Champ Car Racing

Champ Car racing is one of the most technologically advanced sports in the world today. And, other than space shuttles and jet fighters, Champ Cars are the most sophisticated vehicles that we see in common use. Their carbon fiber bodies, incredible engines, advanced aerodynamics and intelligent electronics make each car a high-speed research lab. Because a Champ Car runs at speeds up to 240 mph, the driver experiences G-forces and copes with incoming data so quickly that it makes Champ Car driving one of the most demanding professions in the sporting world!

Have you ever wished you could go behind the scenes and really understand how Champ Car racing works? For example, where do these incredible cars and engines come from? How do the drivers become drivers, and how do they train for each race? Who is on the team, and who works on these cars before and during each race? What is happening in the pits on race day? To answer questions like these and to really understand how a complete Champ Car team works, we will learn about the car, the driver and the people that make up the Motorola PacWest Racing Team.

Champ Car racing is a unique sport. It features exotic, high-speed, open-wheel cars racing both in the U.S. and around the world. The CART program is a combination of Formula 1-style and oval track racing on four very different types of tracks:

Short ovals -- oval tracks less than two miles long
Super speedways -- oval tracks two miles or longer
Street courses -- courses laid out on city streets
Road courses -- courses with much of the feel of a street course (lots of tight turns and short straight-aways), but run on special closed tracks rather than on city streets.

The type of track changes from race to race -- Champ Car racing is an incredibly diverse sport!

This level of diversity makes a season of Champ Car racing incredibly interesting and exciting. The racing teams have to create cars that are flexible enough to run under all of these different conditions. The teams have to completely revise the aerodynamic package, the suspension settings, and myriad other parameters on their cars for each race, and the drivers have to be extremely agile to handle all of the different conditions they face. No two races are alike in Champ Car racing!

Approximately 25 cars and drivers -- like the Motorola PacWest Racing Team's number 18 car driven by Mark Blundell -- compete in the 20 Champ Car races that make up a season (see schedule below).

The sanctioning body for Champ Car racing is CART, or Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc.. CART is the governing body for the sport, setting the rules that the teams have to follow (see the CART Web site http://www.cart.com for the complete rule book), and it also provides the race officials who oversee each event.

Modern Champ Cars are defined by their chassis. All Champ Cars share the following characteristics:

They are single-seat cars
They have an open cockpit
They have open wheels -- there are no fenders covering the the wheels
They have wings at the front and rear of the car to provide downforce
They position the engine behind the driver

The chassis of a Champ Car is an amazing thing -- formed almost completely out of carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb, a Champ Car chassis is extremely strong and incredibly lightweight. The entire chassis of the PacWest Motorola car weighs only about 1,000 pounds (455 Kilograms) when it arrives from the factory. The team then begins mounting things like the engine and electronics onto the chassis.

One reason that a new chassis comes out every year is because the rules evolve with each season. CART, or Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc., is the governing body for the sport that sets these rules. For example, in 1999 the CART rules reduced allowable aerodynamic downforce by 500 pounds, and all of the chassis manufacturers took this rule change into account in their designs. (The information section of the CART Web site contains the complete rule book for Champ cars.)

When it arrives from the factory, the chassis comes complete with the body of the car, the suspension, the steering system and the transmission, and is called a rolling chassis. The team's job is to add things like the engine and electronics to the rolling chassis and tune it to the driver's style for maximum performance. All Champ Cars have similar components:

The nose cone, which includes the front wings, the front suspension, steering mechanism and front tires. The front wing assembly is completely interchangeable depending on the type of track, the weather, etc.

The tub (monocoque), or central section of the car, where the driver sits.

The two side pods on either side of the driver, which house the channels feeding air to the radiators as well as the car's electronics. In this photo, you can also see the fuel filler area, which leads to the gas tank just behind the driver.

The rear suspension, rear tires and rear wing

A set of four cover panels: 1) The cover over the front suspension,
2 and 3) the covers over the two side pods,
and 4) the cover over the engine.

The Motorola PacWest team uses engines supplied by Mercedes-Benz. Ford, Honda, and Toyota also supply engines to other teams.

