7 Rennie Black & Silver 1995 Ralt RT-41 Hoosier / Toyota / Loynings / Dauntless Racing 8 J.R. Osborne White 1989 Stohr DB-4 Stohr, Loynings, Goodyear, Redline 11 Dudley Fleck Blue/Wht 1998 Swift 008 ADP Dealer Services 12 David Grant Red/White 2002 Swift 014a Hoosier Tire 19 Bernie Sunier black 1998 rait RT41 hoosier tire 28 Jason Byers Black/Red 1995 Ralt RT41 StClair Motorsports 29 Ahsen Yelkin black 2005 swift 014 Everclear 30 Jim Wright Red 1990 Swift DB-4 31 Connor Burke White/Blue 2003 Swift 014a Formula Atlantic Fast Priate Racing LLC 40 Keith Grant Blue/Green 2002 Swift .014a Hoosier Tires 45 Brian French RD/BL/YL 2005 RALT RT-41 MOTORSPORTS ENTERPRISES LTD. 51 Ken Davis yellow 2002 swift 014a Davis Stone 54 Jmp blue-yellow 2004 swift o14 Alpha Med/Arms Up 55 John Burke Red 2001 Swift 014 Rumson Capital LLC 66 Jim Gustafson Yellow/Red/Blue 1991 Swift DB-4 VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS 71 John Thompson Red/White 2002 Swift .014 The Thompson Org/TTO Motorsports 75 Sedat Yelkin BLACK 2007 SWIFT 014 EVERCLEAR/SWAN RACING 77 Jeff Kowalik Yellow 0 Swift 014 Northcentral Construction 84 Steve Forrer BLUE 2005 SWIFT 014A forrer supply hoosier KHILL 88 Mirl Swan Black 2002 Swift 014a Swan Racing/Hoosier/Everclear 93 J. R. Walker Black / Red 2001 Swift 014 PRO ONE Msports/J R Walker Inc 97 Fabio Castellani red/white 2002 Swift 014 Pro-One/Jr Walker/OMP 07 Jacek Yellow/Red 0 Swift 014 Phoenix-Innotech
Sorry this is not how I wanted the listing to turn out
Sorry this is not how I wanted the listing to turn out
Try copy & pasting into Notepad, then copying THAT to post here. Like this...
FA
7 Rennie Black & Silver 1995 Ralt RT-41 Hoosier/TRD/Loynings/Dauntless Racing
8 J.R. Osborne White 1989 Stohr DB-4 Stohr, Loynings, Goodyear, Redline
11 Dudley Fleck Blue/Wht 1998 Swift 008 ADP Dealer Services
12 David Grant Red/White 2002 Swift 014a Hoosier Tire
19 Bernie Sunier black 1998 rait RT41 hoosier tire
28 Jason Byers Black/Red 1995 Ralt RT41 StClair Motorsports
29 Ahsen Yelkin black 2005 swift 014 Everclear
30 Jim Wright Red 1990 Swift DB-4
31 Connor Burke White/Blue 2003 Swift 014a Fast Priate Racing LLC
40 Keith Grant Blue/Green 2002 Swift .014a Hoosier Tires
45 Brian French RD/BL/YL 2005 RALT RT-41 MOTORSPORTS ENTERPRISES LTD.
51 Ken Davis yellow 2002 swift 014a Davis Stone
54 Jmp blue-yellow 2004 swift o14 Alpha Med/Arms Up
55 John Burke Red 2001 Swift 014 Rumson Capital LLC
66 Jim Gustafson Yellow/Red/Blue 1991 Swift DB-4 VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS
71 John Thompson Red/White 2002 Swift .014 The Thompson Org/TTO Motorsports
75 Sedat Yelkin BLACK 2007 SWIFT 014 EVERCLEAR/SWAN RACING
77 Jeff Kowalik Yellow 0 Swift 014 Northcentral Construction
84 Steve Forrer BLUE 2005 SWIFT 014A forrer supply hoosier KHILL
88 Mirl Swan Black 2002 Swift 014a Swan Racing/Hoosier/Everclear
93 J. R. Walker Black / Red 2001 Swift 014 PRO ONE Msports/J R Walker Inc
97 Fabio Castellani red/white 2002 Swift 014 Pro-One/Jr Walker/OMP
07 Jacek Yellow/Red 0 Swift 014 Phoenix-Innotech
That is one heck of an FA field. Would be great to see so many of those cars race there.
