World Time Attack Challenge 2011

[Iron Chef]

I'd be curious to hear what Martin and the Willall crew think about the concept of Time Attack not encouraging R & D....

[Marlin]

Berry's front bar alone was 400 hours before paint.

And it's still fiberglass, next one will be carbon.

But yeah, just buy and bolt that shit on. Pfffft, how insulting!

[SRB]

lol these last few pages make me laugh. once one takes time to build something and see whats involved and how much money needs to be invested to create such amazing race cars, he shouldnt speak sh*t

[FineLine]

The tyre manufacturers are a classic example of development in this form of motor sport.

These super soft gumballs being used by the top competitors are not being developed for the Le mans 24 hour enduro style events.

yoko, hankook and others are spending considerable coin to build a better mouse trap for the sole purpose of mad one lap dash events like time attack.

Hill climb is about the only other form of motorsport run on a similar format but I dont believe they are restricted to the semi slick formula.

[Nee-san]

  On 11/08/2011 at 12:38 PM, Iron Chef said:

I'd be curious to hear what Martin and the Willall crew think about the concept of Time Attack not encouraging R & D....

Post it in the R35 section then

[evil_weevil]

nfi - James - stonkering time and effort - congrats! car looks awesome too.

is that the same S15 you took to EC skidpan back in early 2006??

come a long way!

[Marlin]

  On 11/08/2011 at 8:18 PM, Nee-san said:

Post it in the R35 section then

Yes haha

[nfi]

  On 11/08/2011 at 8:28 AM, Beer Baron said:

couldn't agree more mate. great post and well done on 15th in open! 1:39 is a seriously respectable time and you faired well against plenty of tough competition. 4th to 20th in open was covered by less than 3 seconds!

I agree with nearly all your pooints, particularly about innovation over dollars. It's what I was trying to say with intelligence/talent/hard work overcoming bigger budgets. and the lack of rules really encourages people to innovate and try new stuff (witness MCA S13 with it's hammerhead front wing). and I also agree on keeping it relevant and keeping spectators coming. the key to it's success is that fact that's it's really different and that the cool super fast cars are not so far removed from what typical enthusiasts drive and race. Keeping out the tube frame cars is part of that (I know revolution were an exception).

People who go to eastern creek regularly for different categories will tell you we never get crowds like that. about the only thing in recent times that comes close is historic meets like muscle car masters etc and that's a completely different segment of the community.

I really hope we see WTAC 2012 and at eastern creek again. as much as I'd love to see a new venue I also love being able to directly compare results to previous years. that makes it all the more cool (like Tsukuba has been in japan) and it seems to suit the venue really well.

again, congrats on a great result and a great time.

Thanks Richard. Be interesting to see what happens next year. If you know Ian well might be worth seeing if you can help steer it in the right direction.

  On 11/08/2011 at 11:22 PM, evil_weevil said:

nfi - James - stonkering time and effort - congrats! car looks awesome too.

is that the same S15 you took to EC skidpan back in early 2006??

come a long way!

Thanks Chris. Actually that was a different one I sold because it was going to cost too much to have it he way I wanted it... So I bought a skyline for a while and then went back over to the dark side and bought a slightly more modded s15 think i'd save money and then ended up changing most of the parts on it!

Edited August 12, 2011 by nfi

[wolverine]

We need a car with a flux capacitor for WTAC to have any credibility.

My bad this has been done already.

Edited August 12, 2011 by wolverine

[Beer Baron]

  On 12/08/2011 at 1:04 AM, nfi said:

Thanks Richard. Be interesting to see what happens next year. If you know Ian well might be worth seeing if you can help steer it in the right direction.

don't worry. I will keep in baker's ear! I think he wants the same things most of us do.

for MBS:

as for developing new technology etc. christ. I simply mean people trying things that are NEW to this type of racing. I'm not talking about developing a new type of internal combustion engine. I'm talking about trying stuff on these type of cars that hasn't been done before, or simply just doing things in a different way. like SSE with their gas powered wheel jacks. many cars run airjacks which are great but you carry that weight all round the track. SSE build neat little wheel jacks that work just as well and stay in the pits so less weight in the car. this year cyber copied that idea with a simpler, cheaper version. that is cool.

things like the front aero on the MCA car. yes there may be nothing new in wings like that on an F1 car or F3000 but have you seen them on a silvia before? why not come and look at berry's advan/hi-octane R34? i could show you many little tricks and innovations that may not be ground braking but they are stuff that probably no one has done to an R34 before or any skyline for that matter. freedom of rules encourages that. i'm not talking about people developing new technology (in fact you were the only person who was) we are talking about innovations and new approaches to this type of racing and the jap import tuning scene in general. in classes like combined touring and improved production etc you don't see that stuff because rules are strict and modification is limited. that's what makes this different and interesting.

[sav man]

Have any of the teams gone full sliding skirts and shaped floors like the ground effects f1 cars? I know SSE, and Cyber have shaped floors, but i didn't see any sliding skirts.