One incredibly interesting characteristic of the chassis is the fact that the engine and transmission are actually a part of the chassis -- they are known as stressed members. You can see that the only thing connecting the tub to the transmission and rear wheels is the engine, and the rear wing bolts directly to the transmission.

The Whole Package
The chassis of a Champ Car as described here weighs approximately 1,110 pounds. Adding the engine and and other components brings the weight up to the official 1,550 pound running weight for a Champ Car. At race time, the driver and fuel bring the car's total weight to between 1,900 and 2,000 pounds.

The Aerodynamics
One of the most important features of a Champ Car is its aerodynamics package.

The most obvious manifestations of the package are the front and rear wings, but there are a number of other features that perform different functions. A Champ Car uses air in three different ways:

The wings on a Champ Car work opposite to the way they work on an airplane. On an airplane the wings provide lift. On a Champ Car the wings are mounted upside down so that they provide downforce. The downforce keeps the car glued to the track with a downward pressure provided by the front and rear wings as well as the body itself. The amount of downforce is amazing -- once the car is traveling at 200 MPH, there is enough downforce on the car that it could actually adhere itself to the ceiling of a tunnel and drive upside down! In a street course race, the downforce aerodynamics have enough suction to actually lift manhole covers -- before the race all of the manhole covers are welded down to prevent this from happening!

One part of the aerodynamics package that is not visible is underneath the car. There, a single carbon-fiber panel covers the entire underside and provides a completely smooth surface for the air to flow past. There are two air tunnels formed into this panel, underneath the two side pods. The tunnels taper so that the Bernoulli effect creates suction underneath the car. Both the wings and these tunnels contribute to the downforce.

The front and rear suspension of a Champ Car is known as a double-wishbone suspension. This type of suspension has the advantages of light weight, impressive strength and a well-controlled ride. The racing surface can be surprisingly bumpy -- for example, at the Cleveland track the surface changes several times along the course, with a bump at each transition. The purpose of a Champ Car's suspension is to keep all four wheels glued to the track despite these aberrations in the pavement!

A Champ Car's suspension also has to be lightweight and compact. The front suspension consists of the triangular supports (wishbones) that mount to the front hubs, along with the springs and shocks. The springs and shocks, as well as the equivalent of the anti-roll bar, are all mounted on top of the car just in front of the driver.

The rear suspension is similar to the front. The main differences are the lack of the steering mechanism, the addition of the drive shaft and the greater weight that the rear suspension must carry. The springs and shocks follow an arrangement similar to the front suspension, but they are larger and fold alongside the transmission.

Because the suspension components are so important to the reliability of a car and its ability to travel in a straight line, CART rules are quite specific on how they will be built. For example:

"9.8.2. All highly stressed steering and suspension components shall be made from SAE 4130 steel or an alloy, specified by its manufacturer as having equivalent physical properties. Front and rear uprights may be made of magnesium alloy or an aluminum alloy. All such parts must be heat-treated, including stress relieving, normalizing, annealing and hardening when applicable, after forming and/or welding as recommended by the manufacturer of the alloy being used. All such parts that are electroplated must be oven-baked at a temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus 25 degrees, for not less than three hours after such plating. Parts that have been stripped of plating must be similarly baked unless they are to be reprocessed within a three-hour period. Parts are not to be joined by brazing, soldering, or by dissimilar metals. Shot peening is recommended for highly stressed parts."

As you can see, the center of the car is perhaps two to three centimeters off the pavement. The suspension system therefore does not need to offer tremendous up/down movement. With less than one inch of up/down travel available, the ride can get extremely stiff!

To handle the incredible forces applied to them, the tires of a Champ Car are much different from the tires you find on your car.

The tires on a Champ Car are much wider -- 12 inches wide in the front and 16 inches wide in the rear. A normal car's tires are only eight inches wide.
The tires on a Champ Car are completely smooth to maximize the amount of rubber touching the track surface.
The rubber on the face of the tires is extremely soft. It is more like a soft rubber eraser than anything else, and very unlike the hard rubber found in a normal car's tires.

Between the size of the contact patch of a Champ Car tire and the softness of the rubber, the tires have incredible adhesion.