___
http://www.andybrumbaugh.com <----More info on my racing business of sports car driving in Grand Am and private driver development for drivers serious about moving to the front of the grid.
Just cracking the top 10 on that field is going to be an achievement. Whoever wins the Sprints this year will certainly have earned it.
No special aero bits planned for the Ralt... yet. We're more or less waiting to see how everybody stacks up at the Sprints to decide what direction to take - got our suspicions, of course, but waiting none the less!
Rennie,
My suspicions are that a couple of RT41's will be at the pointy end, daunting some good Toyota HP and a little more aero than the 014's. But gearing & torque will be the winners advantage.
Thanks, Paul. I was just wondering if anyone present could fill in the blanks and provide additional info. For example, I saw that JR was listed as both DNF and DNS with different car numbers. Can anyone report on progress made with the DB-Stohr? I was also wondering why Rennie was listed as DNS.
I talked with JR regarding the Stohr DB4 on Saturday, he told me they had engine problems, were way down on power and were done. He mentioned there was an 014 that was available that he was going to race. I don't know why Rennie was a DNF. I wanted to meet Stan but didn't have a chance to do so. The track was good and I'm not sure why the guys at the very front were slower than last year. The FM's in our group were the cause of most of the yellows in Q1 & Q2, but for the most part it was a pretty clean event for our group. There was a nice good crowd, with Saturday being the busiest. Nascar was in Milwaukee on Saturday and Sunday. Once again a great event, but we all feel for the family who lost their guy on Saturday.
We had a hydraulic failure just prior to the race on Sunday, and not enough time to fix it. One of the two clutch lines that feed into the slave cylinder in the bellhousing ruptured and spewed hydraulic fluid all over the inside of the bellhousing (not to mention rendering the clutch inoperable) at the completion of our morning qualifying session, leaving only a few hours to enact a fix.
Those of you that know these cars know that it requires breaking the car in half to get at the offending part. Initially we thought that the pesky runout bearing seal had blown on the slave cylinder, but after doing a field rebuild, a quickie pressure check revealed the ruptured line. Unfortunately, while we had the raw materials to make up a new line, we did not have a spare line ready at hand to bolt on to the car. At that point, the race just prior to ours had taken the green flag; so we were faced with the necessity of building a new hydraulic line from scratch, reattaching the gearbox to the chassis, doing a basic nut & bolt check, putting tunnels / bodywork / etc. back on the car, setting it down on the scales to verify setup and line up on grid in ~45 minutes.
Just wasn't happenin', though we did try.
It's kind of a shame too, 'cause the car was bloody fast. I was just catching up with the car all weekend - apparently Reno didn't do a good enough job of shaking out the cobwebs (it shook everything else to death though!) - and I was really just kind of settling into the rhythm of driving the car again competitively. Another couple of races, and I'll have things sorted out from a driving perspective (more or less), and I'm satisfied with the speed that we achieved at Road America this time around. Despite the poor results this time around, I can rest assured that we will have a very quick and competitive car come the Runoffs, if I'm able to take advantage of it.
One thing is certain - Arnie Loyning really outdid himself with my engine this year. We were the fastest Ralt by about 3-5mph at the end of the front straight, and only one Swift was consistently faster (by 1mph). Absolutely incredible speed for a car that's considered something of a brick in the top-end department compared to the Swifts.
Sorry about the gremlins, but you know how racing goes.......on the other hand, my rough math says 1mph at 150mph takes about 5 horsepower, so Arnie did you a solid....now, how about a pic of that new wing????
Not sure we have that much power over the other Ralt boys - don't want to go 'round starting any rumors here!
The rear wing we went with was a one-off - a narrowed version of our Sports Racer rear wing. Reno destroyed our one good standard FA rear wing support element, so we were kinda scratching our heads regarding which direction to head with it, and eventually we settled on making a one-off for the Sprints. I have some shots of the wing by itself, and will work on getting a photo of the car in-situ:
Depending on how much production work we're able to get through over the next few months prior to the Runoffs, this puppy may come available at "used parts" cost to some enterprising FA racer who wants to sharpen their straight line speed at Road America...
