A.J. Made Things Go

Here are two of the cars that A.J. Foyt drove to wins. The first is the 1967 car for his third win. It was a Coyote (Foyt's) chassis and a Ford engine

Notice the chassis offset to the left for left turn ovals only.
They were starting to pay attention to aerodynamics.

Zoom in for all the info.

I love the little flipped up tail.

Here is the 1977 winner his 4th winner. This car was all Foyt's even the engine was a Foyt. It was still pretty close to the Ford Cosworth.

I really like the lack of restoration on this car. It is pretty much the way it came off of the track. Notice the nice high tech rope for pulling the protective plug out of the turbo. You can also see the sideways "T" part of Foyt cast in the engine cam cover.

The engine and mechanical bits are still oily and a light covering of dust. They keep the body shiny but that is all. The cover plate on the header was where they bolted on the pop off valve to control the amount of boost.

Really nice sway bar adjuster.

Engines That Make Them Go

Here is a brief history of some of the major engines used during the first 50 years of the 500.This is the Cummings diesel 400 cu. in. engine, it is NOT a major engine from Indy. They tried diesels twice in the 30's and twice in the 50's without much success. The diesel was tried because it could go 500 miles on a tank of diesel without refueling. However the car was so heavy that it wore out tires quickly and they had more pit stops to just change tires.
This is the 1920 Monroe-Frontenac engine. A 4 cylinder 16 valve double overhead cam design. The Meyer-Drake Offy running in 1966 has the same configuration.

The 1920 Duesenberg strait 8 engine. Duesenberg ran Indy all through the 20's with basically their production engine. If you bought a Duesenberg for the street you got this engine. Today it would be like buying a Toyota Corolla and getting their F1 engine in it. Ooh doggies!

The 1926-29 Duesenberg. Eight cylinders and 90 cu. in.

Their biggest competition was the Miller supercharged engine. 91 cu. in.

During the 30's Duesenberg fell out of favor and Miller really took over. Here is the 1932 Miller-Offenhauser. 220 cu. in.

Here is the basic Offenhauser block used up until 1966. Very simple but very rugged. Everybody thought they had a better idea on how to coax a few more horsepower out of it than anyone else.

Another version of the Miller engine used during the 30's. The differences where mainly caused by the Miller race cars being front wheel drive so the engines were in their cars backwards.

In the 50's Meyer-Drake took over building what had been the Offenhauser engine. This would be the engine of choice until 1966.

The other side of the Meyer-Drake.

This engine based on a stock Ford block was designed by Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth and opened the door to all sorts of engines. However the Cosworth engine has probably won more major races than any other engine.

The car that changed American racing!

Here is the 1961 Cooper-Climax driven by Sir Jack Brabham. American racing was stuck it a rut. They had taken the roadster design as far as it could go. This car qualified for 9th and finished 9th. Not very earth shaking, but it did. A lot of people fought for several more years to run roadsters but they were doomed.I wish they had put this car next to a roadster to show the size difference. This car is tiny.
Front suspension. An adjustable shock and a simple swaybar adjustment.

Simple rear suspension.

Nice and simple office space.

Here you can see the large gas tank.

Doesn't look like a world changing car.

a Brief Indy History

In the early days at Indy they would have all sorts of events to try and make money. The track was in financial trouble from the very start. So anyone that wanted to put on an event was welcomed. They even had balloon races starting in the infield. Motorcycle racing was one of the more popular races that were put on. Mary has been posting some of the history and a lot about all of the trophies. Here is a link to her blog http://thisthatotherthing-mary.blogspot.com/ The Indy museum has a few of the old bikes. An early Harley.
The real racers back then were Indians!
Another Indian.

A Geugeot. Not quite as well known brand.

And now today they are racing bikes at Indy again.

Indy has had its ups and downs over the years but if they could get F1 back along with the 500, the brickyard 400 and the MotoGP they would truly be the Motor Racing Capitol of the World as they have long claimed.

My next post will be about the engines of Indy.

...a Place To Go Fast

OK. this is the month of May. I was born, raised and live in Indiana so the month of May is the Indy 500. I may like a lot of different styles of racing, preferring a mixture of left and right turns, but the 500 is the 500. This year is the 100th anniversary of the track, 2011 will be the 100th anniversary for the 500. The track was originally built as a test track for all of the cars that were built in Indiana and they were trying to make Indiana the car capitol of the world. Henry Ford built his factory in Detroit and the world changed.This is the 1903 Premier Special built in Indy. It was built for the Vanderbilt Cup Race but was 300 pounds over the weight limit. Race cars then had a max weight limit! The engine is 923 cu in with 100 HP at 1000 RPM. It's best speed was 59.21 MPH
Here is the 1911 Cole 30 built in Indy.

1914 Marmon Roadster Built in Indy.

1903 Premier built in Indy. See the Special in the first picture, win on Sunday sell on Monday.

1908 Richmond Surrey. Built in Richmond Indiana.

1909 Haynes built in Kokomo Indiana.

1914 Stutz built in Indy. Their most famous car being the Bearcat.

I have not include any Auburn's, Cords or Duesenbergs the big three of Indiana.

Sometime in the future I will hit that museum.

And the winning car from the 1911 first 500 the Marmon Wasp (picture by others) built in Indy.

I talked to one of the museum people about the color of the car and he said that it should be more orange but during an early restoration it was changed but it was so long ago that color photo's don't exist.

Motorcycles were also raced at the track. Some of those will be next.

....and Things That Go by Human Power

While taking my wife to a local nature reserve I stumbled upon Civil Engineering students from My Alma Mater practicing with their concrete canoes.

Girls team

U of E. When I went we didn't get to do such fun stuff. They now build Formula SAE cars, Off road car and such.
Boys team. They didn't seem too energetic. The girls were the other direction.

This is Sam. We go to church together. Sam was showing off his new 24 speed trike that he is planning to ride across the US starting in Maine this June. He got the bike last week and put 300 miles on it in 5 days. Sam is quite the character. He had a bad motorcycle wreck when he was 16 and his right arm doesn't work and his right leg barely works.

I think this is his plan to scare off big semi's.

I have visited the Air Force bone yard in Tucson before. This is where they have planes saved for use later or for spares for what they have.This year I went down the street to a private junk yard where they take the items that have been totally stripped and recover the base metals. They also let you wonder through a lot of the area.

Old jet engines fascinate me. The old burner tubes. I would love to take one apart.

Instruments are useful.

Landing gear and wing tanks.

Old F-86 Fuselage's. These are at least 50 years old. Someone just doesn't have the heart to melt them down.

Jet canopies. What could you use these for?

Old radial engines are works of art.

It looks like they needed the jugs, but not much else.