Vic Elford's thoughts on sportscars today

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by Bramzel

We can go back and dream about the old days of the 917. However, that car dominated. Just like Audi dominated the past years. And I think most of us want to see battles, not domination. Looking back it's easy to drift away on the good-old-days-dreams, but let's not forget the rest either. Domination is boring. So where do you pull the line between domination on one side, and a big battle on the other side? I completely agree that development should be supported, and that the battle should be on terms of prestations, not on being equalized through rules. But if that happens, everybody is complaining about dominance again.

I haven't really looked into the 917 era yet, but if you look at the 935/962 era, you see that the championships were mostly dominated by one make of car, but there were many of those cars and widely available to privateers. With 5 or 8 R10 from four different privateer teams on the grid, I wouldn't complain the least bit!! I think the best eras in sports car racing were those when a big number of privateer teams was able to buy a car that could go for overall wins for reasonable money.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by Martin Bull

Even old codgers like me have to accept that the World has moved on but, whatever political chicanery may have been involved, I for one will always cherish the memory of the 917/512 days.....

Moved on to what?
That is either a rationalization, or a excuse similar "everyone else is doing it."

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by paul-collins

Oh if it were true!

In the ALMS the cars are not being brought back to the level of the worst cars - show me where any team is currently carrying penalty weight or restrictors! Last year of course the Corvettes were hammered, but this year all adjustments have been to speed up the back end of the field (if you consider the restrictor set used, or the extra boost for turbo engined P2 cars).

OTOH I agree that the 2h45m format is crap. And it's an interesting suggestion that the 45m pitstop rule in GA was to penalize an economy run - GA folks had been quick to tell us it was to preserve the gentleman driver's role, but it absolutely ensures that 2 stops are necessary.

Until the late nineties, cars were NEVER equalized, if you wanted to run up front, either you built a car that could do it or you did not race.
The Porsche 911, regularily beat the Greenwood Corvettes, but they could see if he gained reliability, they were toast.
No rules were made to slow the US cars down, Porsche put a blower on its car, so it could match the horsepower levels of the US cars, even if it made the formerly nimble car handle like the heavier US cars.

That is what he is speaking of, asinine rules that make the least, as fast on paper, as the quickest,which made racing a good deal more expensive as defeating contrived rules costs moeny..

For those lamenting domination, racing was created to show whose car was best; if someone dominates, it is quite obvious who is.
One problem in the US at least through the seventies; Chevy never was in racing; Ford had pulled out; and Mopar was happy dominating the drag strips; so Porsche only had to worry about back door supported, or gung-ho privateers. It was still damn entertaining and a close race meant the boys on the track read the rule book and knew how to build a car.

If the rules as now written were not crippling, GT1 would have grown after the exciting year of 2003, guess what it did not. Instead there was a lot of rule juggling that finally made everyone but the Chevy factory say to hell with it.

Every word he said is true, unfortunately they boys who run racing now are not gearheads as they were in the best years, so they do not give a damn, as long as they can make people dance to their tune, they are happy.

[Purist]

There were two important differences between even the old and new dominance. Back then, as was stated, a privateer could still buy a pretty darn good Group C, SP, etc car. In addition though, as opposed to what we've had with Audi, there were multiple major manufacturers involved in the late 60s/early 70s and in the 80s, very early 90s, and mid to late 90s.

[paul-collins]

Also, independent development wasn't discouraged the way it is now...

[jhansen]

Originally Posted by paul-collins

Also, independent development wasn't discouraged the way it is now...

Isn't that partly due to homologation?

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by jhansen

Isn't that partly due to homologation?

Absolutely. For the life of me I can't really undestand why we have that. Recall the variety of development amongst the same make during the Group C and IMSA GTP days.

[chernaudi]

And even Porsche, whose policy for a long time to the present day is rather lax compaired to Audi(who rarely, if ever, allowed teams to modify their cars without their consent/help), got PO'd at first when JWA created the 917K(short tail 917).

