Motor racing or Car racing is a sport involving racing automobiles. Car racing began in 1895, and now it is one of the most popular sport of world.
Car Racing began soon after the construction of the first successful car running on petrol.
In auto racing, the car setup is the set of adjustments made to the vehicle in order to optimize its performance. Adjustments can be made in suspensions, brakes, transmission, engines, tires, and many others things.
Dirt racing has been part of Americas racing heritage since the sport was born, and can still be found at local tracks everywhere.
Aerodynamics has played a major role in car racing since the late 1960s, when introduction of the first inverted wings appeared in some formulas. After that time, improved wing systems taken from the aeronautic technology made leaps forward, improving consistently lap times, increasing cornering speeds and vehicle stability. With the introduction of the ground effect a few years later the vehicles used a third element (the underbody) to produce downforce, and hence improve the performances.
By studying the trends of the last thirty years we see that aerodynamics is a reason behind the success of a racing car, since tire and engine technology have made a comparatively small progress. Furthermore, tires are not manifactured to fit the particular needs of a single racing team, while engines (in Indy Cars) often are developed in series for more than one team.
Aerodynamics is a subject more open to speculation, interest, advancement. These conclusions lead us to the analysis of the aerodynamic tools: computational aerodynamics, wind tunnel testing, and aerodynamic design and optimization.
The first design that used aerodynamics other that body streamlining did not appear until the 1960s. By then it was recognized how an increase in downforce would provide more grip to the track and hence more speed. This idea was technically developed by Chevrolet- Chaparral in 1966 with their Can-Am racing car. The engineers mounted an inverted wing on two vertical struts above the rear axial. The wing could be pitched during racing to provide the optimal value of downforce.
These ideas were developed quickly, and a few years later several Formula 1 teams mounted inverted wings on the rear axial, combined with a smaller front wing.
Another important innovation was introduced by Chevrolet- Chaparral in 1970. It consisted in reducing the pressure under the car by means of suction and lateral sealing skirts. Their sucker car (model Chaparral 2J) reached cornering speeds of 1.7 g, and soon was considered too dangerous. It was banned after a few races.
The ground effect car was introduced by Team Lotus in their 1978 Formula 1 car. By shaping the underbody with appropriate channels, and using side pods to increase the effective area, the car provided much larger values of downforce. The idea, again, was simple. Ground effect was a known concept in aerodynamics. It just needed a technical solution to be fully exploited.
Racing teams have been devoting more and more time to the development of the aerodynamics of their cars. They have done so (and they still do it) with track and wind tunnel testing. Track testing is widely recognized for being too expensive and dependent on many casual events. The advantage, of course, is that the car is tested in its actual configuration in a real world situation.
The wind tunnel is the technical answer of the aerodynamic engineers. The wind tunnels are nowdays very sophisticated, and allow a wide range of studies, including modeling of the car in compete configuration, ground plane simulation, etc.
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