What Happens When Racing Has No Rules?

the year is 1974 and the most outrageous Innovative racing series is coming to a close why because it had gotten too expensive and the cars were just too fast this is a series where there were almost no rules there was never a maximum engine size or a minimum weight or any limitations on tires and it resulted in some of the most outrageous Innovations we've ever seen in Motorsports and speeds that were like nothing before it speeds that were quicker than the Formula 1 cars of the time and thanks to these monster vehicles and the massive priz many it also attracted the world's best teams and drivers too in fact every champion of this series also raced in Formula 1 during their careers the series was called Canam the Canadian American challenge Cup Series Can-Am the Canam can challenge Cup Series I recently made a video about what F1 designers would do if there were no rules however unrealistic it's an interesting thought exercise and during my research I was reminded of the Canadian American challenge Cup Series Canan and after watching hours and hours of Old footage I was inspired to make a video about these awesome cars and they were truly awesome you will have heard of some of the manufacturers McLaren Porsche Lola and maybe not some of the others like chaperel and Shadow you will have heard of some of the drivers John certies Bruce McLaren Denny Hume Mark donu Jackie Oliver the list goes on Amon Andrey braam gethin gurny Hill Jones Stewart Canam attracted the best talent but what's more interesting than the manufacturers and the drivers are the engineers Behind These wonderful machines or rather the genius solutions to every Motorsport engineer's lifelong problem how to make a racing car go faster around a circuit Canam was a dream for engineers there were basically no rules Canam had regulatory openness that just doesn't exist in modern Motorsport and that is a huge shame at the start of this series there were only two main requirements to satisfy raw makers Bodywork that covered the tires and a cockpit just about wide enough to fit a passenger so then the car could be called a sports car some 1960s level safety standards also needed to be met but aside from that Engineers could be as creative as they wanted this is the story of Canam the most outrageous race cars you've ever seen and the engineering behind them a wild story of innovation and excessive spending that ultimately led to its own demise so I've been researching a lot I've been looking into all of these cars and I love it I love how wildly different the cars were and I love how raw the tracks were but what I love most is the insane mly different perspectives Engineers took to make racing cars go quickly now I've been looking enough to drive these types of cars before and they are awesome I've also seen these Canan monsters race in real life as well and they are amazing so let's take a look at the most incredible cars from the series and get inside the minds of these Engineers let's take a look at the chaperel 2E that had a massive wing and a DRS system and this incredible machine that had four individual snowmobile engines to each wheel and this insane car another chaperel that focused on aerodynamic so much that it meant the driver couldn't really see where they were going and these windows were added later to the side so that they might be able to see and this McLaren is famous it was fast it was reliable and it dominated Canon then there's this monster Porsche that made a massive technological breakthrough and that developed over 1,100 horsepower and and let's take a fresh look at the engineering behind this unusual looking car a car that used fans to suck itself to the ground where I'll break down exactly how it worked including the crazy engineering behind the skirts what's amazing here is that all of this change all of these crazy bizarre engineering developments happened over a period of just8 years from 1966 to 74 and just look at the massive difference between the cars this really was the time in Motorsport history when Engineers did crazy things and came up with some of the most wonderfully weird cars we've ever seen I mean just take a look at this car it's the chapero 2E and it's insane it was designed by this guy Texan Jim Hall he' driven in F1 but then decided to start his own team and he didn't design any boring cars he was an engineer at heart and was known for using research and data collection rather than trial and error like many of the other teams and the two is interesting for a couple of reasons first it's that Wing just look at the size of it now this wasn't the first wing used in Motorsport there are other examples of crazy Engineers figuring out that danam force was good just take a look at this from 1928 it's the opal RK which aside from looking a bit like a plane was also powered by a rocket of course and we have this cute Porsche 550 with a wing simply Bolt on the top the driver Michael May added the wing for the 1956 nurburg ring 1,000 km race and went on to lap 4 seconds faster than the factory Porsche team the factory team then lodged a protest against May which stuck and so unfortunately the car never raced with the wing anyway back to the 2E massive Wing the interesting thing here is how it was mounted on something like an F1 car the rear wing is mounted to the rear Crush structure which in turn turn is mounted to the gearbox but think about the whole point of downforce and aerodynamics it's to push the tires into the circuit harder thereby creating more grip which enables the car to go around the corner quicker so on an F1 car and most other race cars the load has to pass through the suspension before it makes its way into the tires and onto the track but the 2E was different and it was clever I'll let Jim Hall explain for himself an important feature of the wing is that the load that comes out of the wing is loaded onto these struts which go down and hook onto the rear suspension so that it's not transmitted through the body in the spring system of the car it actually goes directly to the rear wheels so the dam Force goes straight into the wheels and this is a huge Advantage when downforce has to travel through the suspension you have to use stiffer Springs because if you use normal Springs the car would literally push itself into the ground but then if you use stiffer Springs the car is left compliant and it won't have as much mechanical grip meaning it will be slower in the slow corners and it'll be harder to drive but Jim wasn't done there there's much more to this Wing this wing also had DRS you go to to a low drag position for the straightaway we go with a with a more or less trim air foil however this DRS system wasn't controlled by a button on the steering wheel but with a pedal now you might think that the low standard of safety in the 1960s meant