[FineLine]

Apparently Mark shaped the floor of the 34 to fit the contour of the eastern creek ripple strips perfectly.

[Beer Baron]

lol, well there are no sliding skirts exactly but cyber have something pretty close and thanks to my basic japanese translation for garth walden the tilton evo (also running voltex aero) fitted the same thing. it uses foam blocks to seal off parts of the floor. they wear out though and get replaced each session.

[«Cyph3r»]

  On 11/08/2011 at 10:33 AM, sav man said:

I saw the Fernadez ute on speed hunters (did you do the rear end in that?). I was wondering how it didn't qualify as a space frame car...as from the rear firewall back it was. It looks like they just ran a plasma cutter through the middle of the car, and threw out the rear.

On antother note, why would they put a live rear end in instead of the multilink setup?

From what I am lead to believe the cars have to retain basically the same suspension setup they come from the factory with.

The Falcon utes still come from factory with a live rear end so I don't think they would have the option to change to an IRS setup.

I don't think the live rear end would be much of a disadvantage anyhow, they had a ton of adjustability built into that thing!

[AeroDesign]

  On 12/08/2011 at 5:28 AM, «Cyph3r» said:

From what I am lead to believe the cars have to retain basically the same suspension setup they come from the factory with.

The Falcon utes still come from factory with a live rear end so I don't think they would have the option to change to an IRS setup.

I don't think the live rear end would be much of a disadvantage anyhow, they had a ton of adjustability built into that thing!

It is running a Watts link V8 Supercar rear end (which makes sense considering his background). There's no other reason anyone would go that way over IRS, especially if you could move mounts and optimise roll centres, camber curves and bump steer.

Was a shame to not see the car there, I know they had big ambitions.

Cheers,

Scott

[Boosted Zed]

I can relate to Mark Berry's 400 hours spent on his front bar. Lucky I had two UTS mechancial engineers doing work experience here to do ours.

Ready to be made in carbon fibre.

[260DET]

Time attack seems to be a fertile ground for all sorts of innovations and development, particularly in AU where motorsport basically involves either factory sameness or else everyone copying everyone else. Just look at the times being done, even if the old boy Euro orientated network would like to pretend that it's not happening.

[MBS206]

  On 12/08/2011 at 1:42 AM, Beer Baron said:

don't worry. I will keep in baker's ear! I think he wants the same things most of us do.

for MBS:

as for developing new technology etc. christ. I simply mean people trying things that are NEW to this type of racing. I'm not talking about developing a new type of internal combustion engine. I'm talking about trying stuff on these type of cars that hasn't been done before, or simply just doing things in a different way. like SSE with their gas powered wheel jacks. many cars run airjacks which are great but you carry that weight all round the track. SSE build neat little wheel jacks that work just as well and stay in the pits so less weight in the car. this year cyber copied that idea with a simpler, cheaper version. that is cool.

things like the front aero on the MCA car. yes there may be nothing new in wings like that on an F1 car or F3000 but have you seen them on a silvia before? why not come and look at berry's advan/hi-octane R34? i could show you many little tricks and innovations that may not be ground braking but they are stuff that probably no one has done to an R34 before or any skyline for that matter. freedom of rules encourages that. i'm not talking about people developing new technology (in fact you were the only person who was) we are talking about innovations and new approaches to this type of racing and the jap import tuning scene in general. in classes like combined touring and improved production etc you don't see that stuff because rules are strict and modification is limited. that's what makes this different and interesting.

I completely understand people are taking ideas from other areas and re-using them. And it's awesome to see some of the wild ideas people can think of to combo stuff together to make it work. If I had the coin, I'd be continuing with my car to chase the top gun people, but sadly, I don't have the coin, nor the talent to pilot a car that quick (And I don't like handing keys over too quickly )

I do like the freedoom of things, and what people are getting away with, all I mentioned was maybe some people should try some manufacturers backed type things to see if we can break the laws of physics... Imagine if a manufacturer stood behind Tarzan... He'd be even further in front with new stuff being developed specifically developed for racing, of which, we'd likely see in a road car in 10 years time... (New types of boxes diffs etc)

I'm not putting down what the teams are doing in terms of building there cars, I'm simply saying they're using a heap of knowledge, and adapting elements from other areas into going fast.

[LSX-438]

does time attack encourage R&D?

Well yes - i guess. To a point.

Let's face it, at the pointy end of the PROESSIONAL game (which i think we all realise is something else) they already know the concepts, whys and wherefores about how to make a car go seriously fast around a race track. We don't need time attack to show us how it done in an absolute sense. But as an amateur endeavour, working within relatively tight budgets - starting with road cars - it's damn interesting to see how people achieve what they do. For me that's what it's all about, and nothing more.

F1 engineers aren't going to be looking at WTAC for any guideance that's for sure.

You have to recognise it for what it is, and the achievements acomplished within the respective arena/budget/context.

Otherwise, you're mixing two worlds that really are very far apart.

[N1GTR]

Im curious to see what these air jacks look like that SSE and Cyber were using, does anyone have pics please?