Something that has been bothering me for a long time. I wanted to elaborate on this.
I'm a mechanical engineer in real life, and I took quite a bit of aeronautic classes in college, so I feel that I'm somewhat experienced with this topic.
Anyways..
On street circuits (lets take Houston 1998 for example) most of the corners are relatively slow in terms of aerodynamics. Typically most street circuits have corners that are close to 90 degrees, and usually taken at about 60-65mph) I remember back in classes that the effects of aerodynamics (in a vehicle) don't really kick in until about 70mph. I would think that for the most part, you could physically remove the wings on a champcar and it should be insignificant affect in this type of corner. Think about all of the times we've seen races from the 80s or 90s when a car lost a wing and still went on to race, seemingly unaffected.
With respect to car setups, most of the street circuits (at least the default papy setups) have very high wing setups on these types of tracks. For example, my houston setup (I know it's not an OEM track) default was 18 front, and 15 rear.
My thoughts on this are:
The wings shouldn't be really doing much to help me get better grip in the low speed corners. Although- the straights aren't really that long to have the wing actually hurt me either.
Once I was racing at the OEM Detroit track when the game freaked out and warped my car into the outfield. The car would work and I could drive but I wasn't really going anywhere (it was like being stuck on an infinite plane). Just for fun, I accelerated to see how fast I could get the car going on an infinite straightaway. I topped out at 186mph, and couldn't go any faster (not limited by RPM either- I was in 6th gear at high revs but not where the engine would blow) I assume this is mainly only because of the wing settings (I think my Detroit setup is almost full downforce 16, 17 or 18 front and rear, I forget)
I just wanted to get other opinions on wing settings on tracks that are mostly slow corners and straights that aren't that long.
It would be nice to develop some sort of "science" where I can look at a track, and get a good starting point of where the wings should be set at when the car 'comes off of the trailer'
I do constantly watch races from the 80s & 90s (downloaded from TY mostly) and I specifically remember Jon Beekhuis'es commentary once saying in a race "typically on a street circuit you set the wings up with the maximum amount of downforce you can". (I think it was a race from 1999? can't remember)
I'm a mechanical engineer in real life, and I took quite a bit of aeronautic classes in college, so I feel that I'm somewhat experienced with this topic.
Anyways..
On street circuits (lets take Houston 1998 for example) most of the corners are relatively slow in terms of aerodynamics. Typically most street circuits have corners that are close to 90 degrees, and usually taken at about 60-65mph) I remember back in classes that the effects of aerodynamics (in a vehicle) don't really kick in until about 70mph. I would think that for the most part, you could physically remove the wings on a champcar and it should be insignificant affect in this type of corner. Think about all of the times we've seen races from the 80s or 90s when a car lost a wing and still went on to race, seemingly unaffected.
With respect to car setups, most of the street circuits (at least the default papy setups) have very high wing setups on these types of tracks. For example, my houston setup (I know it's not an OEM track) default was 18 front, and 15 rear.
My thoughts on this are:
The wings shouldn't be really doing much to help me get better grip in the low speed corners. Although- the straights aren't really that long to have the wing actually hurt me either.
Once I was racing at the OEM Detroit track when the game freaked out and warped my car into the outfield. The car would work and I could drive but I wasn't really going anywhere (it was like being stuck on an infinite plane). Just for fun, I accelerated to see how fast I could get the car going on an infinite straightaway. I topped out at 186mph, and couldn't go any faster (not limited by RPM either- I was in 6th gear at high revs but not where the engine would blow) I assume this is mainly only because of the wing settings (I think my Detroit setup is almost full downforce 16, 17 or 18 front and rear, I forget)
I just wanted to get other opinions on wing settings on tracks that are mostly slow corners and straights that aren't that long.
It would be nice to develop some sort of "science" where I can look at a track, and get a good starting point of where the wings should be set at when the car 'comes off of the trailer'
I do constantly watch races from the 80s & 90s (downloaded from TY mostly) and I specifically remember Jon Beekhuis'es commentary once saying in a race "typically on a street circuit you set the wings up with the maximum amount of downforce you can". (I think it was a race from 1999? can't remember)
