Post by offset on Dec 13, 2016 14:31:53 GMT -5
Hi Tim
When I wrote that piece last night I was half asleep. I didn't mean you personally were blaming Dave MacDonald for the crash, just that the world in general seems to put all the blame on him. If I wasn't so tired I would have caught my mistake,sorry for any misunderstanding.
As you said the book shows M/T had a general lack of understanding of aerodynamics.You get a wide body like that ,built without understanding aerodynamic theory you are going to have a lot of problems to say the least .
The car was not a very stable vehicle to begin with. D/M got out there in very disturbed air and the car had the start of blow over. Air got under the car and had no where to go. They might have thought about venting the body to relieve the pressure.
Remember just a few years ago Mario took out one of his sons cars and had exactly that happen. The nose lifted and I think Mario set 1 last track record ALTITUDE.
One other thing was Thompson complaining about the handling being messed up because of the car setting higher due to the larger wheels. If he had been thinking about it he could have redesigned the suspension mounting points to be a couple of inches higher. By extending the mounting points higher it would have lowered the car down to the same height as the year before. The rear end would have presented the most problems with possibly having to design a vertical offset for the half shafts.
The 65 car as designed was an accident waiting to happen,if it hadn't happened when it did it would have before the race was over.
Any way the 62 and the 63 cars were beautiful and the 64s were butt ugly.
They should have known that something that ugly could never win a race. Ha--Ha
Keep up the great work
Ralph
Ralph Ellery
Offset
Brooksville Fl
When I wrote that piece last night I was half asleep. I didn't mean you personally were blaming Dave MacDonald for the crash, just that the world in general seems to put all the blame on him. If I wasn't so tired I would have caught my mistake,sorry for any misunderstanding.
As you said the book shows M/T had a general lack of understanding of aerodynamics.You get a wide body like that ,built without understanding aerodynamic theory you are going to have a lot of problems to say the least .
The car was not a very stable vehicle to begin with. D/M got out there in very disturbed air and the car had the start of blow over. Air got under the car and had no where to go. They might have thought about venting the body to relieve the pressure.
Remember just a few years ago Mario took out one of his sons cars and had exactly that happen. The nose lifted and I think Mario set 1 last track record ALTITUDE.
One other thing was Thompson complaining about the handling being messed up because of the car setting higher due to the larger wheels. If he had been thinking about it he could have redesigned the suspension mounting points to be a couple of inches higher. By extending the mounting points higher it would have lowered the car down to the same height as the year before. The rear end would have presented the most problems with possibly having to design a vertical offset for the half shafts.
The 65 car as designed was an accident waiting to happen,if it hadn't happened when it did it would have before the race was over.
Any way the 62 and the 63 cars were beautiful and the 64s were butt ugly.
They should have known that something that ugly could never win a race. Ha--Ha
Keep up the great work
Ralph
Ralph Ellery
Offset
Brooksville Fl