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Well from racing experience, when we put the wing on the car we get about 2 laps per gallon. When we run non-wing, we get about 3 laps per gallon. The more frontal area you have in the air, the more work the engine has to do and worse fuel mileage you will get. This is one of the reasons semi-trucks get such poor mileage. I know what you're thinking, well, flatten out the wing. Well, wings also present a certain about of drag since they are hanging out there in the wing, so a lot of fine tuning/research would have to go in to get the 'perfect' wing-form for each model of car. But if it's not required, then the money won't be used. What would really help street-car fuel mileage is: full underbody trays to cover all those areas air can get sucked up into the body, delete the door rear-view mirrors and replace them with rear-facing cameras, no radio antennaes, actually nothing outside of the body since that disrupts the air-flow around the car, and induces drag. If you look closely at some new street-cars, you will notice some of these changes. The wheel-wells are getting closer and closer to the tires to reduce air from getting trapped in there. Wind-shield wipers are going under the hood-cowel to get them out of wind as well. I am aware of some Jeeps having under-body trays now too. And some passenger cars are getting lower to the ground to reduce the air flow under the car, reducing drag as well. The car companies are working on these things. The problem is, major changes are just too expensive to be made all at one time, so they incorporate them a little here and a little there.
Thanks,
Chad
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