61 replies to this topic

[Gary Jarlson]

I was sitting at pit lane exit at Stardust Racway in 1965. Jim Hall, on his way out, stopped right below me and I could see a reel-to-reel recorder operating in the "passenger" seat.

[Thundersports]

There were strange compartments in an Arrows A2 chassis revealed during restoration wonder if they had any computer relation?

[2F-001]

I was sitting at pit lane exit at Stardust Racway in 1965. Jim Hall, on his way out, stopped right below me and I could see a reel-to-reel recorder operating in the "passenger" seat.

There is a photograph of just that in (I think) Car & Driver. Reportedly, when Hall was asked by their journalist if he could tell him what sort of things they were recording, Hall said no... 

[Michael Ferner]

I missed this one first time around.  What in the name of Hades was a "String Computer"

[Tim's eloquent answer]


Phew, thank gawd - not a computer based on string theory, involving more than a dozen dimensions...

Edited by Michael Ferner, 05 March 2020 - 09:09.

[Doug Nye]

Someone said that one of the 6 wheeled Tyrrells still had the computer gear attached when it came up for sale, he even told me the name of the guy who fitted it - Doctor someone, I thought he was German but that's about all I can remember.

Tyrrell 008 was the same period so that would tie in.

 

Karl Kempf.  American.

 

DCN

[ChrisJson]

The Swedish teamboss Tore Helle had computors on his Rotel-sponsored F3-cars (Conny Andersson) in 1975. I think they only tried it in testsessions. It was a couple of clumsy boxes on the engine. When the car pitted Helle could collect the data on a long paper-slip.

Tomas I always thought Tore was norwegian. Did he change his citizenship when he moved to Trosa?

 

Christer

[Myhinpaa]

Tore Helle on LinkedIn : https://uk.linkedin....-helle-96108125

 

Photo of him in his heavily modified Elva MkVIII (?) with a Porsche 906 engine. ("Helle Elva")

Edited by Myhinpaa, 17 May 2020 - 08:24.

[sabrejet]

I was sitting at pit lane exit at Stardust Racway in 1965. Jim Hall, on his way out, stopped right below me and I could see a reel-to-reel recorder operating in the "passenger" seat.

 

As with many supposed F1 'firsts' (computers, telemetry, carbon fibre, kevlar, slicks, ground effects), Jim or the Can-Am was there many years before. 

 

And didn't Tony Marsh have a computer-controlled diff in his 4WD hill climber? (or so he told anyone who was daft enough to believe him).

[doc knutsen]

Tomas I always thought Tore was norwegian. Did he change his citizenship when he moved to Trosa?

 

Christer

I visited the Viking factory at Trosa in 1975, and Tore Helle was still a Norwegian at that time. He had some great projects going before then, the "widest racing car in Sweden" ie the Helle-Elva one of them. Another was a Mini-based (roughly!) Special Saloon that featured Porsche 906 running gear. The Viking F3 car was a bit of a radical design, using aluminium alloy in some chassis component including the rollover bar. It featured an externally mounted front wing a la the contemporary Hesketh F1 design. Shame that they ran out of money. It was a very ambitious project.

[Henk Vasmel]

I will now quote (in German) from Michael Eichhammer’s Silberpfeile und Kanonen, P.124, about Auto Union in the thirties:

 

… Rudolf Uhlenhaut… kann ein rennwagen selbst bis an seine Grenzen fahren…

Eberan von Eberhorst dagegen werden… jegliche versuche… verboten.

Aber Eberhorst findet einen Weg. Sein Name: Isidor. Dahinter verbirgt sich eine Apparatur, die Eberhorst die Fahrt im Cockpit ersetzen soll. Eberhorst modifiziert das Uhrwerk eines 24 Stunden-LKW-Tachographen, um detaillierte 30-Minuten-Ablesungen zu bekommen. Der Cockpit-Spion Isidor zeichnet Drehzahlen, Geschwindigkeiten, Schaltpunkte, Bremsdrücke, Beschleunigungen und Verzögerungen auf einer Papierscheibe auf.

 

This refers to early 1938, the development of the Auto Union Typ D.

[rl1856]

Jim Hall and Chaparal were mentioned a few times, but computer use in racing cars predates 1965.   Zara Arkus Duntov used GM computers to design parts of the Corvette, and the CERV racing research vehicles.  CERV I was used in tire tests at Daytona and Goodyear in 1961-62, with computers and telemetry attached.  CERV II arrived in 1964 and was used as a rolling test car, always monitored by computer equipment.   Jim Hall had back door access to GM advanced research, and some of the Chaparal program had Chevy/GM input.  In fact look at CERV II and tell me what other racing car it looks like.    

 

There is an anecdote in Sam Posey';s autobiography "The Mudge Pond Express".  Posey was a factory driver for the TransAm program run by Dan Gurney.  He and Dan took part in a test session, in vehicles equipped with computer equipment.  Posey went through collected computer data with a tech, and was able to see how his driving style was different than Gurney's and why Gurney was faster.   Posey later said that insight helped him become a better driver.

 

[2F-001]

The CERV projects (and the data logging and telemetry) are discussed in Paul van Valkenburgh's book "Fourteen years of raucous silence" - along with the fairly deep associations with Chaparral as well as Penske/Donohue, and others.