Nah, it was always the same. The lack of overtaking is commonly blamed on high downforce, carbon brakes, and super short braking distances, but it actually wasn't any better before they put wings on cars. Same thing: the rich, fast teams qualify and start at the front and stay at the front and get richer and faster...with the occasional fall from grace (Mclaren) or rise from obscurity (Brawn->Mercedes). As cool as they are technologically, development series like F1 tends to result in boring races.

ed: Oh, and using ground effect has been banned since 81(?). Interestingly, Indycars use the ground effect (though without the skirts so it's not as effective as the F1 ground effect cars), and by virtue of being a (mostly) spec series, has much better races.

For open wheel racing, Indycar is where it's at these days IMO. Since they changed to the DW-12 chassis, lost the stupid blocking rules and brought in some new talent and sponsors, the racing has been fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't care for oval racing, but it looks like its weighing even more towards road and street courses next year.

I wouldn't want F1 to become a spec series, but they need to do something to either make the racing closer or the technology development more interesting. The WEC has been the most interesting development series lately. It's guaranteed that Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault would never allow it, but opening up the engine regulations to allow more freedom could bring in other manufacturers itching to show off their hybrid technology as something sexy and powerful.

The comment you made insinuated a form of doubt, less a question mark.
I was just going along.

Ten thousand children died in africa today. I got over this car driver pretty quick.
OooOOoooooo Too soon


>> ^bamdrew:

... whut?
... they stopped the race... because he died... are you postulating that he faked his death and is living it up in Tijuana?... too soon, BoneRemake, too soon.
>> ^BoneRemake:
>> ^bamdrew:
uhhh... so... Dan Wheldon just died right then...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/sports/autoracing/Da
n-Wheldon-Crash-Vegas-IndyCar.html

I guess. If the news said it, IT MUST BE TRUE.

... whut?
... they stopped the race... because he died... are you postulating that he faked his death and is living it up in Tijuana?... too soon, BoneRemake, too soon.
>> ^BoneRemake:

>> ^bamdrew:
uhhh... so... Dan Wheldon just died right then...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/sports/autoracing/Da
n-Wheldon-Crash-Vegas-IndyCar.html

I guess. If the news said it, IT MUST BE TRUE.

2 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

>> ^bamdrew:

uhhh... so... Dan Wheldon just died right then...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/sports/autoracing/Da
n-Wheldon-Crash-Vegas-IndyCar.html


I guess. If the news said it, IT MUST BE TRUE.

uhhh... so... Dan Wheldon just died right then...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/sports/autoracing/Dan-Wheldon-Crash-Vegas-IndyCar.html

At the time of this videos, Indycars ran on methanol rather than ethanol. Ethanol has a very faint blue flame, but methanol is almost perfectly clear, though you can see the flames as sort of a shimmering disturbance in the air. These days Indycars run on ethanol, but it's more of a marketing thing than for any practical reason... the racing industry is hard up to show how "green" they are.



>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^bamdrew:
Are we sure this isn't a very elaborate Monty Python sketch?

While I am sure this is a joke, you can actually do this experiment at home with alcohol. Get yourself some everclear or some other very highly pure ethanol and set it ablaze. And did you notice he used the word inflammable. That is the correct word, we only recently made the word flammable up because it confused to many people.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'tony kanaan, indy, fuel, ignite, inferno, burn, pit stop, edmunton, indycar' to 'tony kanaan, indy, fuel, ignite, inferno, burn, pit stop, edmonton, indycar' - edited by Fusionaut

Totally entertaining. Worst scientific method ever. GET A DECENT RAMP AND RUN THE HUGE TIRE AGAIN DANGIT! It's no secret that it'd dominate the rest by a landslide. And I'd love to see a monster-truck tire as well.
Also.
Arvana is entirely correct that the experiment is totally pointless due to the fact that friction is removed from the equation. Who cares if their tires roll down a hill fast? What we want to know is how well they perform in a REAL freakin situation. Fun as it was, you can expect that if you roll an enormous tire down a hill, it will "jump" really freaking far off a ramp due to its tremendous momentum. However an extremely efficient, light tire will fly a lame distance. hmm....

...so i'd say this video gives us another fun demonstration of Newtonian physics, but doesn't help us at all when it comes to buying the right tires for our Car/Truck/RiceRocket/IndyCar/SpaceShip/Etc.