I think the last of the front engine roadsters ran in 64 at indy. the speed was 154. Engines put out about 4-500hp and tires were about 6 inches wide.
Put a modern champ car out there and they'll turn 180 laps. IM sorry, I see these cars get the cage knocked in a foot from wrecks at THAT. You say Nascar and NHRA use tube frames. Yeah, but they have a containment compartment of hoops and many bars, not just three or four frame rails. Nascar has crush panels on both sides, flaps to keep em from flipping and have set the driver centered in the car..
And the truth is, They're slowing both Nascar and Indycar down, have done it about every five years since the 80s.
Im not bashing the idea, just the fact that these cars are not built for that kinda speed. As others said, The Gold Crown cars got twitchy and that was with some ground effects.
Nobody knows how this seemed to happen. But it was a less than 100mph impact.
This was the dust out race You Tube Video
Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
I think the last of the front engine roadsters ran in 64 at indy. the speed was 154. Engines put out about 4-500hp and tires were about 6 inches wide.
Put a modern champ car out there and they'll turn 180 laps. IM sorry, I see these cars get the cage knocked in a foot from wrecks at THAT. You say Nascar and NHRA use tube frames. Yeah, but they have a containment compartment of hoops and many bars, not just three or four frame rails. Nascar has crush panels on both sides, flaps to keep em from flipping and have set the driver centered in the car..
And the truth is, They're slowing both Nascar and Indycar down, have done it about every five years since the 80s.
Im not bashing the idea, just the fact that these cars are not built for that kinda speed. As others said, The Gold Crown cars got twitchy and that was with some ground effects.
Bobby Grim put the Racing Associates Watson with a Herbie Horsepower Turbo-Offy in the field in '66 but was taken out in the First lap frontstretch melee (Dan Gurney - "We're supposed to be 33 of the greatest drivers in the world, you'd think we could drive down a straight piece of road"), and Herk put his Mallard in the show in '68; although some don't consider that a true roadster it was front-engine...
Originally Posted by ZMR:
Why isn't there a silver crown race at Knoxville?
I believe there have been 3 Silver Crown events at Knoxville. One in 1981 which was won by Rich Vogler. The SC division raced at Knoxville in 2000 and that event was won by Jay Drake. The SC cars again saw action at Knoxville the following year in 2001, that event was won by J.J. Yeley.
I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that the reason the Silver Crown division was only at Knoxville 3 times is the same reason they were recently at Belleville only 3 times. There was not enough money to be made.
Silver Crown Championship Dirt Cars properly driven on a one mile dirt track are classic poetry in motion. Using that analogy, Jack Hewitt is one of the greatest poets of all time.
There use to be one,, during the Hall of fame inductions I believe,,Could be wrong,, I think there was that and then the Grand Masters race..Not 100% sure though.
Originally Posted by ZMR:
Why isn't there a silver crown race at Knoxville?
Not enough people showed up to watch it. I was there and the locals did nothing but complain about how slow the cars were, even though the racing was much closer than the weekly sprint show that night.
Originally Posted by revjimk:
I like the idea of Indy cars on dirt, but why would a car owner risk their zillion dollar ride on a dirt track, without a huge purse?
They might if it was still part of a unique American style national championship. These same owners seem to have no problem with multiple cars as long as they are for street parades and road courses. So called big time Indy car racing is Euro racing masquerading as American racing.
As far as Knoxville goes, they changed the dirt there sometime in the late 90's to make for better winged racing, which it does. Unfortunately, the way it glazes over slows the non-wing cars down too much. The sprints will probably get around there pretty good this year considering how much more they hook up these days but the silver crowns were really slow the last time they ran there. I would bet Vogler's feature lap times in '81 were faster than Yeley in 2001. As far as Indy goes, we all know it would be dangerous but I know there's plenty of guys willing to do it so let them. I'd pay more for that ticket than I would the 500.
