INDYCAR: Miller's Mailbag, 12.14

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Miller’s Mailbag, 12.14

Always genuine, never lite: It's Miller time. Here's the latest Q&A from SPEED.com's IndyCar guru.

Robin Miller | Posted December 14, 2011

Questions surrounding the Dallara DW12 dominates Miller's mid-December mailbag. (IndyCar Series)

Hello open-wheel types and thanks for all your questions. I intend to answer your questions every week during the season, so just email me at . Don’t feel left out if I didn’t directly respond. I appreciate your interest and passion.

~Robin Miller

Q: Geez Robin, why is everybody so doomy and gloomy about the DW12 just because it’s having some teething problems? They want to go back to the old car? Really? So what if it’s not everything it was promised to be (right out of the box)? We’ll still have three engine manufacturers, so even if the chassis is a bit of a pig to start with, there will be more variation and excitement than in years past. Hopefully that will be reflected on the podiums as well. And I’m sure as the days and months go by, the car will just get better and faster and we’ll have new track records and all kinds of things IINDYCAR needs. And, maybe in 2013 when the new aero kits come out, the car will actually get prettier! Being a designer myself maybe I understand a little better how this works….you set target goals and work toward them. Sometimes you hit it out of the box, sometimes it takes more work. But results will come…we may just need a little more patience. Whatever happens, this is still the right direction and I’m still excited for the first race of 2012. Change is good!

Douglas Cole, Cincinnati, OH

RM: I’m old enough to remember when teams built their own car, it was junk and they built a new one in a few weeks and tried again. I think the real concern here is because everybody has the same car and it’s got a couple major flaws. But it’s a race car, like you said, and it can be saved (hopefully). The other thought is that maybe the engine competition will make us forget the car is slow.

Q: As someone with a background in engineering, I can't understand how in the hell Dallara managed to screw up a "race car" as badly as they have the 2012 Indy car. The weight distribution is nowhere even close to being right, and they think slinging lead in the car's nose will help....pretty sure the last thing you want to do to an already overweight car is make it heavier. So far, with months of testing and millions of data points stored in their computers, these morons have still managed to miss every single mark that they promised (cost-efficiency, lighter weight, less drag, record-challenging speed, just to name a few). Supposedly they've done well with the safety part, but I have yet to see any release on the actual crash test data. Please remind me, why Lola and Swift were turned away? Something about them having real race cars, a proven racing record, and Dallara having a business plan at best? I figured with guys like Gil de Ferran, "We need to make Indy cars beasts again", and Eddie Gossage on the ICONIC committee, they would have made the right choice. I guess none of them have witnessed the Dallara-built HRT chassis in F1 struggle mightily and cost millions more than it was supposed to. Stuck in the past because the present sucks and the future looks worse.

Gray-Norman, OK

RM: As someone who flunked earth science, I have no idea how people who have been building oval-track cars for 15 years can miss it like they apparently did. But to answer your question, Dallara was reportedly the only manufacturer willing to come to Indianapolis as a home base and that sealed the deal.

Q: Why not just clean up the DW12 "aero kit” from an appearance perspective (you’ve got to admit it is butt-ugly). Remove the goofy looking appendages, vanes, “flow directors”, etc. - even at the expense of a little added drag. Add the required front-end ballast to take care of the balance problems. Boost the horsepower to 800+ and let the drivers go racing in relative safety without flat-out packs and in cars that they have to drive through every corner. Pay for it by splitting the cost between the engine manufacturers, IndyCar, and Dallara –who caused the problem in the first place.

Tom, Omaha, NE

RM: Sounds easy enough but you mentioned expense and somebody is going to have to pay for those changes and the testing and it won’t be the car owners.

Q: Just read Marshall Pruett's latest on the PW12 (Pig Wagon 2012).

I realize that the ship has sailed. However, what was wrong with the Panoz DP-01? I am trying to remember why it was not considered to be the logical predecessor to the Crap Wagon.

Brian L Bristo, Phoenix

RM: Well, let’s see. First off all, it was a CHAMP CAR and the IRL already had a deal with Dallara. And it wasn’t designed with ovals in mind. It was a good car but never had a shot to be picked up.

Q: A lot of comments regarding the new car have been answered in your mailbag. What comes to mind is that many of your readers whom like myself are (or were) fans over the years, feel like open wheel racing in the US (despite engine manufactures coming in and IZOD's involvement) is still heading backwards with the disastrous new car. Much of the thought in design was cost, yet Dallara is building a plant in Indy. After all the problems with speed, weight distribution not to mention it resembles a rotating pig, didn’t it occur to anyone that spending dollars on R&D as opposed to a new building would have been more prudent? Think about it, if Lola or BAM (Ashmore made an interesting argument in Gordon Kirby's column) had designed and built the new car we wouldn't be experiencing these dilemmas. All parties involved in the IRL from Randy Bernard to the ICONIC committee and TGBB underlying moves and ultimately the Hulman/George family, need to do some serious soul searching of whom they think represents there fan base and what they want. Maybe they want us fans of the great CART years to go away however as history continues to paint a picture of the series it appears to be more macabre that defined.

