Variety of past/present design features would make 300 mph Indy car speeds feasible

[Franklin]

Given that Indy cars are interface vehicles rather than land vehicles (i.e., vehicles operating in the air/ground interface), there are a variety of past and present design features which would make 300 mph top speeds with Indy cars much more manageable.

1. Steering fins (first tested by Hermann Lang in 1952 for a Mercedes entry at Indy and since used on various land speed record cars).

2. A LARGE tail fin located BEHIND the gearbox (virtually standard equipment on many Bonneville streamliners).

3. Variable incidence wings (now being used on Sprint cars and Super Modifieds).

4. Air (i.e., speed) brakes (first used in the thirties on land speed cars even before being adopted for airplanes and used over thirty years later on the 1967 STP gas turbine car).