One year between posts. That’s awful. Will try to do better. This year there’s a lot to talk about.
The big news is that we bought a new car! Good friend moved up in the ProAm ranks and passed on his good fortune to me. It’s an Elan DP-02.
The DP-02 is a prototype lites car that normally runs in IMSA. It’s like a rocket on wheels with a suction cup underneath. Powered by a 260 HP Mazda engine, it weighs only about 1500 pounds including useless driver.
The car had several surprises for me. First and foremost, it’s got a family. Cars like this do not run with just a driver. There’s a crew chief who has been working on it since ten years. There’s the former driver, and the data guy and the coaches… It’s an amazing supportive group!
The second thing is it tried to rip my head off. It’s open cockpit, and the amount of upforce on my helmet is severe. Never had that problem in the Bluecar!
Lastly, for this post anyway, is that you brake it very, very strangely. It’s got massive downforce, so the amount you can brake immediately after lifting is big. But it’s very, very transient. You want to get from full power to brake in under half a second. Under a quarter is ideal. Then, pushing on a 4″ lever, you need to generate over 800 pounds of brake force (no power brakes; too heavy) for about a half second, then release under control. It’s hard to do! But if you do not do it, many, many bad things happen. First, if you hold pressure too long, is you lock a tire. No anti-lock brakes here. That can also happen if your transition time to brakes is too long. Second, you can boil the fluid. The car should really be an open wheel car. So airflow to the brakes is not as good as it could be, and they are small. So you brake HARD!!!!! for a short time, then trail off.
It’s so much fun to have a learning curve like this again!