John Mylenek

RM: I respect Ben Bowlby and Ashmore but does anybody really think Delta Wing or BAM could have cranked out 50 or 60 new cars? Who was going to pay for them? I think if Will Phillips would have been around at the start of this process, the new car wouldn’t have these problems.

Q: As the off season progresses, it’s becoming more and more clear that the new car is not what we anticipated for the last few years. This question has been running around in my head for months and months; why didn't IndyCar set up rules and guidelines for the manufacturers, then let them interpret those rules and develop their own car? I do not mean each team. I mean the 2, 3 or 4 manufacturers that wanted to be in the series. Isn't that what they do in F1 and did in CART? "Your car needs to have X wheelbase, X ride height, X WHATEVER!!!" sounds a lot better than putting all your eggs in one manufacturer to get a FAIL car. The new car is probably the ugliest car in the history of racing, it’s extremely hard to drive, and that's what we’re going to have for the next few years.!!

Eric Hanaway

RM: Yes, it what worked in the ‘90s with Lola, Reynard, Swift, the Eagle and Penske but back then everybody had big sponsors and lots of money. The short answer is that I was told Dallara was the only company that welcomed competition and that Lola and Swift wanted exclusive deals.

Q: I just got done reading your mailbag and am upset by the "hoards” of fans who find the new car ugly, hideous, and a disgrace to IndyCar. It is absurd that so many fans think that the new car will kill INDYCAR as a series. Admittedly Indy cars are my second favorite form of racing behind Formula 1 and to me there is nothing “sexier” or “beautiful” than the Formula 1 cars of today. But I do find the new Indy car to be sleek and appealing to the eyes and I’m not the only one. SPEED pit reporter for Formula 1 Will Buxton has stated many times on Twitter that the new Indy Car is “easy on the eyes” and this man gets to stand inches away from the most beautiful racing cars in the world. I think we need to all take a step back and really look forward with the new car and stop looking back to the 80’s and 90’s for what an IndyCar should look like.

DJ Barnett, Terre Haute

RM: The majority of people I hear from feel like it’s an ugly car and the only time I saw it in person (the first outing at IMS) it looked OK coming at you but not so zoomy going away from the rear. Having said that, let’s hope that Honda, GM and Lotus can come up with better looking aero kits in 2013.

Q: With the weight distribution problems that the DW12 has, being 59/41 ratio rear to front. And the engineers saying that adding ballast to the front of the car helped correct the problem moving it closer to the desired 50/50. Question is how much of an advantage will the Lotus teams have with a significantly lighter engine (40 lbs) — and being able to move that weight to the front of the car? Which would move the DW12 for those teams even closer to the 50/50. My second question — how could Dallara look at the DW12 and not realize that the weight distribution was going to be way off of 50/50? The front looks nice and sleek while the rear looks extremely bulbuls — and the wheel protection to the rear of the car doesn’t help the weight problem any. The new Dallara looks like it might be the true PORKCHOP, on ovals at least. Hopefully IndyCar won’t mandate where Lotus has to add the ballast. I say let the teams decide where to put the extra weight — Judd did a good job with producing a lighter engine. Let that be a reward to the teams that fell to Lotus engines.

Josh Harting

RM: They won’t because there’s a minimum weight limit. As for your second question, I have no idea how people who design and build race cars for a living can use today’s technologies and make that kind of mistake but they did. But I do think Dallara will do whatever is necessary to fix the problem.

Q: I get it that the new car is NOT hitting its set performance goals on ovals, however I don't see what the big deal is. As long as they can make the car drivable (which it obviously wasn't before the weight changes), who cares that it runs 205 mph at Homestead instead of 213? Racing on ovals is better at slower speeds, and as long as speeds stay over 200 mph. IndyCar will be the fastest thing on an oval. No one can tell if at car is going 205 or 213 mph. Finally, speeds will go up as Firestone, the engine manufactures, the aero kit manufacturers and especially the teams get a chance to work on the car. Think about it, if the car was going 215 at Homestead out of the box in two years it would be going 230 which is too fast.

Matt Converset, Decatur, IN

RM: Agreed. If the car is tougher to drive and slower through the corners on ovals, that’s perfect. But I think it needs to be more of a beast on a road course – more torque and horsepower.

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Robin Miller

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