Monday 12th July 2004

Push to Pass

More power available at key moments for Champ Car racers

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Champ car racing is to become more interactive with the announcement of the new "Push to Pass" feature. It will allow drivers the ability to boost their power by 50 horsepower at critical moments during the street race.

The feature will be used in the next race at Denver. "Denver is a notoriously tight, difficult course, making passing very tricky over each 1.65 mile lap," explained General Manager John Frew. "The Push-to-Pass technology gives the drivers more ability to pass and with the redesign of turn 5 we expect a lot of action this year."

Each driver has a total of 60 seconds' worth of power boosts and can use the extra power any time they choose. When a driver presses his Push-to-Pass button, a light begins flashing on the rear of his car. This light alerts the other drivers behind him that he is getting ready to make a move. Meanwhile, state-of-the art telemetry enables everyone from a driver's own crew, and other teams, the spectators along the course, and people watching the race on TV to know how much Push-to-Pass capability each driver has left.

"We worked with our engine makers, Ford-Cosworth, to develop this," said Kevin Vander Laan, CHAMP Car's electronics manager. He continued, "There's a button on the dash, and the driver pushes it in advance of when he wants the power boost. Push-to-Pass doesn't kick in until his throttle is engaged at 80 percent or higher, and it shuts off when he throttles down below 80 percent."

Links:

• www.gpdenver.com
• www.champcarworldseries.com

[DavidCane]

'Push to pass' has been used since the start of this season.
It's not a new feature for the Detroit GP.

DC

[thepeoplespal]

DavidCane said:

'Push to pass' has been used since the start of this season. It's not a new feature for the Detroit GP. DC

So does it work then?

[HarryW]

Still recon this is one way to improve F1 give them a 15lb NoS bottle each .
Currently they can temp lift the rev limit to get past difficult cars, this in itself is a judgement call that could effect the longivity of the engine so limits its use.
Also in the Turbo era of F1 the 'wick' could also be turned up to overtake, not only did they have reliabilty to worry about but they had no fuel stops so they could and did often run out of fuel before the end.
Whatever they do if it improves the watchabilty of a race, bring it on .


Harry

[Road_Terrorist]

I've also thought that the nitrous idea would be good. Would add an extra tactical element into the proceedings, ie should you use it right from the start, or save it all for the end of the race. At the moment everyone in F1 is far too comfortable, time to shake them up. No need to get rid off too much technology though, otherwise you might as well give them go karts