Can-Am racing to return, how flipping cool is this!!!!

[Streetrod]

Just read this in this months Motor Sport magazine. A new one make series which will capture the spirit of the 70's Can-Am racers. Its going to be called "the Unlimited Racing Championships" with cars built by NuArt.

The cars are 700hp McLaren look alikes. Check out the web site and video

http://www.unlimitedracingchampionship.com/home.ht...

http://www.unlimitedracingchampionship.com/videos....

[Mini1275]

I'm just going to have a lie down.

Oh my.

[Streetrod]

I have been drooling over this real Mclaren M8FP car for sale in the USA for a couple of weeks now so to see a safe up to date version makes me week at the knees:

http://www.fantasyjunction.com/cars/1084-McLaren-M...

[freedman]

Lovely indeed

Will it attract any frontline drivers though?

[Sprint Rich]

Christ on a bike, that is fit as!

[Streetrod]

Judging by the website is seems to be aimed at gentleman races and will support the ALMs series over four races in the first year 2012. Tracks used will be the traditional Can-Am circuits like Leguna Seca and Road America.

I would love to do this in period painted car

[Chris Sideways]

Now that's just car porn,I'm off to the loo

[Streps]

wow
I'll be watching this.

[anonymous-user]

said:

These powerful sounding engines have a patented electronic injection system that features a fly-by-wire throttle with scalable power and traction control to provide a safe and easy learning curve. This is all contained in a visually correct injection system, which was the key signature piece of the Can-Am cars of yesteryear. The NuArt CanAm also features power steering for driving comfort, a traditional “H” pattern synchromesh gearbox and 12-inch brakes to help reign in the power of the mighty aluminum big block engines. This creates a uniquely challenging and fun driver experience that is reminiscent of the days of unlimited Can-Am racing of decades ago

^^^^^ Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ^^^^

Sounds good apart from that.

[Sam the Mut]

johnfelstead said:

said:

These powerful sounding engines have a patented electronic injection system that features a fly-by-wire throttle with scalable power and traction control to provide a safe and easy learning curve. This is all contained in a visually correct injection system, which was the key signature piece of the Can-Am cars of yesteryear. The NuArt CanAm also features power steering for driving comfort, a traditional “H” pattern synchromesh gearbox and 12-inch brakes to help reign in the power of the mighty aluminum big block engines. This creates a uniquely challenging and fun driver experience that is reminiscent of the days of unlimited Can-Am racing of decades ago

^^^^^ Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ^^^^

Sounds good apart from that.

+1 no tc no abs no power steering etc

[Ipelm]

Just another spec formula really for talent deficient businessmen. It has also arrived at a time when sportscar racing in the US is at crossroads, maybe a case of too many choices and not enough sanity at the top level, with too few sponsors to go around, given the lack insight required to see how they can go forward and compete for sponsorship with the good ol boys.

It will never even slightly approximate CanAm, thats gone for good.

Also what the heck is Unlimited about any of this spec stuff

[Jacobyte]

Goodness me, that looks rather fetching. Not sure about the spec stuff and idiot-proofness, but I'll reserve judgement on that for the moment.

It doesn't mention cost, but I'd be surprised if it's much less than buying and running the real thing for a year.

[Fire99]

Personally I'd rather see a formula introduced that is hard. Hard on the cars and hard on the drivers. There must still be some out there who really want to be the best driver (without a technological crutch)

[EDLT]

Streetrod said:

Just read this in this months Motor Sport magazine. A new one make series which will capture the spirit of the 70's Can-Am racers. Its going to be called "the Unlimited Racing Championships" with cars built by NuArt.

The cars are 700hp McLaren look alikes. Check out the web site and video

http://www.unlimitedracingchampionship.com/home.ht...

http://www.unlimitedracingchampionship.com/videos....

Can racing series be sued for false advertising?

[EDLT]

Fire99 said:

Personally I'd rather see a formula introduced that is hard. Hard on the cars and hard on the drivers. There must still be some out there who really want to be the best driver (without a technological crutch)

I'm not sure about being hard on the cars, mechanical breakdowns aren't fun. NASCAR uses fairly simple machinery though, so does stock car racing. The only problem is that they don't do circuits.