The tires on a passenger car are meant to last 40,000 to 60,000 miles, while the tires on a Champ Car are designed to last 60-70 miles! The CART rules allow a racing team to use up to 60 tires during a 500 mile race.

Besides the incredibly soft rubber used on the surface of the tires, the other thing that makes Champ Car tires last for such a short period of time is the fact that they are very thin. Rubber conducts heat well and retains heat, so the tires have a very small amount of rubber on them to avoid heat build-up. If the driver locks a tire just once during hard braking, it will create a noticeable flat spot on the tire and expose the tire's cords, severely affecting the tire's performance. This limitation is especially important during qualifying, because each team only gets two sets of tires for qualifying runs.

Firestone
Firestone provides all of the tires for all of teams at every race and practice session. The teams bring their rims to the Firestone area in the race paddock, where technicians mount and balance the tires.

Given that there are 25 cars and each team gets as many as 60 tires per race, Firestone is mounting up to 1,500 tires per event!

This small cylinder, which is mounted on the rim opposite of the valve stem, contains a one-quarter-watt, 900 MHz radio transmitter and a centrifugal switch. Once a tire starts spinning, the radio is activated and begins transmitting the tire's pressure to this antenna, located just behind the driver's head:

All four tires transmit separately. If the driver runs over something (for example, debris from a wreck), he can talk to his pit crew, and they can check the tires immediately to see if any of them are leaking using the telemetry stream from the car (see the section on telemetry for details).

The teams pay a good deal of money for this peace of mind -- each tire's radio costs thousands of dollars, and each of the teams' 60 rims needs to have one! That gives you a good idea of how important the tires are.

Tire and Wheel Specs
The CART rules specify everything about the tires and the rims. Here are some of those specs:

The rims are tested by X-ray and dynamic tests before they are allowed on the race course.

The role of the computer has grown significantly over the last 10 years. The engine is now completely controlled by computer (if this computer goes out, the engine will not run). Among other things, the ECU controls:

A typical data-logging computer is capable of measuring 200 different parameters of the car while the car is in motion. The data logging system can also transmit 72 channels of data back to the pits in real time. All 200 parameters are also stored onboard for later downloading. The team can connect a laptop to this jack, located under the rollbar, to download the car's stored data into a laptop computer:

Gear choice
Engine RPM
All four wheel speeds
Wind speed (using a pitot tube mounted on the nose of the car)
Throttle setting
Engine temperature
Oil temperature
Tire pressure on all four tires (see the section on tires for details)
Brake caliper pressure
Brake caliper temperature
Temperature of different points in the exhaust system
The position of all shocks
Steering load
Steering angle
Inline, vertical and lateral acceleration
Track location
Height of the vehicle from the track at four points

The height of the vehicle is measured using lasers, which are accurate to a tenth of a millimeter. The team mounts the lasers on the car during testing (a team cannot use the lasers during an actual race). In this photo, you can see the small laser pod mounted just behind the front suspension.

At four points along the track there are infrared beacons. Each car has a infrared sensor to detect the beacons. You can see the window for the sensor just below the antenna in this photo.

Track location is measured in two ways. At four points along the track there are infrared beacons. Each car has a infrared sensor to detect the beacons. When the car passes the beacon, the car sends a signal back to the pit and this allows the team to record accurate timing splits around the track. The team can also use the car's accelerometers as an inertial navigation system to plot the position of the car around the course.

One of the hidden aspects of Champ Car racing is the radio system used both in the car and all around the race course. At a typical race there are several thousand one-way and two-way radios sharing the airwaves! They transmit data from the car and the driver, allow the teams to communicate with one another and even let the tires transmit their pressure to the on-board data computer! A typical car has as many as eight radios in operation at any one time:

The driver's two-way radio
The telemetry system's radio
The radio(s) for on-board television cameras
The radios for the tires

At CART events, Racing Radios supplies the radios that CART officials, series marketing and management staff, medical staff, safety workers and support staff use. They use Motorola equipment exclusively, and it is set up in an amazing variety of systems. The teams are responsible for their own equipment, and many enlist the help of Racing Radios for purchasing equipment, service and accessories. Here's a typical example:

