Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

     Some goof in my city has a 5x5 outlaw wing mounted on a Smart Car or some other tiny car. It's covered with local advertizing. I have to give them credit, it caught my eye.

     Questions: Would the downforce cause problems trying to get the fart-cart up to speed with the Briggs & Stratton motor in that thing? Wouldn't the wing put some incredible strain on the little engine? Do you think that sucker turns on a dime?

Remember reading in Open Wheel that it took 200 hp to move a 5 × 5 wing through the air at 100mph. 

My guess is it would be an incredible strain if it were mounted at the same angle of attack.   If it's mounted neutral or even with the angle slightly upward it wouldn't be much more other than added weight.    

If you flopped the wing, would it make the car lighter and less strain on the lil car? 

I wonder if it goes fast enough to create substantial down force?

But its certanly goofy....

I'm not criticizing you because I know you didn't say it.  But I hate when people make statements like this and worse yet people believe them.  That may be close but there are other factors involved.  For instance, what is the angle of the wing?  I would think there would be many other factors with this too.

Another one I heard one time is "It only takes 100hp to go 100 mph but it takes 1000 hp to go 200 mph".  Ever watch NASCAR?  They regularly go over 200 mph with less than 1000 hp.

Again not criticizing you.

     The owner or builder must be a racing fan. The wing angle was about what you'd see on a racing sprint car.

    I doubt that a fart-cart could go 100 mph under any conditions, wing, non-wing or rocket assisted.

I understand. Didn't want to go into all the wing angle, wind speed & direction etc stuff. It was just a generic number thrown out there cause the car probably doesn't have much more than 100hp.

i believe its Jay Masuer's son who owns it

Cool beans! Neat idea too, the car is Kinser/Quaker State green.

I've got no water problems but I spent the afternoon pumping water out of my son's basement and the evening pumping water out of a friend's basement. 2-3" of rain on top of snow when the ground is frozen is a recipe for disaster.

It's official- everybody I know is sick of winter!

I can't believe there isn't a picture of the car in this thread.....just kidding.

Good luck with the weather.  Rain and flooding in my area as well.  Glad winter is over but I hope the spring doesn't turn out to be too wet.

Some of us might argue that all wings look goofy. 

Stan Meissner

I forget the exact year but it'd been somewhere around 1990. 

I had a car and was racing locally to the Cincinnati area. It was Kings Royal week and I'd tore up my only wing the week before. I'd contacted one of the vendors who was always at eldora and arranged to pick up a wing at the KR. Not wanting to drive my truck, my daily driver was a 1980 Ford Fiesta and I had access to some uhaul cartop  carriers that were being scrapped. I ended up removing the cargo box and installing an old wing mount to the car top carrier framework and headed to eldora. I parked in the pits and mounted the wing to the roof of my fiesta. It looked great!  And to make matters worse (better maybe) my car would not start at the end of the night and I got someone on a ATV to give me a push start. The ride home was uneventful but certainly a little slower and 3rd gear was used much more frequently. 

As a side note, there used to be a 30 min race recap show that came on midweek to report the prior weekends events. The opening picture for the show after the KR was my winged fiesta. I never had cable and never saw it but a number of people told me about it.