At the Bira Circuit this weekend is the 2nd Round of
the GT cars. These powerful beasts should provide plenty of action on the
twisting 2.4 km Bira Circuit. My personal favourites are the twin turbo
RX7 Mazdas. I drove one in Australia and the power delivered by the rotary
engines is fantastic. And rev! 10,000 RPM is nothing for those engines.
In actual fact, we were the first to slot a rotary into
a sports sedan, way back in 1980 (was it really 20 years ago?), throwing
the Lotus Twin Cam donk out of an Escort and fitting the rotary without
too much technical engineering. We gained 60 horses and another very
important ingredient - reliability. Something the T/C’s were not noted
for in ultra high stages of tune. The only real problem was the exhaust
which comes out on the driver’s side and tended to fry one’s feet. We
eventually had to make special asbestos cloth covers for the footwell to
stop the fried foot problem. The other worry was the noise! They were
bringing in legislation to ban any cars delivering more than 95 dBA and
the early race trim rotaries were producing 112 dBA. We put large mufflers
on the things and the heat melted the fibreglass packing inside and it
would all be dripping out of the end of the pipe at the end of the race.
But I digress (sign of old age). Racing will begin
around 1 p.m. on Sunday, with qualifying and practice on the Saturday. A
supporting card of events as well.
London to Sydney Porsches
That pic of the Porsche last week certainly brought
back a few memories. That was one of the rare times that Porsche really
screwed up. The Aussie contingent had managed to convince the other
competitors that the Australian leg was going to be the real “killer”.
Tales of 6 foot tall giant red kangaroos were the norm and the Europeans,
who had never been to Oz (or in most cases, had never seen a kangaroo)
were truly worried. Take a look at the bar work again on the 911. Have you
ever seen anything like that? Makes Mad Max seem like child’s play. Of
course, the cars were so weighed down with all the protective armour that
they collapsed their suspensions!
The
kangaroo problem in outback Oz does exist, however. I can remember coming
back from Adelaide and when approaching a small township called Wilcannia
(it’s in the middle of nowhere, so you won’t find it on the map) we
had to stop and spend the night there because of the roo’s. Giant red
roo’s just standing in the road, dazzled by the headlights. If you hit
one of the old man roo’s, you do an enormous amount of damage. Reminds
me that they claim they paint the rubbish bins red and yellow in
Wilcannia, so the local street kids think they’re eating at McDonalds!
Collapsing suspensions
Charles Armstrong-Wilson is the editor of Racecar
Engineering, the leading monthly publication dealing with technology for
the motorsport industry, and he had the following to say about the real
cause of the Schumacher’s retirement at Monaco. (The following is an
excerpt taken from his latest article on this subject.)
“So, Michael Schumacher was out of the Monaco Grand
Prix with suspension failure. In Michael’s case, though, heavy contact
with the scenery was not to blame. His Ferrari suffered pushrod failure
after it was cooked by a broken exhaust. Just bad luck it would seem - not
entirely.
Ferrari adopts the now popular practice in Formula 1 of
moulding its suspension links in carbon composite. It produces components
that are very light and immensely strong and the material is widely used
in a modern Grand Prix car. Obviously engineers love it and what it can
do, but it does have a couple of shortcomings over steel, aluminium or
other metals and alloys.
Firstly, once it has been damaged it loses virtually
all its strength. A steel wishbone can be bent into amazing shapes before
it breaks while a carbon version, although stronger, will snap rather than
bend.
Secondly, carbon composite is not great at coping with
heat. Subjected to too much, it loses its strength pretty rapidly. This is
a problem if you are hoping to use it for exhaust pipes or suspension
uprights close to white hot brakes. But suspension links are not subjected
to much heat and usually have a nice flow of cool air over them.
This is true if the car functions as intended.
Unfortunately, Michael’s Ferrari lost part of its exhaust and searing
hot gases from the engine were playing on the carbon pushrod long enough
for it to give up the ghost. Could anyone have foreseen such an
eventuality, though? Yes they did and a number of the teams refrain from
using carbon on the rear suspension for just this reason. They regard the
proximity of all that heat as too close for comfort and take the
precaution of making the rear suspension links from less heat sensitive
steel even though they use carbon on the front.
Carbon composites have revolutionised the design and
building of Grand Prix cars in the last 15 years, but even with the
apparently unlimited money and resources in the sport, this exotic
material can still catch out the best of them.”
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week’s question came from regular Automaniac
Hawaii Pete. The photograph was none other than Black Jack himself,
otherwise known as Sir Jack Brabham. Sir Jack won the world championship
three times - 1959 and 1960 in Coopers and again in 1966 in his own car,
the Repco Brabham. The following year, his team mate, the late Denny Hulme
(died of a heart attack at the wheel during the Bathurst 1000 km saloon
car race) won it in the Repco Brabham as well.
Sir Jack, by the way, is as deaf as a post these days
and it is a real shame to see him being interviewed. The answer given will
have no bearing on the question asked. Such things as, “How will your
son go in this race, Sir Jack?” will produce a reply like, “I think it
will rain later!”
So let’s stick to Brabham this week. All the Brabham
racers had the prefix BT in front of the number. What did BT stand for?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first
correct answer to fax 427 596 or email [email protected].
This one’s even easier!