In the car there is a two-watt Motorola radio transmitting and receiving in the 800 MHz band. This radio lets the driver talk with the crew in the pits. Racing Radios assigns each car a specific frequency in the 800 MHz band. This is a very simple radio with a push-to-talk button on the steering wheel and a single channel for communication. The car generally has a second channel to use as a backup as well, but it is not used unless interference disrupts the first channel.
The car transmits to a large antenna located on a tall mast on the crew's transporter. The size of this antenna makes it possible to receive the driver no matter where he is on the track, even though the car is using a relatively low-power transmitter.
Inside the transporter there is a Motorola cross band repeater that converts between the 800 MHz band and the 450 MHz band. The repeater contains an 800 MHZ radio, a 450 MHz radio and a converter.
The repeater rebroadcasts the driver's conversation at 15 watts on the 450 MHz band to the team. Racing Radios also assigns each team a set of channels in the 450 MHz band.
Each member of the PacWest Motorola PacWest Racing Team in the pit is wearing a Motorola radio (an HT-1250). When a team member keys his radio and talks, everyone on the Motorola Team's pit crew hears it -- all of the radios in the pit are tuned to the same frequency. Everyone also hears anything that the driver says through the repeater. Only one member of the team is designated to actually talk back to the driver. So there are two transmit channels: Mark Blundell transmits on channel 1, everyone on the pit crew can transmit on channel 2, and the person designated to talk to Mark can transmit on channel 1 or channel 2. The radios for the pit crew scan channel 1 and channel 2 so that the pit crew hears each other and everything Mark says. Mark listens only to channel 1.

Each team will have this arrangement for everyone it the pit area and the driver. Teams will normally also reserve a frequency for the team's hospitality group (which provides food etc. to team members and the team's guests) as well as to the team's marketing group. A typical team will have 50 to 75 radios.

On separate radio frequencies there are other groups as well. For example, CART officials use approximately 250 radios. Race control uses radios, as do the people who are working for the track. Medical crews, fire safety crews, wreck cleanup crews, etc. are all using radios. This is why, at any race, there can be upwards of 3,000 Motorola radios consuming hundreds of allocated frequency bands. Racing Radios coordinates all of the frequencies so that all of the teams have a clear channel during the race, and also handles all of the licensing with the FCC for each event.

In addition to all of this voice communication, the car is also transmitting telemetry data back to the team and to CART (for example, to supply data to the telemetry board). Each tire on every car also has its own small, one-quarter-watt radio to transmit pressure data to the car's on-board data logging system. The tires and the cars transmit in the 900 MHz band, with the car using spread spectrum techniques to improve reliability and reduce problems with interference.

In addition to all that, some cars now have one or more in-car television cameras that transmit real-time images back to the television network for broadcast to viewers so they can see the driver's perspective.

With all of these radios transmitting, the big problem is finding a set of clear frequencies that keep everyone separated and are also free from outside interference. This problem gets even worse when the race course is near a city, where the frequencies are already crowded with city services like police, fire and sanitation, as well as industrial radio users. Racing Radios is in charge of finding clear frequencies for everyone prior to the race and then assigning the frequencies to each team. Racing Radios also needs to keep all of the radios charged, so there is a tractor-trailer devoted to charging equipment and distributing all of the radios.

Radios are kept in a tractor-trailer where they can be recharged and distributed.

The other thing that Racing Radios provides is the ear pieces, microphones and headsets that everyone uses. Drivers typically use custom-molded or foam ear pieces and noise-canceling microphones inside their helmets.

Crew members in the pits use noise-canceling headsets, with their radios on their belts.

During practice, many of the teams use scramblers -- small modules that plug into the radio to prevent eavesdropping.

During the race scramblers are not permitted. All communication is therefore available to anyone with a radio scanner, and many fans and reporters bring scanners to each race to get more detail on what is happening.

The integral jacks speed up the pitting process, reduce the number of people who have to go over the wall for the pit stop, and eliminate a piece of equipment that the crew would have to carry over the wall.

As described in the section on the chassis, the engine is also a part of the car's structure. The engine sits behind the driver, between the transmission and the tub that forms the cockpit of the car. It is the only connection between the front and back of the car. The engine is therefore called a stressed member, meaning that it carries load and is subject to mechanical stress. The level of stress that a Champ Car can exert on the frame is one more thing that makes the engine so critical to success -- the engine is, mechanically, the entire midsection of the car's structure!

