[KingTito]

1. Does the new car need wings for a 3-Day School?
If they are cheap enough, yes. While there is increased potential for crash damage, I do believe that the assemblies that are used on the RTs are quite cheap and, in an impact, represent a very small percentage of the overall damage bill in a typical impact. The reason I answered "yes" is that what the 3 day customers know about racing comes from television. If the car bears a similar appearance to open wheel cars they see on TV, it immediately drives a link between the two thereby attracting customers. From a functional perspective, no. It won't make a difference for these drivers whether the car has a little lift or not.

2. Does the new car need wings for Advance Activities (Lapping, ADV 2-Day)

Same above

3. Does the new car need wings for the Regional Race Series?

Yes. From what I can tell, the design of the current wing relies heavily on the lip or "gurney lip" on the trailing edge. At the speeds we drive and given the design of the wings, I bet these counteract lift more than adding a lot of downforce as these are flat bottom cars. So, with the flat bottom, the air going over the top of the car speeds up versus the air going underneath and this creates a low pressure area underneath thus creating lift. Reducing lift could be very relevant on certain tracks. The drag induced by the exposed wheels, suspension, etc. is probably more than enough to provide a useful draft. I doubt the wings do much more for this and I doubt that the turbulent air off of the cars in a draft would induce aerodynamic understeer at the speeds we run at and the effectiveness of the wings in the first place. If anything, the turbulent air would disrupt airflow over the top of the car and this would would reduce overall lift in a situation where two cars are driving nose-tail through a highspeed corner as opposed to seeing a reduction in wing downforce due to the turbulent air.

Bottomline, I think counteracting lift more than adding downforce is what we need in certain turns/elevation changes on certain tracks. Creating an aerodynamically neutral car (no lift) is a challenge to begin with and that should be a development goal.

It would be neat to hear from someone who has done tunnel work before as this is just my 2 cents having stayed at a Holiday Inn last night and from my rusty MS in Mechanical Engineering!

4. Does the new car need wings for the MASTERS National Championship?

Yes. See above.

5. Does the new car need wings for the regular Skip Barber National Championship?

Yes. See above.

6. For each of the above activities, if "Yes", what level of downforce is appropriate in general terms, such as Light, Medium, Heavy downforce?

Just my less than 2 cents, I doubt we are getting much useful downforce off of the wings. With the flat bottom, I bet the wings just help counteract lift as opposed to creating downward force on the tire footprint. Thus, I would vote for adding wings and tunnels (if necessary) just to create a aero balanced, neutral car (i.e. no lift).

It would be neat to hear from someone who is doing or has done tunnel work on the current car and the future car.

7. Should the wing angles be adjustable by customer request at any of the above activities? If so, which series should be adjustable?

No. The cars should be as equalized as possible with no driver set up input. We would go down a slippery slope with this. What is next? Tire air pressure? Camber?

8. Any other comments?