In unrelated news, Chris just sent around a cool video which I’m going to link up here… The Highcroft Acura ARX-01C going around Laguna Seca. I happened to have attended that race and am still editing my pictures. Hopefully I’ll have those up this year too. Enjoy your laps around the famous Mazda Raceway…

Friday was a pretty crazy day. I happened to witness a Corvette’s brakes fail down the main straight. He hit the wall near turn 1 at about 120 MPH. The impact scattered tires everywhere and stuffed the car as far down the run off road as it could go.

Saturday was great as well. World Challenge qualifying started the day, followed by the Indy Lights. The drifters were out after that and mysteriously weren’t as good as in years past. Indy practice was on next and allowed us to grab lunch and visit the Lifestyle Expo. We then watched the ALMS race to finish the day. The race itself was very good with several key battles. The overall lead was a back and forth between the Aston Martin Lola and the HPD Acura ARX-01c. David Brabham brought the Acura home up front with a .353 second margin. Behind them in the GT class the Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 and the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 had a good scuff with the Ferrari eventually losing out to the Porsche’s straight line speed.

All in all, it was another fun one at the races. We will be heading up to Monterrey for the ALMS race at Laguna Seca so look forward to that.

Enjoy it in HD, or switch it back to SD if your connection isn’t good.

The car has 81,000 miles and has been serviced regularly. It will come with documentation of those services. The car does need to have the dash replaced, but the current owner thinks he has the part and if he can find it, he will include it in the sale. The radio display is also missing pixels (another common problem with the Viggen). The front bumper could use a respray. It could use new tires. The front emblem needs to be replaced. The title is clean and it has been in no accidents. Mechanically the car runs great and pulls hard. The clutch is responsive and transmission engages all gears without a fuss. This car is perfect for someone who wants a car that is great to drive and also extremely limited. You run a long shot of even seeing another one of these cars in the States.

3/9/10 Edit: The car is now sold!

On Saturday, Chris was on a drive and had the misfortune of writing off his Ferrari to an engine fire. Here is his transcript of the events:

So I am out for a Police Charity drive with a group of Exotic Cars. Great day, great weather, enjoying the car, all is good. Heading home and get a smell of fuel inside the car. I look at the cars in front of me to see if there is an old clunker running rich and making that smell, but no they all look pretty new. That smell is coming from me! I look in the rear view mirror where I can see half of the engine and compartment and it looks normal but I start trying to change lanes so I can pull off to the side of the freeway and check it out. Nobody wants to let me over so by the time I am one lane away from the side I look back again and now there are flames in the engine compartment. I  crank the car over to the shoulder and know in my head that the car is bad and I probably have 3 seconds to grab whatever I can from the car and jump out.

I decide to grab my briefcase from the trunk and hit the button to release it on my way out of the car. I get to the trunk and it is still locked. The car is starting really flame up but I go back inside and hit the button once again and I hear it release. I open the trunk and grab my briefcase and start running away from the car.

As you can see in the picture it took about 3 minutes to fully engulf in flames.

Of course it is insured but it is sad to watch your favorite car that you pamper and enjoy just burn to the ground. It is like watching your dog get hit by a car.

So like the old saying. “Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln”. It was a beautiful day in So Cal but ended on a sad note.

Chris Hundley

Even worse news than that, however, is the news of Payman Engheta’s death. He was driving his Lamborghini on Bouquet and lost control. A news clip regarding the crash can be found here. We are already trying to put together a memorial drive to commemorate his life and establish a way to donate to his family. Dr. Engheta will be missed greatly. Rest in peace, friend.

Update: You can donate to us directly through Paypal and Brian and I will deliver the funds personally.

