Cart cars are actually known as Championship Cars or Champ cars.
They have MORE powerful turbocharged engines, more ground effects and tunnel
bottoms, wider stance(similiar to F1 before grooved tires)
two different wing packages for road racing and ovals, They weigh more and
the BIGGEST difference other than sheer cost are the brakes.
F1 cars can stop in incredibly short distances. CART mandates a brake rules
package that, while still very good, is nowhere near the stopping power of
F1 cars. F1 cars are generally considered faster in road racing
due to the ability to stop and start quicker than the Champ cars but F1 cars
don't have the overall top speed the Champ cars can produce.
Cart is the racing group that USED to race the Indianapolis 500. But no
longer, except for a couple of teams that buy IRL cars to run there.
Champ cars are customer bought cars, not handcrafted from the ground up like
F1. But Champ cars can have some modifications, The engines are all leased
from Ford, Honda & Toyota(plus a few used Ilmor's)
and cannot be modified by the teams. Lola & Reynard are the two big chassis
builders right now...others that have run well include Penske's own
creations from a shop in England, Dan Gurney's Eagles(now defunct) March's,
& Swifts.
For a look at the current Cart series try this site.
http://www.cart.com/
and this site for a look at some of the Champ car patches coming out.
http://www.champweb.net/
That ought to get you started.
dave henrie
> What exactly is the difference between a CART car and a F1 car? Wings,
> tires, displacement? I don't follow CART but there has been a bit of talk
> around here lately about it and I'm curious.
> Is CART cars old F1 tech, or does it develop on its own. Is a CART car
> comparable to a F3000 car?
> And where does an IRL car rate among this?
> Thanks guys...
> ********************************
> Dave Pawlikowski
> ********************************