But then again, Vic was probably about the only guy who could handle the 917LH due to his Rallying experience(he admits to such in the PLM article). It was very unstable at speed, but went up to 240mph down Mulsanne-a figure that wasn't reached again until late in the Group C era. Elford's 917 had a 8 lap lead when the gearbox went out in '69.

But that also highlights a major difference in today's cars. At Le Mans, the fastest car rarely won back then. Now, cars like the Audi R8 and R10, Pescarolo C60/01, and other top LMP1 cars can be driven to at times within 1-3 seconds at(most circuits) of their qualifiying times and still run reliably.

Just for compairson look at the Peugeot 905 in '92 ran a 3:21.200 in qualifying, but the fastest race lap was turned in by a Toyota TS010 and was a 3:32:295

Fast forward to 2002. The #2 Audi R8's pole time was a 3:29:905(by Dindo Capello I believe). The fastest race lap was by Tom Kristensen and was a 3:33.483.

And in '06, Capello's pole time in the Audi R10 was a 3:30.466. And Kristensen's fastest lap was a 3:31.211.

So today's cars may be slower as far as sheer 1 lap speed, but are just as fast over the course of a race due to being durable enough to be hammered hard enough to be driven near their qualfiying times when needed and for a much longer period of time than in the past.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by jhansen

Isn't that partly due to homologation?

I'd say that the degree of sophistication modern sports car engineering has reached over the years contributes to that as well. With cars designed in hundreds of hours in a wind tunnel, it is really hard for a privateer team to find some more speed without excessive work in a tunnel, which costs of course a lot of money.

It is possible in Grand Am, though, where Cheever and Fabcar designed their cars new aero without going to a tunnel, just by trying what they thought would work, but then again, Grand Am is aero-wise just a little bit above stone age-level.

[Martin Bull]

Originally Posted by Bob Riebe

Moved on to what?
That is either a rationalization, or a excuse similar "everyone else is doing it."

I'm not making excuses for anyone - I meant 'moved on' to such things as traction control, no gearstick, narrower tyres, chicanes at Mulsanne, etc etc....none of which are things I particularly like, but.....

[canam]

Originally Posted by paul-collins

Also, independent development wasn't discouraged the way it is now...

I think it is largely for safety and litigation issues. The ACO, track owners and insurers will take some comfort that their exists some form of quality control when development occurs.

[jhansen]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Absolutely. For the life of me I can't really undestand why we have that. Recall the variety of development amongst the same make during the Group C and IMSA GTP days.

And why homologate a prototype? It doesn't make sense. By all means homologate the tub and certain safety features. But these cars were meant to evolve.

[jhansen]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And even Porsche, whose policy for a long time to the present day is rather lax compaired to Audi(who rarely, if ever, allowed teams to modify their cars without their consent/help), got PO'd at first when JWA created the 917K(short tail 917).

If much of the blame can be attributed to homologation, then you can't really blame any manufacturer. Their hands are tied.

[ss_collins]

I can agree with everything Vic says. The cars to me are not ugly - quite the opposite, I mean a Pesca is a million times better looking than a Matra. But the look has changed. The Allard J2X defines the LMP concept today, but GT's look great still in fact the only thing I like about GT1 is the way the cars look.

This coming from me - who races with Vics crash helmet design. By the way his book is excellent.

[neiltbag]

There seems to be an element of "old git-ness" about Elford's comments, but I suppose he's allowed...

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

I'd say that the degree of sophistication modern sports car engineering has reached over the years contributes to that as well. With cars designed in hundreds of hours in a wind tunnel, it is really hard for a privateer team to find some more speed without excessive work in a tunnel, which costs of course a lot of money.

In Elford's day there was a simpler solution, find a better engine, and or chassis builder.
You were allowed to build a more powerful/ and or different engine; and what the chassis looked like was up to the designer.
Safety?
Well the car was built, the driver saw it tested it and was told, do you want to drive it.
If he thought it was not safe, he had choices.