ALMS On A Budget!

Hey readers,

Well I luckily got the opportunity to attend an ALMS race a few months ago through a friend and I must say it was a fun experience. The downside though was with the economic downturn, the financial strings once holding up teams of the past have now been cut, seeing the disappearance of past '08 teams such as Porsche and Audi, heavy P2 and P1 class competitors, respectively. Acura, however, was still on the playing field in both P1 (the only ones in P1) and P2 classes with amazing cars with hydraulic stabilizers and carbon fiber plate-backed rotors. I must admit the cars were extremely badass, but with all the media coverage and the huge Honda backed budget that the Acura cars got, I turned my attention to another P2 competitor and the underdog, Mazda. Now I'm not one to shoot down technology, but it's nice to see a car on a slightly tighter budget, a more grass roots approach to racing.



The thing I first noticed about the Mazdas were their extremely different exhaust note. The Ferrari GT2 F430 and the high reving, big bore, short stroke Acuras had extremely high pitched exhaust notes, more similar to a shreaking five year old at a Toys R Us. The Mazdas however, had a low howl, and then a loud, low tone hiss once they passed and clipped the candy-cane colored apexes. The reason: a turbo. Rather than sticking to a small displacement, rev happy V-8 like most over P2 cars, Mazda dipped their hands into the water of forced induction. Using a motor which was around the lines of 2.0 litres, Mazda maximized the performance of their small inline four with a fairly large turbo. The ALMS rules obviously allow for this, but rules for turbo'd vehicles are applied to cap the performance and to somewhat keep these cars at par with their competitors. For one, boost is only limited to 1.5 atomospheres (~23 psi) and a restrictor must be used which is situated in front of the compressor inlet. You must be thinking wait, what about turbo lag? Anti-lag is permitted and used by the Mazda team to rocket these things off the line and provide torque at almost all areas of the rev band. A wastegate with a large diaphram must be used to correctly control boost at all times and can be seen in the picture above (black coffee mug looking thing right above the carbon fiber piece next to tire on the bottom of the photograph). And the anti-lag woos the spectators with off-throttle flames and "pops" which echoed off the concrete walls and high rise buildings of Long Beach.

Another thing I really appreciated on the Mazda cars were their simplistic use of materials and design. As can be seen above, carbon fiber was only used for body panels in the rear and small diameter steel tubing prevailed as king on numerous suspension components. Rather than a high tech stabilizer system as was seen on the Acura car which looked like a damper, the Mazdas used steel tube and rod ends which attached to a pair of aluminum "rockers" and a bracket which connected the two sides of the stabilizer system together. You may be asking yourself, then why is there only one bar connected to the rear bracket (JDLAB pun)? The streets of Long Beach isn't your typical track with smooth surfaces and banked turns, and Mazda needed to maximized traction by running a softer set-up. By disconnecting one side of the stabilizer bar system, there essentially is no stabilizer on the car, which allows for maximum droop travel and increased tire grip over bumpy surfaces. Steel tube A-arms were also used and aluminum shims were added to suspension pick-up points to adjust camber and caster. So SIMPO!!!

Alright, so I kinda lied, the car did have a carbon fiber intake manifold, but still it's nothing dramatic like a huge dry carbon intake box with 8 individual throttle bodies and gold foil to dissipate heat. Another cool part was the use of 8 injectors. I know I told you it's a four cylinder, but there is a reason for the method to this madness. Four injectors are situated below the four throttle bodies but above the cylinder head while the other four sit above above the throttle bodies on the intake runners right off the intake manifold. The four closer the intake manifold allow for increased fuel atomization at higher RPM speeds which increases torque and throttle response. I'm sure there is also a special firing technique for anti-lag with these eight injectors but I'm sure the healthy sized guy in the picture wouldn't tell me anymore (after he spilled the beans about the motor displacement, boost pressure, restrictor size and so on).

In the end, the two Mazda LMP2 cars couldn't hold their own against the Acura, but I was informed by an Acura engineer that they were ~6 to 7mph faster down the straights at Long Beach. Why did Mazda run the inline four-turbo instead of the coveted rotary? Reliability? Power? It was probably more along the lines that the Mazdaspeed division who built these engines have become pretty well acquainted and experienced with turbo'd inline fours with their Mazdaspeed 3 and 6. Marketing wise, it does make more sense since their fastest car runs this similar platform and as we all know the RX-8 needs a little more gut before it can be labeled as Mazda's jugernaut.

