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WINGING IT ON THE SALT ........

To: scowle@mentorcollege.edu, land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: WINGING IT ON THE SALT ........
From: FastmetalBDF@aol.com
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 15:45:05 EDT
   Hi Scott,  Last time I looked a WING was not allowed in Altered Classes 
.......
We spent considerable time building an adjustable all aluminum spoiler, with
an awful lot of TIG welding in it, for our Black Radon fuel altered Firebird 
.  
     This was  defermined to be a wing by the tech inspectors at Speedweek
 2000, and, as such, was illegal for our class .  We had it on for all of our
runs as we were shooting for maximum speed rather than a record . When
the car spun at 195 at the three mile mark on the eighth run, some people 
thought this failed " backup " run on our seventh run speed of 259 + was
all that kept us from attaining a new record in B / BFALT ....... but we
explained to them that the car was NOT legal with our wing on the decklid,
and as such could not have gotten the record even with a fast enough 
back up run .  The wing does add considerable drag, and ballast is a
MUCH better way to go, especially given the length of the course at
Bonneville ....... that is just my opinion .  Maxton is a bit of a different 
story
as acceleration room must be considerd here on the much shorter course .
      Ballast has been discussed and REdiscussed quite a bit on this list,
and I will not go back into my ideas on that other than to say : use LOTS
of it IF you have LOTS of power, keep it as VERY LOW as possible,
make few compromises on that, and keep it BETWEEN the front and
rear axle centerlines, ie, within the wheelbase .   You want the car to
have a LOW polar moment of inertia ....... so do NOT add much weight,
if any, behind the rear axle, in or under the trunk .  Keep in mind that
ALL the weight BEHIND the rear axle is levering weight OFF of the
front wheels !!!  Keep it WITHIN the wheelbase if at all possible . We had
thought we had enough lead, steel, and removable water ballast in our car,
but found out we needed a WHOLE lot more ....... first year lesson !!!  
      Your air dam is an excellent idea to keep air from under the car,
and get the car down SO LOW that it is a real hassle to work on anything 
underneath .  Good Luck on BREAKING 200 MPH , Scott ......
just remember you CANNOT break the Laws Of Physics !!!!!
                      Bruce D. Ferguson,
 Dad of Doug and Darrell ---- Black Radon Eng  939 B / BFALT Firebird

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