MotorsportBlog

No new manufacturers want to compete in V8 supercars

michaeltm93 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:46:46 +0000

Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Chrysler, Mazda, BMW and Mercedes Benz have shown no interest in competing in V8SC. The issue for Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda is authenticity, they don’t produce a V8/RWD sedan, V8SA says that a production bodyshell over a commom chassis is good enough, so they could use an Aurion/Camry/Accord/Maxima/6 body, but they want the cars to share drivetrain layouts as well. The others just arern’t interested.

CoF Will Not Be NASCAR-Style

michaeltm93 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:56:25 +0000

The likelihood of V8Supercar becoming a NASCAR-style stick-on headlight formula is remote, judging by the discussions both Holden’s motorsport manager Simon McNamara and former Holden managing director Mark Reuss have had with Mark Skaife, who is in charge of developing the CoF concept.
Neither the prospect of technical rule changes that dilute the level of General Motors DNA in a Commodore V8Supercar or the entry of other brands onto the grid impresses Holden, says McNamara.

“If they go down a path that doesn’t suit us in any way shape or form then we just won’t do it. Simple as that,” McNamara said.

All the cars will be RWD V8s, though V8SA or Mark Skaife hasn’t released any details on which other manufacturers are interested in competing.
McNamara said that if they weren’t happy with CoF, then they would go production car racing instead.

V8 Supercars Car Of the Future update, It will definitly be a V8/RWD

michaeltm93 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:46:39 +0000

The CoF will remain RWD and a V8, that is all thats known to the public, but Toyota is unenthusiastic about enering V8SC.
“My personal opinion is that if we were to enter into some form of partnership or marketing which was to promote a product other than that which we can show our customers in the showroom as a standard offering from one of our manufacturing facilities from here or overseas, then I would have to seriously question the relevance of that and the viability of such an investment,” Toyota Australia Senior Executive Director (Sales and Marketing), David Buttner, said.
HHowever, Toyota does compete in NASCAR, but then all NASCARs are totally unrelated to their road going equivilent.
This may be fine in NASCAR, but, like I’ve said before, V8 Supercars is a Touring Car series, which means they must be based on production cars, and the Toyota Aurion is a FWD V6, they should be trying to get Chrysler, BMW and Jaguar to compete. So who do you think should be allowed in, even with privateer teams?

What The V8SC of the Future Should Be

michaeltm93 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:58:33 +0000

The V8 Supercars Car Of the Future (COF) should be an S2000 style production-based Touring Car, but with a 5.0l V8 and more weight. The current Super 2000 class Touring Cars use 2000cc 4, 5 or 6 cylinder engines with 2WD. The weight limit is 1110Kg for a FWD, 1140Kg for RWD. Aero and suspension modifications for V8SC should be the same as Super 2000, modified road car suspension and limited aero mods. The weight for V8SC including the driver could be about 1450Kg, and the 5000cc V8s should produce 400-500hp (about 300-370kW) @ no more than 9000rpm. The current S2000s produce around 330hp, giving the RWDs around 290hp (216kW) per tonne, the V8SCs would have about 310hp (231kW) per tonne if they had 450hp (335Kw), giving them a straight line performance advantage to compensate for the reduced handling ability, so they can compete against eachother and acheive similar lap times. This means that new manufacturers could be easily added, Toyota could use an S2000 Camry or Corrola, for example. The Super 2000 cars must be sold to privateer teams for $284946.74, only $34k more than the $250k target price for COF. With as many control parts as possible, such as wheels, tyres, drivetrain etc, as well as a choice of manufacturers for all parts not shared with the road car to reduce the price. Manufacturers could also supply cars that only have the parts common to the road and race cars instead of teams buying complete road cars and stripping them down, making the cars cheaper, because they wont be assembled at the factory and the parts that will be replaced wont be produced. To further cut costs, the Chevrolet Aurora and Ford SVO (5.0l Windsor-based) engines, wich are no longer in production, could be replaced by 5.0l Ford Coyote and the GM LS4 5.3l V8 could easily have its stroke shortended. Using the same engine as the car came with would save a significant amount of money by not having to buy a completey new engine. The current SBR 5.0l SVO costs $100000.

Gordon Sheddon’s New Leon – BTCC

michaeltm93 — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:12:32 +0000

Gordon Shedden will be hoping his new-look SEAT Leon can sting like a bee after being given a striking black and yellow livery for this weekend’s HiQ MSA BTCC round at Rockingham.

Shedden, who won at Rockingham last year, will be racing the same bio-fuelled SEAT Leon he drove for the CVR team in previous rounds with Club SEAT with continued sponsorship from Cartridge World.

The car was spotted in its pit garage at Rockingham.

Shedden, who’s for Team Dynamics previously this season, said: “Hopefully, with Club SEAT it’s third time lucky.”

Kellys to stay with Holden – V8 news

michaeltm93 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:10:32 +0000

Holden and Kelly Racing has insisted their relationship with will continue into 2010.

