rec.autos.simulators

You can bet some will be dissappointed, not me tho +)  lol wings belong on
aeroplanes

Martyn_D

The best hope we all have for a July 28th release is that this date has been
promoted just about everywhere, including Autosport magazine in big letters
on a competition page.

Such marketing will attract the more casual sim racer, who most likely won't
be using this newsgroup to keep in touch with the current situation. To
these people a date is a date and if they see a launch day published, that's
the one they'll all pick to go to EB, Game, ***, HMV or wherever.

The long and short of all this is that, having so blatently promoted July
28th as European launch day, Hasbro/Microprose are going to have massive
amounts of egg on their face if they fail to meet the deadline.

You can bet that, if the game isn't yet finished, there are some bleary eyed
guys and gals in that development team.

This has to be everyone's best reassurance that the date will be honoured.
But then I seem to remember kids in EB with tears in their eyes because
Donkey Kong or whatever failed to make it on time as promised and
publicised.

At the end of the day, a sim with this potential doesn't come along every
year, so we may just have to be patient.

As a bit of preventive medicine, I'm currently spending a good deal of
available sim time developing my racing technique (or lack thereof) in GPL -
this game's so deep that I can immerse myself in it if there are any GP3
delays.

Just think though. After all this hype what if it all turned out to be less
than the total package we all expect? Surely not...

The wings we see on cars are defined by formula. They are about the WORST
possible way to employ wings on a land vehicle. They know this, that's why
they define the formula in the manner they do.

There's an old engineering saying, "If it looks right, it is." The implied
corallary is, of course, if it looks wrong. . . it is.

Today's cars look wrong, at least to this engineer/physicist.

Let me start a design path that uses wings in an optimal manner. Only then
do I think we will be able to tell if wings belong on a car.

I'll say this though, for purely sporting purposes wings on a car serve no
purpose whatsoever.

Ash
|
| I'll say this though, for purely sporting purposes wings on a car serve no
| purpose whatsoever.
|
|

John

--
Tony Whitley
(Hoping my broken MSFF is returned before GP3).

Well, I don't know that I'd necessarily say a bad thing, but certainly
entirely unnecessary. One thing they do that can be considered bad is
allowing much higher speeds at the most dangerous part of the racetrack, the
corners. It's a paradox, but racing would actually be much safer with LESS
cornering grip.

To support this argument I'd note that fewer fatalities happen in the rain
than in the dry. A lot MORE accidents, but fewer fatalities.

Grooving the tires is a lousy way to achieve lower cornering speeds. Ripping
the wings off works great.

 If so, I would agree. I think that, in F1

Here I'd actually disagree with you. The rise of the driver in F1 is a
fairly recent phenomenon. F1 was always an engineering first form of racing.
It's raison d'etre was the ultimate machine.

We don't have that anymore. Now it's a star based, soak the fan for money,
media event. As an engineer I look at F1 and see sterility. The cars are so
rigidly defined by the rules that the "designer" is reduced to diddling with
minor details in order to garner some 1/10 of 1% advantage. It is far LESS
of an engineer's formula as a result. It's engineering for the brain dead,
***retentive fussbudget.

The Tyrrell six wheeler may have been no great success but at least they
were allowed to apply creativity to an engineering problem and stick their
necks out to see if their solution worked!

That sort of thing can't be allowed today. If one competitor were allowed a
new idea that actually gave them a distinct advantage over the others it
would be bad for the sport, i.e.  *The Gate.*

Money talks, the lawyers have taken control of the 'show.'

Here's my solution. Seperate the driver's championship and the
manufacturer's championship.

The driver's championship would be run with a spec chassis, spec motor, and
spec tires. All of these would be defined on a cost/benifit basis in order
to keep the overall cost of operation low. So low that the upper middle
class could, at least in theory, finance their own championship team out of
pocket. NO WINGS.

Basically I'm talking a beefed up, de-aeroed Formula Mazda here.

F1 would be a manufacturer's championship only. The rules would be fairly
simple. Your car can only be so big. It has to have these driver safety
items. It has to breath through this little tube.

That's IT!

Ok, I've stuck my neck out. Let the chopping begin.

Remember: even with more restrictions every year, the cars still make
a progress of several seconds per year! What would it be like WITHOUT
restrictions????

Therefore, I can see the need for somekind of regulation.

JoH

You will note that one of the provisions that I suggest has no other purpose
than to limit the ultimate power producable by the motor.  It does this
while imposing absolutely no limits as to the type or design of combustion
motor, and can be adapted to many types of non combustion motors as well.

It functions cheaply, easily, and can be changed at will at the cost of only
a couple of bucks.