The engine and drive train of a Champ Car make up about one-third of the mass of the car. In a severe crash, the engine and drive train assembly separate from the front of the vehicle at a line just behind the driver in an attempt to protect the driver and dissipate energy.

Displacement -- 161 cubic inches, 2.64 liters
Cylinders -- V-8
Weight -- 325 pounds (148 kilograms)
Horsepower -- approximately 900
Maximum RPM -- 15,000
Aspiration -- Turbocharged
Valves -- four per cylinder
Cams -- dual camshafts per cylinder bank
Fuel delivery -- fuel injection

A Champ Car engine is obviously very different from the engine you find in a normal car. Here are some of the things that make it unique:

At 900 HP, it has about two to three times the horsepower of a "high-performance" automotive engine. For example, Corvettes or Vipers might have 350 to 400 horsepower engines.
At 15,000 RPM, it runs about twice the RPM of a normal automotive engine. What makes this possible is a very short stroke. Compared to a normal engine, the engine in a Champ Car has larger pistons and the pistons travel a shorter distance up and down on each stroke.
The pistons and connecting rods are extremely lightweight. This lowers their inertia and is another factor in the high RPM.

The engine gives a Champ Car some amazing capabilities. For example, a Champ Car can accelerate from zero to 100 MPH in about five seconds, and is still in second gear at that point! For comparison, a Corvette or Viper can only accelerate to about 65 MPH in the same amount of time.

The Turbocharger
All Champ Car engines use a turbocharger to improve their performance. The turbocharger pressurizes the air flowing into the engine's cylinders so that the engine can burn more fuel during each stroke. The extra fuel means extra power per stroke.

A Champ Car engine runs with a turbo boost of 40 inches (about 19 PSI). When the turbo over-pressurizes things, a pop-off valve releases the extra pressure.

Pop-off valves are now electronic. When they release, they are loud enough for the driver to hear, so the driver knows it is happening.

One of CART's more interesting roles is the certification and distribution of pop-off valves. Here is CART's description of the valves from the CART Web site:

"To keep the playing field even (and the manifold pressures within the rules), CART provides each team with a manifold pressure relief, or pop-off valve, to put on top of their intake manifold. It's called a pop-off valve because it makes a loud pop when it lets off excess pressure. The effect is a sudden drop in horsepower. CART jealously guards these valves, and goes to great lengths to make sure they are both accurate and consistent. Each day of practice, qualifying and racing, CART officials pass out the pop-off valves to the teams and collect them in the evening."

The Relationship with Mercedes-Benz
Any CART racing team has a rather interesting relationship with its engine manufacturer. The team signs a contract and leases a season's worth of engines from the manufacturer. The manufacturer supplies a set of complete engines (the number may vary depending on the contract, but a typical number might be six), which the team uses in a rotation. After each race, the team sends the used engine back to the manufacturer to be rebuilt.

Because of this relationship, the team actually has nothing to do with the engine beyond mounting it in the car, adding oil, installing the spark plugs and starting it up. If there is any sort of problem with an engine, the team replaces it with a new one and sends to old one back to be rebuilt.

The Transmission
Unlike the engine, the transmission of a Champ Car is something that the team is intimately familiar with. The team rebuilds the transmission and can change the gear ratios depending on the track.

The Motorola team's transmission is supplied by Reynard with the chassis. The transmission is built by Xtrac, a very well-respected transmission company in many areas of automobile racing.

A Champ Car uses a six-speed sequential transmission that is more similar to a motorcycle's transmission than to a typical automobile's. Shifting is done by the driver using a small lever to the right of the steering wheel:

Another feature of a Champ Car's engine and transmission is called Shift WithOut Lift, or SWOL. The engine control unit allows the transmission to shift gears without the driver lifting off the accelerator. The driver can therefore upshift without using the clutch or letting off the gas, and this maximizes acceleration. The SWOL feature is also available during downshifting, but the driver must match engine RPM with the gear choice during the downshift

Champ Cars burn methanol fuel. Methanol is a form of alcohol and has several advantages over gasoline in an engine:

Methanol can run at much higher compression ratios, meaning that you can get more power from the engine on each piston stroke.
Methanol provides significant cooling when it evaporates in the cylinder, helping to keep the high-revving, high-compression engine from overheating.
Methanol, unlike gasoline, can be extinguished with water if there is a fire. This provides a nice safety feature.
The ignition temperature for methanol (the temperature at which it starts burning) is much higher than it is for gasoline, so the risk of an accidental fire is lower.

