Indianapolis 500 Entry List and Time Trials [May 14th]

I seem to have some major bug in the car, being about half a second slower in the same car...

Take your current setup that you've run your fast time in, and then just run it, over and over and over and over and over and over.

Indy is about consistency, it's about entering every corner the same way every lap, lap after lap. But you also need to find the fast point to enter.

ALL of these chassis are different, that Penske will let you turn in just about anywhere and it will track through the corner, the March 88 is a bit less forgiving, but it'll still let you run offline, the March 87 and 86 have to be spot on to the line or your going up to the wall. Further with the March 87, you've got to drive the hell out of it to be really fast. I'm not real sure about the Lola's as I haven't really driven them around here yet. I'm sure Scott can tell you about them, as he's tested just about everything out there.

So, don't adjust your setup to try and get more speed out of it until you're comfortable running the setup as is, and you're driving it the best that you can. The setup I'm currently running I had managed a 41.99x with it after that, I couldn't get the thing below a 42. After HUNDREDS of laps running I finally was comfortable enough with it to make a small adjustment. Which resulted in knocking a considerable amount of time off.

A few pointers....

#1 don't go out and try to run Flat right off the bat. Only about 5 cars will be able to do this and you're most likely not in one of them.

#2 So, you need to be lifting going into 1 and 3 at the least. Possibly 2 and 4 as well. No, when I say lifting I don't mean coming all the way off the throttle, this is more akin to just breathing the throttle, let's say going from 100% to maybe 90%, possibly 85% at the lowest. This will help settle the nose of the car and help it turn.

When you enter the turns you need to take the car down to the white line, the yellow ideally, but the white line will work as well.

Now, lifting will also cause an issue. If you back off the throttle the car will develop an understeer, which can be severe. Remember these cars have Ground Effects and the wings are there to basically trim out the car.

Which leads to.....

#3 if you can't get the car to turn, you need to adjust the wings. When you're going over 200MPH/300KMH there is no such thing as Mechanical Grip, 95-99% of your grip is being generated by the underbody tunnels and the wings. If the car won't turn increase the front wing, if it's oversteering then either increase the Rear wing or reduce the Front wing. Personally, I would leave the rear wing at 1 or 2 and no where else, use the Front wing to get through the corner. Now, if you're adjusting the wings and you get to a point where you've lost significant top speed or it's still not working, then you need to adjust the suspension. A good base starting point is to keep the Left sides the same and the Rights the same. so for instance Front and Rear Lefts will be 500lbs on the shocks and the Rights will be 1000lbs. Run the ride heights as low as you can get them but remember to keep the proper Rake angle from front to back.

finally, if all else fails, try and find Scott on the server and he'll help you!

Looking forward to it!

Thank you Jason very much...I really appreciate your post here! Now I have an idea what to do!!

BTW Scott, how come you haven't picked a car yet?

Scott is 100% correct regarding the importance of cornering speed.  

This was a likely a key reason why a few people didn't make the 33-car cut last year; by trimming out the car too much, you can lose gobs of time in the corners, thus nullifying any extra straight line speed gained.

Scott is waiting until the priority list period is over. (Next Monday)
There will be cars available

Oopss forgot it was 3 days  

Sorry Scott if I raised your blood pressure for a moment

Fun fact: If I go down on wings one click front and rear, I lose about 3 or 4 kph on exit. Yet, my top speed before the entry of the next corner ain't any higher. I'm stuck at 361 kph. If I go one click higher, I don't gain any cornering speed, but I lose top speed. PB is driven with 5/2 or 6/2 F/R.

Those guys lapping with Cossies, Buicks and the likes will hate me now, but ATM, my car feels like it could make good use of some more horses...

Precisely! And you're correct in looking at the wings. Good call!

A good crew chief's rule of thumb for Indianapolis qualifications: "If the driver wants more horsepower, he/she is too comfortable and not earning their money. Keep trimming the car out until they come back in white in the face with a load in their pants!"  If nobody important ever said that, they should have.

Next step(s)? Be sure and save your current setup as a baseline (obviously a good one), then rename a duplicate as your test bed. Go ahead and drop your wings (that's where the speed will be). Then, start looking into the suspension. In various combinations, try softening the springs, bumps, rebounds, and anti-roll bars, as well as adjusting cambers and tire pressures.

I save every change as a new setup number, as in Q2, Q3, Q4 and so on. That way, if you feel you've started down a wrong path, you can back up to a previous setup version without trying to remember what you changed last.

The good news? Once you have the perfect qually setup, you get to do it all over again for the race.

The best news? Excepting changes for fuel, gearing, and adding some wing for stability in traffic, she should be relatively close.

Excellent observation on the tires scrubbing speed! A lot of drivers insist on ignoring that. But as we mentioned above, cornering speed is the ONLY way to get maximum straightaway speed. For testing purposes, try turning up your sound effects volume just a touch, so you can hear the tires scrubbing a little better. And you can always keep polishing your line to reduce scrub that extra little bit.

Sorry for calling you "wunderkind". But then again, you do have the hot car!

If you want any help or just want to confer, let me know.

Keep up the good work and Good Luck!

No offense taken, but you sure have confirmed my thoughts. Though I have to take into account its a whole different generation of cars, so far I never experienced that 'its trying to kill me!'-sensation the Eagle last year constantly gave me. Michal's March showed me who really is in charge when I tested it, but the Penske? Not yet!

Can i use the one off ''#36 Johnny Parsons'' ? (Sorry I waiting may 8th and I asking remaing cars, if remaing (post edited)

You can pick a car on May 8

The one-off list is now open to anyone