It helps to have friends in the business, especially if that profession is auto racing.
We recently got access to the pits at the American Le Mans Series raceway in Elkhart Lake, Wis., and at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, Calif., thanks to Avnet Express and Mouser Electronics, which sponsored cars at the respective events.
Le Mans became a stop for the Chevy Volt that EE Life editorial director Brian Fuller is taking cross-country on the Drive for Innovation. The trip is a partnership between Design News parent UBM Electronics and Avnet Express. The Volt drove a parade lap around the historic speedway, and then we stuck around to get some shots of the races and 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal.
Seven days later, we were at the Infineon Raceway for the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. We met driver Ho-Pin Tung, who was driving Mouser-sponsored car 88 (pictured below).
Click the image below to view our slideshow of the two races:
Driver Ho-Pin Tung in his Indy car at Infineon Raceway for the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. (Photo courtesy Mouser Electronics)
For Further Reading
To keep up with our Chevy Volt coverage, go to Drive for Innovation and follow the cross-country journey of EE Life editorial director, Brian Fuller. On his trip, sponsored by Avnet Express, Fuller is driving a Volt across America to interview engineers.
Ozark, I am not sure of what you are getting at, but Jack is correct. Most of the racing circuits are a way for manufacturers to show off their product in extreme conditions. This is the challenge.
all electric Indy racer? NOT IF THERE SMART naperlou I agree that IS THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION, but disagree that it is the PRO BUILDER, OWNER & DRIVER perception. I say this because the state of the art was DESIGNED, ENGINEERED, AND PAID FOR NOTBY INDYbut, all the others involved in RACE CARS WORLDWIDE.
Indy Motor Speedway over the last 2 decades has inflated costs on everything to the extent a LARGE part of the public can't aford to attend EVEN WITH THE TV & COMMERCIAL UNDER WRITING. And if you think I am kidding check out the cost of a summer nylon jacket in their Track Store next time you go there.
Names like OFFENHOUSER, CURTIS, CHEVY, FORD,HONDA, and the list goes on, longer than your memory will hold, left their MARK and BLOOD on tracks arround the world. As I see it the LAST PLACE EVs will be RACED, AFTER THEY are proven, is gasoline alley ...to mark thepassingof an era.... and CELEBRATE THE END OF FOSSIL FUEL.
Racing used to be a contest between one car and driver against another car and driver with speed being the deciding factor.
Now there are so many rules, regulations, exceptions, etc. that you need a lawyer to win a race. Often races are decided in arbritation long ofter the fact. They say it makes racing safer.
The tracks are obsolete for modern racing. They need to design tracks to take on the new techonology in racing instead of outlawing it.
Drag racing, air racing and motocross are still pure enough to enjoy.
Without rules, more rules and more rules again, races would be won by the team with the most money. When you're dealing with the technological comlexity of an Indy car, only the wealthiest teams can compete and even then, the team with the most money usually has a significant edge. A team that can drive a million dollar race-car to destruction and have a ready spare is going to push harder than a single-car team. The most successful racing teams are the ones that can bend the rules without quite breaking them. Nice article and pic's.
What you're seeing in the photo's is just the tip of the iceberg. Compared to the technology in Formula One, this is kindergarten stuff. Before it was outlawed, F1 had bidirectional telemetry - the car could be remotely modified by the engineers in the pits and, on occasion, from the factory. Also, since real computers are needed in the pits, you won't be seeing too many iPads and such - not enough power or screen real estate - F1 engineers monitor upwards of 100 data points during a race.
EV races, for me, wouldn't cut it as a fan driven sport. Maybe when everybody, and I mean everybody, drives an electric car, and the speeds for racing were exceptional, would it be acceptable. For a lot of race fans, the sights, sounds, and smells of these 750+ HP machines are as much a part of the experience as the competition.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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