The only significant problem with methanol is that it burns with an invisible flame -- you cannot see a methanol fire. Nobody knows that they are near a methanol fire until they feel the heat. This includes the driver, who in a crash may have methanol spilled on his suit. The driver will therefore move flagrantly once he has detected a fire to let other people know that there is a problem.

The car carries 35 gallons (142 liters) of fuel in a fuel cell located behind the driver. This cell is made of a flexible Kevlar and polymer material -- it is more like a bag than a tank. Inside the bag is a sponge-like substance that gives the bag its shape. The bag is designed to withstand a crash without rupturing -- rather than rupturing, it flexes and changes its shape. The idea behind the sponge is to hold the fuel so that, in a severe crash, it does not spray over the driver, other cars or the track.

The engine burns methanol at a rate of approximately two miles per gallon, meaning that the car must make a pit stop for fuel approximately every 70 miles or so. During a pit stop, the fuel pours into the cell through a large filler mounted just behind the driver. 35 gallons of fuel can flow into the cell in just a few seconds!

CART rules allow each team to use fuel at a rate of up to 1.8 miles per gallon. That is all the fuel that the team gets, so each team must manage its fuel consumption to work within that limitation.

Once the team receives the chassis from Reynard and the engines from Mercedes, the team assembles the car. The team and the driver then begin the season-long process of tuning the car. The team has intimate control over many different aspects of the car's set-up, including:

Tire toe-in/toe-out, camber and caster
Air pressure in the tires
The height of the car off the track, as well as the height of each of the four wheels
The stiffness of the suspension
The adjustment of the aerodynamic wings as well as the overall downforce on the car
The driver's position
The gear ratios in the transmission
Brake bias (the relationship of braking force between the front and back wheels)
Weight distribution on all four tires (known as "balance")
Anti-roll bar settings
Various engine settings
Length of the wheelbase (by changing the wishbones, the team can make the wheelbase longer or shorter)

The goal is to adjust all of these variables in concert with one another to create the perfect setup. Obviously this is not easy because all of the variables have interrelationships with one another. Getting the car tuned and keeping it in a state of perfection are two of the team's most important tasks during the season.

A big component in the tuning process is the data gathered by the car's telemetry system. The team can adjust things and then look for changes in the car's performance in the data that the car's sensors gather.

The Cockpit of a Champ Car
The driver's interface to the car is the cockpit. The cockpit environment is customized to the driver, but also has a number of features that are shared by all Champ Cars.

The first thing you notice when you get into a Champ Car is the tight fit -- it feels almost like you are "wearing" the car. The cockpit wraps around the driver and holds him in. The fit is so tight that you have to remove the steering wheel to get in and out of the car. The reclining seat that the driver sits in is custom molded to his body, and the position is more like lying on your back than sitting. The driver is then strapped in with a wide, five-point harness:

As shown in the figure, the buttons give the driver access to the following features:

Weight-jacker -- the driver uses this device to jack up the spring on one of the wheels, which places more weight on that wheel, changing the balance of the car. This helps to compensate for the changing weight of the fuel, or for wear on the tires during the race
Passing -- provides the engine with a little extra horsepower for passing. Teams refer to it as "the button."
Push to talk on the radio
Fuel reset
Fuel mixture
LCD scrolling
Pit area speed limiter
Driver drink
Turbo boost adjuster

LEDs on the steering wheel indicate:

Engine RPMs
Pop-off valve warning
Neutral gear
Speed limiter active

The LCD display complements the LCDs on the dash. These displays feed the driver information from the engine and the car's sensors. As you saw in the Telemetry section, Champ Cars have sensors everywhere, so there is plenty of information available to the driver.