Well, again thanks for reading and like all of you, I hope the economy resolves itself soon so we can see more competitors out there on the track.

-Josh

My take on the "Truth in 24"

Hey all,

I know it's been disappointing the rate at which I'm creating my blogs, but hopefully this will give me enough momentum to keep things going. Recently, my brother told me to download "Truth in 24" for free on Itunes. Now the shitty part is YOU HAVE TO ENTER IN A VALID credit card number to create a shopping account on Itunes. I mean you're essentially buying a free movie, so you gotta do the whole "add in shopping cart" deal. But rather than be a baby about my credit info, I decided to give in seeing that this one particular costumer at work has harrassed everyone about whether or not they've seen this movie. So I clicked the download button and 1.15 gigs later the movie was happily situated in my Itunes.

The story is based upon Audi's 2008 endeavors in the 24 hours of Le mans but revolves around the two diesel power players in the P1 category, Peugeot and them. The car: Audi R10. Seasons this chassis has run: 3. So from the get-go, Peugeot has the lead with a win in a previous 12 hour race at Sebring and of course, they've had more time to develop a P1 chassis using a turbo diesel motor, something still relatively new in the P1 class.

The course: Spa Francorchamps. An over 8 mile long track using public roads full of chicanes, tight and large radius turns, and of course, high speed straights. But with Peugeot's quicker chassis pulling in a 3 sec advantage over Audi per lap, things seem inevitable for Audi to only view the top spot on the podium.

This is where Howden Haynes comes in. Lead engineer for the Allan McNish, Dindo Capello, Tim Kristenson (I know I spelled those wrong for sure) team, he is the voice in the back of their heads guiding them with his computer screens full of telemetry, tire temps, weather reports, and time gaps between theirs and other cars. He is the man that chooses tires, when drivers will swap, and how much fuel goes in. He is their God and the drivers are simply Noah and associated family stuck on an ark waiting for a day storm to end in harmony.

The team sets up shop days earlier before the event, even so to the point they are literally the only ones there, besides maybe janitorial service. They practice tire changes, driver swaps, and fuel fills like it's the track and field events at the summer olympics. Things aren't measured by the second, but rather by the tenth of a second. When the pace is off by half a second, Hayes like any good coach demands more from his team through repetitve practice. All major services for catastrophic failures are even excercised like changing suspension components, body panels, and transmissions. Haynes sees pit strategy as the prominent method for combating the Peugeot team. To Haynes, winning isn't an unreachable goal, but a scent on the tip of his nose that Audi seriously needs after Sebring.

I will worn you that I am about the spoil part of the movie for those who have not seen it, but I feel it is needed to depict the level of confidence and direction that Haynes has. In the last few hours of the race, Haynes quickly calls in his team's car demanding that a tire change be propagated. The driver, in disbelief does not see the need. He's on full slicks and the sun is out after a wet night with only a few wet spots on the track. Haynes demands the driver to pull into the pits, because according to his weather satellite a storm is coming, and an oppurtunity to beat Peugeot is at hand. The car comes in and intermediates are mounted and center-locked into place for a driver who is disgruntled. The car is back on the track and Peugeot begins to cover more distance on their full slicks. However, the storm is back and the sun once shining over France is now covered by clouds waterfalling rain which ends up causing a Peugeot car to spin out. The driver is grateful to Haynes because now the setup (according to the driver) is perfect.

In the end, Audi takes podium and drinks their champagne. But Haynes in a mode of tiredness and zero-energy, quietly makes his way over to a used set of tires to have a seat, a cigarette, and a look at his Iphone. Along the way, drivers, pit crew members, and the ever-so important board of trustees thanks him in ways ranging from a family reunion-like hug to worshippers of pharoah. In the end, he extremely pleased and joyous but in a calm manner due to mental and physical exhaustion. He is the suttle hero that the audience in the grand stands or behind tv screens will usually never see or hear about.

The quality and filmatography of the movie are without a doubt amazing and makes you truly feel as though your on pit lane feeling the anguish, stress, and (in the end) joy of the Audi team. Of course, having Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) do the narrating adds a little bit of spice to a film that your mom, sister, and/or girlfriend would commonly find, well rather boring. I would highly recommend seeing this as it doesn't pinch your wallet in the tough times that we live in.

Cheers,

-Josh