Posts Tagged ‘racing cars’

What Is Formula Drifting?

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

Unless you are a aficionado of racing cars, there is a decent chance that you have not heard of Formula D Racing. Formula D has its adherents of course, but it is still not as commonly known as the other types of racing like Formula One, Drag Car Racing, NASCAR or Cross Country Rallying. This is partly because it is a fairly new form of car racing.

Every year the national television coverage is a bit more extensive, yet it is taking a long time to prise some of the airtime away from the more traditional sports. Once you have seen a competition though, the likelihood is that you will become hooked on this exciting sport that they have Christened Formula D.

The ‘D’ in Formula D stands for ‘drifting’ which is another name given to the sport. Drifting refers to the angle of the car with reference to the sides of the road at any given moment. Drifting through bends allows the car to maintain its highest possible speed in a bend. Drifting sounds natural and therefore commonplace, yet it is actually very hard to do well.

Drifting takes skill and lots of practice. Drivers are judged in part on their talent at drifting. There are in fact two facets of Formula D or two kinds of drifting. There are the traditional style qualifying runs but there are also tandem battles. Qualifying runs involve the driver racing solo flat out against the clock, drifting as necessary to sustain the highest speed possible.

However, tandem runs involve two car drivers who are being judged on their skills at outwitting the other driver. The judges are looking for the line of drift, the speed of the cars, overtaking, crashes and much more. Driving in the tandem runs definitely sorts the men out from the boys.

Formula Drifting grew up a little chaotically, yet there have been major attempts to control it. At the moment the Formula Drift Championship is the only professional drifting championship that is authorized by SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) Pro Racing in the United States, although there are often amateur local drifting competitions held unofficially.

There needs to be more officially authorized races so that standards are maintained and every driver follows the same set of rules. This is the only way that the television channels will pick up on drifting and help advertise it more. Drifting is new to the United States, but the first Drifting Races took place in 2004, so not all that long ago anyway. It is still very much a new sport.

At the moment the country where Formula D is most well-liked is Japan, but that is likely to change when the American media gets to grips with Drifting. At the moment it is still not that easy to watch drifting activities unless you live in California, Washington, Georgia and New Jersey and it is still not simple to watch it on TV unless you have G4TechTV, which is commonly referred to as G4.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with how to compare tyre prices. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Car Tyres For Sale.

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How To Get Into Go Karting

Saturday, July 9th, 2011

If you would like to get into some form of motor sport, but are absolutely appalled by the costs involved, maybe you have overlooked Go Kart Racing. All right, nothing is cheap anymore, but go karting is comparatively cheap in comparison with its far dearer cousins like Formula One, Formula Drifting, NASCAR and Cross Country Rallying. You can get into go kart racing as a spectator, as an investor in a team or as a member of an active team as a mechanic or driver.

Or you could use go kart racing as a spring board into the more expensive forms of motor sport. You can learn a great deal about driving, designing and constructing cars by starting with go karts. After all, the principals are in essence the same, but the components in karts are a great deal cheaper.

In the rest of this piece, we will take a look at some of the components and safety aspects of go karts along with approximate typical prices.

The first thing you will need to investigate is the sort of kart you want. There are different levels as there are in other motor sports. as a beginner, you actually should start with the low powered karts, because you will have to learn a great deal of new driving skills and quite a few safety regulations before you move on to more highly-rated karts.

If you find the price of a new kart a bit high or if you would like to leap-frog over the lower levels of karting as quickly as you can, you could think about buying a second hand kart for the first few levels, only buying a new one once you get to the level of karting that you would like to be at. However, do not make the error of attempting to run before you can walk.

Entry level go karts are not costly. For instance, at the time of writing, a battery operated go kart costs about $300-$400+ while a petrol powered kart will cost $600-$700+

Although go karts have a very low centre of gravity so do not tip over easily, it can happen and crashes do occur so wearing the correct safety clothing is vital. Again, you could purchase a second hand set of racing safety clothes, which are in essence the same as for motorbiking, if you just want to get going on the cheap.