The gear shift lever is to the driver's right. The car has a sequential six-speed transmission, so instead of the H-pattern seen on a normal manual transmission, the shifter moves in a straight line.

To the driver's left is a pair of levers that adjust the front and rear suspension. These levers stiffen and soften the chassis and are used by the driver as the fuel load changes.

On the left side of the dash are several other knobs and buttons. With these, the driver can, for example, activate the fire extinguisher (the large red handle) and change the brake bias (the balance of braking between the front and the rear, which must change as the fuel load does).

Driving the car
Driving a Champ Car is nothing like driving a normal automobile. Here are some of the things that you notice:

The steering on a Champ Car is extremely tight and precise. In a normal car you may have to turn the wheel two to three times to go from one end of the steering's range to the other (this is often referred to as "lock-to-lock"). In a Champ Car, the total range that a driver uses on the track is only about 180 degrees. The slightest change in the steering wheel has a big effect on the direction of the car. It feels extremely touchy to a person who has never driven a Champ Car before.
The acceleration is unbelievable! When you push on the throttle it feels like a rocket taking off instead of a car. As mentioned in the engine section, the car can accelerate to 100 miles per hour in just five seconds!
Braking is also unbelievable. From 100 MPH, the car can come to a complete stop in about 55 feet -- one-third the distance of a normal car!
Shifting is different from a car, since the shifter is linear rather than H-pattern.
The G forces during acceleration and in the corners are significant. A driver running at 230 MPH on an oval track will typically experience about five Gs in the corners.
Because of the speed of the car and the distance between cars, the amount of visual data that the driver must process is huge. Everything happens instantaneously.

During a race, the driver is constantly thinking about what is coming up. A driver's brain is multi-tasking -- part of it is handling the current situation on the track, keeping spacing, adjusting speed and turning. (This is much different than normal driving because cars are often within inches of one another and the pack is moving at incredible speeds.) The other part of the driver's brain focuses on what will happen in the next section of the track. The driver plans exactly what he will do, and then executes it when he arrives. At that point, he is thinking about the next section of the track, and so on. Into his planning, the driver factors both the car he is trying to catch, as well as the cars that are trying to catch him -- a driver is always trying to pass the car in front and trying to defend against being passed.

The helmet is one of the most important parts of the ensemble because it becomes a part of the exterior of the car. In an open-cockpit Champ Car, the driver's helmet is out in the 230 MPH slipstream of air rushing past the car. In the photo you can see a variety of vents and indentations designed to help cool the driver and prevent buffeting. As the air flows past the helmet, it needs to have smooth flow lines -- any turbulence and the driver's head shakes in the slipstream (affecting both vision and stamina).

Training
Champ Car driving is a demanding sport that requires precision, incredibly fast reflexes and endurance from the driver. A driver's heart rate typically averages 160 beats per minute throughout the entire race. During a five G turn, a driver's arm -- which normally weighs perhaps 20 pounds -- weighs the equivalent of 100 pounds.

One thing that the G forces require is constant training in the weight room. Drivers work especially on muscles in the neck, shoulders, arms and torso so that they have the strength to work against the Gs. Drivers also work a great deal on stamina, because they have to be able to perform throughout a three-hour race without rest.

One thing that is known about Champ Car drivers is that they have extremely quick reflexes and reaction times compared to the norm. They also have extremely good levels of concentration and long attention spans. Training, both on and off the track, can further develop these skills.

The PacWest Racing Group has been a CART competitor since Bruce R. McCaw formed the team in 1993. The PacWest Racing Group had its most successful CART campaign to date in 1997 when Mark Blundell and his teammate combined for four race wins, three pole positions and finished sixth and fourth, respectively, in the Championship. Mark also won the closest race in CART history by only 27 thousandths of a second at Portland.

McCaw had an illustrious business career prior to forming the PacWest Racing Group. He founded an aviation insurance company, a regional airline and, with his brothers, a cellular phone company that AT&T purchased and now operates as AT&T Wireless.

The PacWest Racing Group consists of 72 people who are based in Indianapolis. The team is a complete business, so it includes a wide range of people: vice presidents, directors, managers, engineers, technicians, mechanics, and so on, both on the racing and the business/marketing sides. The PacWest Racing Group is responsible for everything from the aerodynamics of the car to what the team's guests will eat on race day!