Neither of them will discuss the details, but it’s believed that Holden will drop monetary support of some V8 teams and supply parts instead, lie Ford did last year

Holden Motorsport Manager Simon McNamara said the company would continue to support Kelly Racing in some way.

“We will support the Kellys next year,” he said.

“Whether we give them money or parts, we’ll still be supporting them, but we do not discuss our contractual arrangements.

“They’ve always been part of the Holden family and we would like to keep it that way.”

Rick Kelly, who drives the #15 Jack Daniel’s Racing Commodore, confirmed the partnership will continue after 2009.

“I’m very passionate about the relationship we have with Holden, who has not only been involved in the birth of Kelly Racing but with both of our careers (his and brother Todd’s) from the word go,” he said.

“Holden has always been very positive about what we have done at Kelly Racing and have helped us out wherever they could.

We’ll certainly be a Holden team and we’ll do our best to support Holden in any way we can.”

Kelly said the team never discusses its contractual arrangements.

“The thing we are quite open about is the fact that Holden will be part of our racing program next year and we are excited about that,” he said.

New engineer and sponsor for Perkins

michaeltm93 — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:27:33 +0000

Dodo Racing Team driver Jack Perkins has a new engineer and sponsor for the Queensland 300 this weekend.

James Small is the new Race Engineer for the #11 Dodo Commodore and the new sponsorship’s from Corporate Security Solutions.

Perkins took some time out from his racing schedule on Friday to give Peta Stephens, the captain of the Queensland Firebirds a spin around Queensland Raceway.

“It’s always good to really show other sportsman exactly what our sport is all about,” Perkins said.

“It was great for me to show her how it’s done and she showed me a netball trick or two as well, so it was great to give her a run in the Dodo Commodore.”

Queensland 300 shootout results-V8 news

michaeltm93 — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:15:04 +0000

Jamie Whincup Falcon 1:10.8529
Mark Winterbottom Falcon 1:10.8590
James Courtney Falcon 1:10.9178
Garth Tander Commodore 1:10.9715
Craig Lowndes Falcon 1:10.9888
Steve Johnson Falcon 1:11.0443
Shane van Gisbergen Falcon 1:11.1024
Fabian Coulthard Falcon 1:11.2470
Jason Bright Falcon 1:11.3434
Todd Kelly Commodore 1:11.7262

Courtney sets practice lap record at Queensland-V8 news

michaeltm93 — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:20:15 +0000

James Courtney delivered a killer blow in opening practice for event eight in the V8 Supercar Championship by producing more evidence that the Jim Beam Racing team is emerging as the pre-eminent threat in the series.

Courtney cracked an impressive 1min10.8146sec lap around the 3.12km circuit to put Garry Rogers Motorsport driver Lee Holdsworth (1:10.9633) and Ford Performance Racing pilot Steve Richards (1:11.0349) in his shadow.

“I don’t think it is even mathematically possible for me to win the championship” Courtney said. “But I am going all out for race wins for the rest of the year”

How Platforms and engines should be developed at Ford

michaeltm93 — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:47:30 +0000

Ford could, and they have to, recude their passenger car platforms to just 4 for the entire Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda and Volvo range. All they need is three front/all-wheel-drivel patforms: light, small and medium, and one RWD platform in 3 wheelbase lengths.

All they need is:

B3-Fiesta and Mazda 2

C1-Ford Focus, Mazda 3, Volvo C30/S40/V50 and XC60, Mercury Mariner

CD4-Ford Mondeo/Fusion, Volvo S60/V70/XC70, Mazda 6, Mazda CX-7, Mercury Milan, Lincoln MKX and MKZ

GRWD-

Short Wheelbase: Ford Mustang, Capri and Cortina, Mazda RX8 and RX7
Medium Wheelbase: Ford Falcon, Taurus, Explorer and Territory, Mazda CX-9, Volvo S80 and XC90, Lincoln MKS, Navigator andMKT
Long Wheelbase: Ford Fairlane and Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Maquis, Lincoln Town Car

FNA would develop North American Top Hats for their versions of the listed cars, as well as large trucks and SUVs

FoE/Volvo/Mazda would be in charge of front wheel drives, as well as Top Hats for the Ford Capri, and all Mazda and Volvo models. They would also develop the Ford Transit

FoA would develop GRWD with FNA having input. They would develop the F alcon, Territory and Fairlane, and build RHD versions of the Mustang and Cortina.

The reason all large cars will go RWD is that they are becoming less popular and should become more sports-orientated. New versions of the Capri and Cortina could be produced to reduce the cost of GRWD and to fill an empty niche of an affordabe mid-size RWD sports sedan or coupe. They would sit a slightly above the Mondeo in price and be the same size, which would become the standard mid-size sedan smaller than the Falcon and Taurus. They would be availiable with an ecoboost 4 cylinder or a updated version of the current turbo inline 6 as a performance option with an alloy block and DI. These engines would be shared with the Falcon, Taurus and Mustang and will be the only remaining 6 cylinder engine and replace the majority of V8s.