You will require a jacket and trousers or a one-piece jump suit; a helmet, gloves, a neck-collar and boots. This little lot could set you back anywhere between $300 and $400, but it will save broken bones or worse, especially in the period a couple of months after you begin when you think that you know it all. Accidents occur once individuals become over confident.

You will also need a few common spare parts, a spare tyre, fuel and oil, say $250 and you are ready to take your first lessons in your own go kart. Or maybe you would rather learn in someone else’s kart first? This is not a bad thought, because it will give you some experience with different forms of karts, which will help you choose which one you want (or can afford).

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with how to compare tyre prices. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at Car Tyres For Sale.

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Some Design Features Of Formula One Cars

Friday, July 8th, 2011

There is no question that Formula One racing is a gripping motor sport for those interested in cars, speed, engineering and design. The design of these Formula One cars is crucial to the speed that the car will travel at, and it is also imperative for the safety of the driver.

For this latter reason, there are strict design rules applying to all cars in this motor sport and any car that does not abide by the rules is disqualified from taking part in the races. It is rare for car designers to infringe these rules because the cost of driving in a race and the benefits from doing well are massive.

Having said that, Formula One car racing teams push the design features of their cars up to the limit. The key to gaining maximum speed with maximum fuel efficiency is having as aerodynamic a design as possible. These cars are as well designed as any fighter jet, but the foremost difference is that fighter jets are intended to leave the ground whereas cars are not.

Therefore, another vital part of the design is creating down force to keep the tyres firmly on the ground. It is important for a number of reasons for the tyres to have a decent grip on the track. Without this grip or traction, the car cannot accelerate, but without it they cannot stop either. Therefore down force and tyres are a major factor in speed and safety.

The brakes are extraordinary as well as you can imagine. They are basically the same as those used in stock road cars, yet the components are rather extraordinary. because they have to work and remain working at high speeds, this means that they develop high temperatures.

Ordinary metal would buckle or even melt, so high quality carbon fibre composite disk brakes are utilized instead in conjunction with brake pads of special composites which are often extremely secret. There are a great deal of jealously guarded secrets in the designs of contemporary Formula One racing cars.

The main part of a racing car is the monocoque, which is the section that holds the engine and the driver. The car’s suspension is also mounted on the monocoque so it is clear that it has to be very strong. This strength is normally gained by constructing it from carbon fibre.There are also numerous safety features built into the monocoque for the benefit of the driver.

The engine has to be light-weight, efficient but powerful, which is a very tall order indeed. There is now also an FIA regulation that the engine has to last for more than one race weekend. Engine failure is the main cause of pulling out of a Formula One race early. The gearbox suffers equally in a fast race. Another regulation states that all gearboxes have to be manual – no automatic gearboxes. This adds to the wear and tear.

The suspension is manually adaptable so that it can be fine-tuned to each race track and the conditions prevailing on a race track at any given time. The suspension is not there for the comfort of the driver but to raise the likelihood of the car winning.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with how to compare tyre prices. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Car Tyres For Sale.

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What Of Formula One?

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Formula One, also called Formula 1 or F1, and officially referred to as the FIA Formula One World is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).

The “formula” in the designation refers to a set of rules with which all participants’ cars must comply. It is almost certainly the most widely watched televised spectator sport in the world after football.

Formula One can be seen live or tape delayed in almost each country and territory around the world and attracts one of the largest global television audiences. The 2008 season attracted a global audience of 600 million viewers per race.

It is a massive television event; the cumulative TV audience was calculated to be 54 billion for the 2001 season, broadcast to two hundred countries.

This is a long way indeed from its early beginnings. The very first Formula One World Championship Motor race took place at Silverstone in the United Kingdom in 1950 . In those initial days, teams who no longer contend on the modern F1 circuit dominated proceedings with the very first World Championship being won by Italian Giuseppe Farina in an Alfa Romeo.