The part of the team that you see on race day is the group of specially trained people who work in the garage and the pits. They are intimately familiar with the car and work closely with the driver in their attempt to create a winning combination.

For the team, the season starts in November with the arrival and assembly of the chassis and engines for the new season. The team starts testing in January and February. Racing starts in March and runs on roughly a bi-weekly schedule through late October. Although most Champ Car races take place in the U.S., several of the races are international (Australia, Canada, Japan, and Brazil)

Races normally occur on Sunday, and there are 20 races in a season occurring approximately every two weeks.

The team normally arrives at the track on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. To get to a race, the team packs up the cars and a complete mobile shop into tractor trailers and drives (or flies, in the case of international events) to the event:

The team unpacks everything into the garage at the track, and the mechanics get to work preparing the car on Thursday. On Thursday evening, there is a technical inspection of the car, checking the weight, measurements, safety features and so on. On Friday, there are practice sessions in the morning and afternoon, as well as provisional qualifying if the race is being held on a road course. Saturday is reserved for practice in the morning and qualifying in the afternoon. The actual race occurs on Sunday.

A big part of the race is the pit stops. Each team is assigned a slot on pit row, as shown below:

A pit stop is a choreographed, high-speed event designed to service the car as quickly as possible. During a typical stop the team will load 35 gallons of methanol into the car, replace all four tires, and adjust the angle of the front wing. The team trains for months both with the car and in the weight room to get ready for this level of performance.

Motorola is an interesting company to use as an example because Motorola's role in Champ Car racing has four distinct parts:

Motorola sponsors a car
Motorola is a title sponsor for two of the races: the Motorola 220 on August 20, 2000 in Elkhart Lake, WI, and the Motorola 300 on September 17, 2000 in Madison, IL.
Motorola builds chips and other components used in the car. Specifically, Motorola manufactures the ECU (Engine Control Unit) for the Honda engines and supplies semiconductors, microprocessors and microcontrollers for the Magneti Marelli/Mercedes-Benz ECU and other manufacturer's ECU units.
Motorola provides all of the radios used during the race (as described in the section on radios).

Motorola is the "Official Communications Hardware of CART." Motorola wireless communications equipment helps keep safety workers, medical personnel, teams, drivers and the CART operations staff in constant communication. The fast-paced, high technology environment of Champ Car racing is a perfect proving ground for Motorola products. It is interesting to note that the wireless equipment used by CART, the teams and the support staff is the same wireless equipment that consumers purchase worldwide for individual use.

Working with organizations such as Racing Radios, Motorola helps provide communications to most of the Champ Car teams along with the Pace Car Program and individual tracks. Racing Radios experience combined with Motorola products forms the backbone of the communication infrastructure on the track -- there literally could not be a race without it.

Sponsors are vital to all major forms of automobile racing. The sponsors provide the capital that supports the teams and allows them to race. Without the sponsors there would be no teams, and therefore no racing.

Sponsoring a Champ Car is not an inexpensive proposition. There are many different levels of sponsorship and the teams work in different quality brackets. At the low end, a sponsor can form a syndicate and pay on the order of $250,000 or $500,000 to be one of the sponsors of a multi-sponsor car. At the high end, an exclusive sponsorship can exceed $10 million per year. In return, the sponsor's goal is to get exposure for the company's name. The car, the banners on pit row and other forms of signage give millions of TV viewers and fans at the track the chance to see the sponsor as a part of Champ Car racing.

Beyond the exposure that motorsports provides for Motorola, they use their program to develop business relations with customers and consumers, and to develop business-to-business opportunities and partnerships. Motorola also uses motorsports to increase brand awareness to an extremely large global audience that has proven to be brand loyal to sponsors supporting motorsports as a whole. Additionally, with CART being a global series, Motorola has the ability to participate with all of their global customers, business units and sectors to develop programs and promotions worldwide.

Sponsorship of a Champ Car works well for Motorola. The exposure the company gets is associated with a high-tech, exciting sport that makes extensive use of two of Motorola's major products -- radios and microprocessors. The company feels that it gets a very good return on its investment!