Racing series with NO technical rules.

I don't think it would work, at least not in terms of keeping costs down. Teams are in it to win, or at worst to be reasonably competitive. In a series where absolutely anything goes the cost of developing and running a competitive car could, potentially, be huge. It costs a lot to find low cost solutions!

 

It would also be deadly. It is hard enough to keep drivers safe with the regulations they have now. This would be like the old days where the one with the biggest doodads gets the trophy. Until that fateful day where things go a bit wry...

As much as like to see a good crash, I am not interested in seeing anyone get hurt.

 

I would make the series have some rules:
1) No computers of any kind.
2) The vehicle must be controlled completely by just 1 driver who is in the car.

It would never happen because of the safety and cost aspects, but I wonder what lap times they could produce?

 

i disagree. costs would be astronomical.

no, F1 expenses are actually held in check by the rules.

 

I have always thought of this as a kind of high-school boys study hall nerd dream.

It has been tried before - Formula Libre, I think it was called. It was not a high point in the sport.

The "anything goes" approach is understandable with heavy tanks or fighter planes, but we all know where THAT got us.

 

This has been done in the past. It is not a cheaper solution and there is often no parity between teams leading to fewer and fewer fans as the outcome is a forgone conclusion. Please review the CanAm series as it grew out of USRRC, went through the McLaren Bruce and Denny years and was ultimately flattened by the Porsche 917K30 and the UOP Shadows. Great racing series, but rules eventually creep in, $ expended goes up and the series folds due to lack of sponsorship, fans and in todays world, broadcast $.

 

old F1 when you can add 2 extra tires to have some grips like Tyrell did or intoduce the turbo and the water injected engines like Renault did or the electronic suspention the TC smart chassis balance like one more time Renult did.

Yes, that was the years when the only thing to worry about was to win the race in one pice.

 

How about the old Can Am?

 

Interesting you should ask that. If you do a wikipedia on "Formula Libre" there is an article that goes into the old old 1931 Libre rules, the various attempts through the 50s and 60s, and also Can Am.

What it basically says there is that the Can Am was finally dominated into non-existence first by the McLaren cars of Bruce and Denny, (nobody else could compete at their heights), and the nail was pounded in the coffin by the Porsche 917K compressor cars. Some might make the point that Jim Hall started the ball rolling with the wings.

The 1930s Grand Prix cars also suffered from an overkill - in that case the Germans. 2KG too heavy; fine - send me some workers and we will sand off all the paint.

This seems to be a fault of relaxed rules racing - whoever can put up the most cubic dollars wins. (Despite the fine efforts of one Tazio Nuvolari and the Ferrari/Alfa cars. Nuvolari had to finally give up and drive for the Germans.

 

no rules?

then, we would have 6 wheeled monstrosities like this:
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Is that real?

 

I think I saw it in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

 

yep, it's real.. search for Covini in Google and Wikipedia.

~shahedc
.

 

Drivers would die. We are talking about continual 8-9 Gs under braking & turning. Probably around 3-4 under acceleration. I doubt they could be piloted by humans.

2000hp, sub 1000 lbs, full ground effect (possibly with fans), enclosed wheels, 6 wheel cars with 4 rear drive wheels. We are talking about a lap time reduction of about ~30 seconds per lap from F1 currently.

It's very easy to be faster than F1. It's very hard to be faster than F1 and maintain the same safety standards.

 

With the recent push for energy efficient transportation, why not have a racing series similar to this (unlimited tech) but with the constraint that each driver has X gallons of fuel for qualifying and the race.

This would encourage novel technical solutions, have real world repercussions, and also limit the deadliness of an "unlimited" series to which others have alluded--you can only create so much kinetic energy from a given amount of fuel, if speeds get too high simply reduce the amount of fuel available for use.

Any thoughts? Who wants to help me start this series?

 

thats a rule though... cant have any rules

 

We have that in the states - why, there's "Destruction Derby" and "Figure 8 Racing" and "Enduro" and "Trailer Racing"...

http://www.wecrash.com/

Max's worst nightmare;

Some basic ground rules we want everyone to understand about this organization: we will never promote an event, we will never charge for services, in fact we will try to not charge for anything. Donations(promoters/classifieds) and selling T-shirt/decal etc.. should be enough to do everything we need to do as an organization.

Here's their rules...
http://www.wecrash.com/rules.rtf

...and their forum
http://srt.suddenlaunch.com/index.cgi?board=figure

Including "Greatest Hits"
http://srt.suddenlaunch.com/index.cgi?board=figure&action=display&num=1196104457

 

Sure, like when they made everyone switch from a V10 engine to a V8 thus making everyone come up with a whole new design

 

Can Am is a pure example of why this wouldn't work, cost in today's dollars would be mind boggling!! Another example is "D" Sports racing in S.C.C.A bascially pretty open in a lot of ways on what you can do except for safety, needs four wheels, and a engine displacement rule. This class was for the free thinkers, tinkering people, engineers, now it's super expensive. There's a car I was looking at last month that's being built here locally and they have a few 100K invested in it already, amateur racing folks!!!
In racing classes in general we need some kind of rule that would make today's spec type cars look all different instead of cookie cutter cars.