[Broady88]

Had these cars on a stand at Petit Le Mans. Talking to the guys they were looking to get maybe 16 or 18 sold for next year and to race at "classic North American tracks". Road Atlanta, Laguna Seca, Road America, Mid-Ohio being ones that were mentioned. Trust me they look as good in the flesh as they do in PR shots & allegedly sound great too. Sadly couldn't persuade them to fire one up!!

[Streetrod]

Fire99 said:

Personally I'd rather see a formula introduced that is hard. Hard on the cars and hard on the drivers. There must still be some out there who really want to be the best driver (without a technological crutch)

Look the old Can-Am cars were basically dangerous. Massive engines strapped to the back of a very basic chassis with your feet hanging in front of the axel line. From a romantic point of view they were real "He-Man" cars that were actually faster than the F1 cars of the day. Much as I love them I don’t think I would have the guts to drive one in anger today.

The introduction of electronic fuel injection to the porcupine stack makes the car easier to tune and work on. Anyone who has worked with a mechanical Hilborn fuel injection would welcome that update.

Crash structures and power steering are just sensible updates. Traction control I'm not sure. Remember this is going to be a gentleman’s class.

The fact is this is a very light, short wheelbase, 700hp monster with looks to die for, what is not to like.

As for costs, it won’t be cheap at £300,000 as a turnkey package or you can rent one. Costs per race appear to be about £12,500 which if I'm not mistaken is cheaper than running an original in period.

If this series works and it appears the first ten cars are already sold then would it not be great if other manufactures got involved with similar period type cars. Ok a sensible set of rules would have to be introduced unlike the no rules formula of original series but it could be made to work and would make a spectacular formula to watch and take part in

[anonymous-user]

Streetrod said:

Look the old Can-Am cars were basically dangerous. Massive engines strapped to the back of a very basic chassis with your feet hanging in front of the axel line. From a romantic point of view they were real "He-Man" cars that were actually faster than the F1 cars of the day. Much as I love them I don’t think I would have the guts to drive one in anger today.

Far too much of a generalisation and quite wrong too. I'd much rather crash a CanAm car than an F1 car of the same period, you have far more protection. I've worked with lots of CanAm cars over the years, i've driven a few too. Some are safer than others as you would expect, most don't have your feet in front of the axle line and have substantial chassis structures for the period. It was in CanAm where race cars lept ahead in technology terms, they were far more developed than F1 cars because the rules were so limited, that development included safety, not just speed.

[anonymous-user]

Streetrod said:

Look The introduction of electronic fuel injection to the porcupine stack makes the car easier to tune and work on. Anyone who has worked with a mechanical Hilborn fuel injection would welcome that update.

As for costs, it won’t be cheap at £300,000 as a turnkey package or you can rent one. Costs per race appear to be about £12,500 which if I'm not mistaken is cheaper than running an original in period.

There is nothing difficult about running a Lucas/Kinsler fuel injection system, it's a piece of cake. Simple electric fuel pump used to fire the engine, then once it's out on track you switch that off and it runs off a cosworth mechanical fuel pump. It basically either works or it doesn't (never had one go down in 7 years). Tuning it is simply a case of timing up the metering unit then altering the shim stack to set your mixture, then you can alter the mixture at the circuit to compensate for altitude by the turn of a cam, which takes about half a second. Of course they are not as tunable and fuel efficient as a modern ECU, but when you have 820BHP/Lbft you arn't really looking for the last 20BHP, and everyone else is in the same boat anyway.

I wish i could say the same with a racing ECU.

Running a Can Am car cost wise depends on what it is you are running, the big block cars are more work intensive because the engine is trying to tear the car apart, but they are so well understood now you can build them with a lot of strength in areas that used to break. Running a small block car is much cheaper, the engines are pretty much bullit proof, both can be run for a lot less than the sums above if you have used the right parts in the build.

[moffspeed]

OK but if you resurrect the series it can't all be McLarens surely..