His team mate, the legendary Juan Fangio, won the title almost continuously until 1957 and, in fact, his record of five World Championship wins held until 2003 when Michael Schumacher won his sixth title.

It was during this period that probably the greatest driver never to win the World Championship was competing – the U.K.?s Stirling Moss.

One team that did contend in those early years was Ferrari, or Scuderia Ferrari to give the team its full title, whose prancing horse logo is followed by the red shirted fans or ?tifosi? across the world. In fact, during the last few years the sport has been dominated by Ferrari who until recently has been one of the few teams to assemble the complete car, engine and all.

However the U.K. team of Maclaren, using engines from Mercedes Benz, have proved extremely successful. Another very successful team during the 2010 season proved to be Red Bull racing using engines supplied by Renault.

It is interesting to note that in the cases of both Maclaren and Red Bull, they have proved a lot more successful than the teams fielded by their engine suppliers, Mercedes and Renault. This almost certainly goes a long way to supporting the argument that it is the aerodynamic properties of the car that win races.

After several years in which we have seen the number of teams has stayed quite static or even declined, 2010 saw a renaissance in the number of cars on the grid with new entries from Lotus, Virgin Racing, and Hispania Racing bringing the number of starters to 24.

The agenda of races is also in a constant state of change with Korea joining for the 2010 season and India being added in 2011 as Formula 1 becomes more and more a world- wide spectacle as it moves away from its time-honoured European heartland.

But wherever the teams race and whatever the number of cars on the starting grid it will continue to set the pulses racing as those 5 red lights go out!

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with London Olympic dates. Click a link to find out more 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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Porsche 977

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

A new Porsche 911 is always intriguing because it’s exciting to see how after more than 40 years of improvement the Porsche team still manages to bring changes and advancements to this iconic model.

The new 997 combines the silky contemporary appearance of the 996 series with the popular retro styling of the older 911′s. The front end is completed with round lights and separate parking/fog/indicator lights. This modification, combined with wider hips resembles the last of the air-cooled 911′s, the 993. Other changes in the body shell are the new door handles, wing mirrors and the trendy cut of the rear wings into the bumper/lights.

Even if the 997 looks a lot like the preceding model, the 996, the new car is in point of fact 38mm wider which makes for a more forceful look. With each new model brought out, Porsche has tried to reduce the drag co-efficient helping the 911 glide through the air more efficiently thereby aiding performance. The same thing has been done with the new car, and if we compare the 993 Cd of 0.34 to the 997`s 0.28, we can see how far the aerodynamic game has moved on. The latest body shell and rear wing combine with new under body paneling to also offer increased levels of down force for this latest evolution of Porsche’s best.

The latest Porsche model has the best handling 911 ever. Improving a car’s rigidity helps ensure that the suspension can work more effectively and although not making such a quantum leap as the team did with the 996, Porsche improved torsional rigidity by 8% and added as much as 40% more strength.

For their new model car, Porsche wanted to improve crash safety provisions so they added two new air bags, which are situated in the side of each front seat back-rest and are designed to protect the thorax. They also kept the earlier two front and two side airbags, which means that now there are six air bags in total. For the same reason, that is crash safety, the reinforced body shell boasts further protection such as a more extensive use of super high strength steel.

The most recent model is also 50 kg heavier than the 996. The reason is that modern crash safety regulations sort of force vehicle makers to produce new cars of increased weight, despite the prevalent use of a large range of weight saving measures, such as an aluminum bonnet.

Aside from the crash safety advancements, much of the additional weight can be attributed to the higher standard specifications of the new cars. The power to weight ratio is analogous with the latest car offering 233 bhp per tonne against it’s predecessors 238 but the new model’s superior aerodynamics must help it achieve Porsche’s claimed performance figures, which are identical to those of the 996.

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