While this is certainly not the final solution, it worked very well at Road America. Well enough that I would feel comfortable heading back there with this wing if we are not able to get the new / proper design completed. And while the moulds and production values are all intended for Sports Racers, we can certainly produce more copies of this wing if anybody is really interested.
Here we go, found a shot on my camera. Unfortunately, I only took the one shot before the battery went dead, and guess who didn't bring a charger? Stan has more shots, but he's somewhere in middle America right now...
We tried to get the rear wing as low as possible, but were a bit restricted because of the big ol' exhaust can sticking back in the vicinity...
I'd be interested in knowing if you did any testing - or CFD - regarding rear wing height. That is quite low but looks as if it'll pick up the air off the sidepods well.
Rennie is all over CFD computations.....funny, use to be "higher, and further aft" for clean air, but I'm sure Rennie is using the wing to assist tunnel exit flow.....kind of how the chin splitter improved tunnel entry flow and allowed less front wing aoa for the same total downforce.
I'd be interested in knowing if you did any testing - or CFD - regarding rear wing height. That is quite low but looks as if it'll pick up the air off the sidepods well.
Charles,
We performed CFD on the design, but did no testing prior to showing up at Road America with this wing. As I mentioned previously, it would have been better if we'd been able to drop the wing a few inches lower, but we'll need a new exhaust to do that. Yes, the wing will run in a whole lot of dirty air down there, and won't be terrifically effective as a pure wing - but we're trying to optimize the car, not the wing...
Like Bill says, this rear wing was more about extracting air from the tunnels than it was about the rear wing, per se.
As it stands, the CFD correlation was decent - we ended up needing to adjust the flap 2 degrees compared to the CFD setting to get perfect balance in real life. That's more of a trim adjustment though, it's not as if we were terribly out of balance.
Ever thought about FC aero packages? I should think the principles would be the same, just a little less of everything.
Might want to give it some consideration. With RSF raised noses and a thoughtful wing package both fore and aft, the mid-year Van Diemens could perhaps compete again. And there's about a zillion of them out there.
And the good news is - in about another month or so, you can have one! The CNC gnomes are not quite finished with the prototypes, but soon, very soon...
Rennie:
I've toyed with the idea of trying FC wings on my DB-4 for Road America. Do you have data comparing the FA and FC wings? While we aren't front runners (old car & old driver) we had some of the best speeds on Arnie's gun at the Sprints. If we have anything going for us it's straightline speed, with 13" fronts, a very narrow cockpit, and trimmed out as much as we can. It would be interesting to see how far we could go in that direction and see what kind of results we could get. That is why I was so keen to see what the Stohr DB-4 would do.
I don't really have a video camera...just the crude video feature on my several year out of date digital still camera. Nonetheless, this will give you the general idea. Enjoy!
In case you are wondering what you are looking at on the video, this pattern is of the inner front wing endplate skins. If you look at the link Rennie provides above, click on the image that shows the front wing. The endplates have inner and outer skins. This pattern is for the right and left inner skins.
In CAD it looks like the first image below.
The roughing toolpath shownin the video is now complete, so I took the photo below of the semi-finished pattern. From here I'll bond a .250" layer of tooling dough to the pattern, then run the finishing cut. When that's complete, we'll pull a mold from it.
Sure! The pattern in the photo above is too rough surfaced to pull a mold from. To get it ready, I mix up epoxy tooling dough (like J.B. Weld, except in 5-gallon buckets) and roll it out in quarter-inch-thick strips. I also mix up a cup of slow adhesive epoxy resin. To bond the dough to the pattern, I paint a layer of the resin on the surface, then lay the strip of dough on top of the painted part. The epoxy in the resin and in the dough are compatible, and since the resin soaks a bit into the pattern, it bonds the two together.
The dough hardens rock-hard, and is specially formulated to be machined. The pattern is then re-machined with a very small step-over to produce a smooth, hard finish that needs only light sanding to be ready to pull a mold from.
FA's at the Sprints
Good luck to you and Ren!