In the mean time, I’d like to announce the first club contest. As the Formula 1 season is almost upon us, I have purchased and scrounged up some giveaway items to the most predictive person amongst our ranks. That is to say, the person who can tell me the first, second, and third place drivers in the opening Grand Prix at Bahrain will win a wonderful Waterblade from California Car Cover (you know, the same one I said would be an excellent gift in our Christmas time Gift Guide). If you feel up to the challenge of telling me the first, second, and third place drivers at the conclusion of the World Championship, you will take home Meguiar’s Clay Bar kit! Just the thing you need to finally de-grime your car. The fine print: to be eligible for these awe inspiring prizes you must follow some simple rules:

• First, you must be registered with our club through this site. You can do that here.
• Second, you must post your prediction as a comment to this article and only this article. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the big white text box. That’s for comments. Put your prediction in the text box in a legible way. If I can’t understand your prediction you are disqualified. Hit “Leave Comment”. Good work!
• Third, all of your predictions must be in the right finishing order. Something your predictions don’t need to be is: correctly spelled. You may spell Jarno Trulli as Yarno Truely and we will accept that. Seriously, though, Jarno isn’t going to win anything this year so don’t pick him for either or we will consider you pretty daft.
• Fourth, submissions will be closed on Thursday, March 11th at Noon exactly. If your prediction is submitted later than that it is disqualified.
• Fifth, one prediction per person. If you choose to submit more than one, I will only consider your first prediction.
• Lastly, if no one guesses Bahrain’s finishers correctly, the prize will be given to the winner of the Championship prediction. If those aren’t predicted correctly the prizes will be put up for grabs in another, less difficult contest.

Good luck to everyone!

In other news, Brian and I are still trying to come up with a better location for our meet ups. Paul has an unhampered fervor to be seen at the Valencia Town Center right on Town Center drive. Brian and I love that idea but it has been proving to be a nightmare to organize. We would appreciate any suggestions for alternate locations to get together. Ideally, somewhere with good food or snacks nearby in addition to nice exposure.

I’ve also had autocross on the brain. I personally would love to hold an autocross competition here in Santa Clarita. I’m still gauging interest as well as seeing if it would actually be possible to organize. If you are interested in helping out with getting this going as a monthly or bi-monthly (the once every 2 months variety) please let me know and we can work out some details.

One of the helpful elements used is called a bumper canard or dive plane. As seen on the DTM Touring Car above, the bumper canards are just above the front splitter and below the Dunlop sticker. These canards serve to add more downforce at the front increasing overall car balance in cars that have excessive rear downforce. This allows the car to be setup to maximum downforce without having to compromise the cars handling .

Also in prevalent use is the vortex generator. These devices create a venturi effect that keeps the air flowing closely together. This compressed flow allows the air to be directed much more accurately and in higher volume. You can see these devices on both the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR (pictured) and the Subaru Impreza WRX STi. In these cars, the vortex generator sends more air over the rear wing, thereby increasing its efficiency.

In the past, other unusual designs were used to increase overall downforce. The most famous of these odd designs was the Brabham BT46B Formula 1 car, otherwise known as “the fan car”. This car had been designed by Gordan Murray to use a fan attached to the engine to suck air from underneath the car. This lead to a vacuum effect being created underneath the car which allowed it to stick to the road like glue. Niki Lauda and John Watson went on to pilot the fan car for only one race: the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp. Watson DNF’d and Lauda went on to win comfortably. The fan car ended up being banned shortly thereafter.

This concludes our look at modern car aerodynamics. Please leave a comment to discuss your thoughts or opinions on this piece. Let us know what you’d like to hear about next time.

The diffuser works in two ways. First, it reduces the turbulent airflow.  Second, it slows down and pressurizes the air as it comes off the car.

Turbulent airflow is always problematic to aerodynamic efficiency. The diffuser reduces this turbulence. When the air hits the front splitter and is forced underneath the car it speeds up and decreases in pressure. When it enters the diffuser the air is allowed to expand and slow down increasing pressure to equate to the normal atmospheric pressure of the surrounding air. This is where the airflow is smoothed to decrease turbulence. If the air were to blast into the normal airstream at its high velocity, low pressure state, parasitic drag is created. This is air needing to fill the void left by the moving object it follows. The diffuser serves to eliminate the creation of parasitic drag and the air is replaced in the same state as the surrounding air.

The second function of a diffuser is a suction effect created by the pressure difference between the fast moving air under the car and the slow moving air in the diffuser. As the air slows, it decreases in pressure. This low pressure area will create a vacuum effect. This vacuum sucks the rear of the car closer to the ground (seeing as the it cannot really move the ground up to meet the car, all relativistic physics aside). It should be noted that most of the effectiveness of the diffuser is lost if there is too much clearance between the road and the underbody.

Come back next week for a look at the rest of the miscellaneous canards and fins that are also common in aerodynamics today.