knowledge) realizes that they can develop a kit for $500k (might be plausible, I don’t know, just throwing out numbers), they can nearly break even by selling just 7 kits. If they sell 8 kits (which they could sell to 4 one-car teams for their primary and back up cars), hello, profit!
The point is that $70k a piece does add up pretty quickly. It shouldn’t take companies long to figure out if the price numbers make sense for them. Frankly, I could see small consulting companies of 4-5 people doing the design and outsourcing the actual lay-up and baking to composites companies, and being able to make the numbers work just fine.
I hope you’re right, the aero kit’s could be big, but I’ve not been sold on “open source” since Delta Wing threw it out, I don’t see it having much of an impact.
Well, maybe it all doesn’t work out, but maybe it does. I just don’t see any point right this second (just 5 hours after the announcement) to work on giving myself an ulcer about what might not work out. There are a lot of questions. I’ve got faith that answers will come around in their own due time. In the meantime, I just don’t see any reason to worry about every little thing.
Okay, so read/listened to more on this subject. And the outlook may not be good. According to Marshall Pruett on Mid Week Motorsport podcast, the guy from BAT, Ashmore, says he want’s to build an “Open Kit”(My term) and it will take six months from when the “saftey tub” and rules (which haven’t been wrote yet…) are announced… Ashmore believes it will cost multi millons of dollars. The other thing is because the nose, brakes, gearbox ect. are speced, there’s may not be a whole lot of differant things that can be done.
My opinion is: this choice can be good, or not. It’s difficult to say now if thi choice is totally good or totally bad. I’m agree with the article about the fact that after a lot ot disucssions, the results is that Dallara was before and Dallara is now, but I think there are many possible positive thing: for example, this choice could be interesting for some outisde the series to come in without having to spend a lot of money…so we can see many “artisans” that have to build not the entire car, but only few parts…maybe, we can see kit come from other series…for example, a good F1 aero kit could be installed on the new Indy cars…I think about the connection between KV Racing Technology and Lotus Cars…or a F1 (or other series) team could be enter for the Indy 500 with only a chassis to buy, but with the rest of the car from themselves..onother interesting aspect, maybe an engine manufacturer could be build an own aero kit to install with its engine…these are all possible aspects…maybe they will happen, maybe not…
More does need to be seen. Sadly, though, I doubt many F1 teams are that interested, maybe lotus, and one of the guys from BAT wants to aero kit. I just feel like the whole aero kit thing isn’t going to work well. because in the end, Dallara has a huge advantage in building aero kits, and so how much competitiion will their be???
Wait, I thought you were slamming Dallara’s aerodynamic skills just a couple of days ago. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that any firm that thought that they could do a better job at aero than Dallara (and given the performance of the HRT, there may be a few people out there who think that), that they’d at least have to look at the numbers?
The fact that BAT says that this’ll take them multi-millions to do it…well, yeah. They don’t have a shop. They don’t have much in the way of facilities. They don’t have an autoclave. They don’t have a staff. They don’t have 95% of what it’ll take to design and produce an aero kit. Sorry, BAT, but you’re probably out. Swift, on the other hand, has all of those things already in place. I’m waaaaayyyy more interested to hear what they’ve got to say.
It probably will take 6 months for manufacturers to work out an aero kit. That’s why they’re doing the announcement right now. There is plenty of time to get the rules sorted out, and then there’ll be plenty of time for aero firms to get kits out. The 2012 car doesn’t need to hit the track for another 18 months. There’s time. I’m happy to let this play out and see where it goes. I just think it’s far too early to condemn the whole thing (though I’m listening to the MWM podcast today to see what they say).
I guess…. I just have very little faith in this idea. Even Bernard says he thinks it’s likely to have more Dallara Honda spec racing in 2012… Also, I’m concerned that they are not going to fix the issues with the current car, like how they are horrible road racing vehicles….
Well, see, this is where you and I differ. Where you see uncertainty, you also see a reason to assume the worst and worry that that is going to come to pass. Where I see uncertainty, I see that there is time to work out how it’ll all work. Like I keep saying, for me, life is too short for me to spend endless hours worrying.
It seems to me the common ground in all this is “will it work like they say it will?” and how much faith each of us has in the potential. Some of us are already downing the Kool-Aid and others are quite skeptical.
But it seems to me in the worse case that Dallara makes all the cars and their aero kits are so cheap that everyone uses them and no one else can/will compete. And nobody wants to build/badge an engine so all we have are six cylinder, turbo-charged engines from Honda. We have better, sexier, lighter, safer, faster cars and more power with better push-to-pass. And that’s really in the worst case…
In the pie-in-the-sky, rose-colored best case scenario several engine manufacturers and marketers come on board. Design firms from Chevy to Apple Computers to Lockheed design aero packages and get their names on the chassis. More sponsors, different looking cars, cars that perform differently and we get names of cars back like the olden days–like a Penske Shell Boeing Chevy Special or something.
I don’t mean to pile on or anything and I’ll agree there are sure a lot of if’s out there and there’s no guarantee it will work. But I’m pretty cool with it for now.
And there’ll be plenty to argue about on the blogs in the future, I guess.
Not sure if the car is sexier, the pictures they had looked like old school IRL cars with an F1 fin put on….
Listened to Curt Cavin on radio tonight. He said the drawing they used to illustrate the new car was not the design Dallara will use, that the IIRS just sorta threw up a random sample drawing or something.
I thought at least two of their prototype drawings were interesting. Maybe I got carried away with “sexier.”
Listening to the podcast now…. I’ll have a more in depth article out in the next few days…
Dylan, I got your back here. The whole plan smacks of favouritism and politics. The basic premise of the idea is interesting, but there’s just something about the whole deal that seems a bit sketchy. I’m not going to knock Dallara on safety, or their performance; I do think you’re a bit off base there. I don’t see how anyone is going to see making aero kits as a viable business option without seeing it more as a advertisement spend.
Thanks!!!
Well Doug, it looks as if there’s already one interested party in Lotus. Nothing to say that they will definitely do it, but eyebrows have been raised – at least amongst fans on this side of the world (if that means anything)
Lotus is interested as a media spend to sell their brand via KV Racing Technologies, and there is doubt that team-developed kits will be forced to be made available to other teams. Think of the Lotus deal as an integral part of the sponsorship of the KVRT team.
Not saying that’s a bad thing, but its not really a business model that has a positive value from selling the kits alone.