that the driver would be able to accidentally leave the wing in low down Force mode and then be surprised at the next corner but Jim had thought of this the center of pressure of the wing is forward of the pivot so that it always wants to turn away from where it's hinged and to activate the wing the driver had an extra pedal to the left of the brake pedal this car actually didn't have a clutch as it was automatic which was also really strange for a race car so going down the straight the driver would use their left foot to press the wing pedal and then when they came to a corner they'd mve their left foot to the brake away from the wing pedal and because of the pivot Points on the mounting the wing would snap back to high down Force Mode ready for the corner simple and very clever and that wasn't all for the arrow at this point in time most car radiators were in the nose of the car but take a look at the 2E there's no big gaping hole at the front so instead Hall plac the radiators on the hips of the car back here which actually looks remarkably like a modern F1 car with the radiator free from the front of the car he could use this space for something else something that would help balance the car when the rear was in low downforce mode in order to balance that Wing it's got It's got a similar system in the front it's got a duct like our radiator duct that comes in underneath and exits the top but there's no Radiator in there so we can control the air flow in there with a with a flap that uh modulates uh the amount of air flow through there and changes the air aerodynamic character of the car so with a secret automatic transmission Wings when no one else had wings and a version of DRS you'd expect Jim Hall's cars to have dominated right well unfortunately not yes the car was quick especially up against the non-winged competition but it wasn't all that reliable and so it only won a single race and came fourth and fifth in the 1966 Championship with Phil Hill and Jim Hall respectively okay so a big wing and DRS work that makes sense but how about four two-stroke 110 horsepower snowmobile engines connected to each wheel individually yes that sounds crazy and yes it is crazy but before we get into the minds of these Engineers I need to tell you how you can get the mind of an engineer with brilliant.org brilliant is where you learn by doing with thousands of interactive lessons in maths data analysis programming and a I their learning platform is designed to be uniquely effective helping you build understanding from the ground up brilliant helps you build your critical thinking skills through problem solving not memorizing which I know helps me a lot you'll also become a better thinker whilst building real knowledge on specific topics I like the scientific thinking course where you'll engage with scientific principles and theories from Gears and pulley to Einstein's special theory of relativity is perfect for Learners of every level with no heavy math required brilliant gives you access to all their content for free for a full 30 days just visit brilliant.org driver61 to start your free trial today or screen the QR code on screen you'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription this is the max it special it was entered into the 1970 season by Innovation racing and was driven by Japanese F1 driver Hiroshi Fida unfortunately there's not a turn of information about this car which is a shame because it's incredibly interesting I just have so many questions about this car with obviously the main one being why does it have four engines 1970s Racing Engines weren't known for reliability so why on Earth add an extra three and what on Earth was it like to drive surely it just pulled all over the place and finally although I think I might know the answer to this was it fast well first of all how was it laid out well take a look at this image this shows the front of the car and you can see two 775 CC Two Strokes wedged in the chassis here and here and the drive shafts that come out to the wheels just here and here's the rear of the car just look at how tightly squeezed in the engines are and this is why we love Canam The Audacity Of thinking up this wild idea and then taking it to a race meeting this car was designed by a guy called Jack Hall who believe that having separate engines for each Corner would produce more power and grip than a single engine and to be fair we're actually seeing that in Formula student competitions right now where they run individual electric motors on each wheel which does help control the car however there's a big difference electric motors can be controlled individually and use software to decide how much power to give each wheel whereas the max it special could not do this the team first tested County Speedway but of course the car kept on breaking but Jack wanted to see his creation race so the team took it to the 9th race of the 1970 Canam season at Laguna sea so it was finally time to see how the special compared to more traditional race cars and to find out whether having four engines was going to be a big step forward in Motorsport engineering and unfortunately it wasn't fca's fastest lap was a 1 minute and 29 seconds which was 12 seconds off the next slowest car and 30 seconds of pole position of the chapero 2J a car we'll be talking about in a few moments so it was not a success but you do have to admire the ambition of the team next up is another chapparel Jim Hall was at it again the amazing thing about chaperel is just how different the cars are just take a look at these the one the 2 a the 2D the 2 e the 2f the the 2H and the 2J all wildly different concepts Jim was a busy boy but this unusual looking car was chappel's least successful entrance and one of the reasons was that Jim who is usually the engineer and the driver wasn't the development driver John certis drove it for us in uh in 19 uh 69 very very unsuccessfully unfortunately when he should have been driving he was lying in hospital with two broken legs anyway onto the design and Engineering just take a look at the concept for this car the concept was to produce as little drag and as much downforce as possible what we now call aerodynamic efficiency now this design never actually got raced and the information behind it is a bit limited but take a look at this image this is during testing at rattlesnake Raceway a great name for a circuit by the way and you can see that the cockpit is covered like the previous concept design and you can see the car actually running here too but the car that went on to race actually looked like this so why the change well the new test driver John 30s complains so much about the lack of visibility when driving and to be fair just take a look at the window so Jim Hall then added these side windows hoping that they'd be enough but for 30s at least they weren't the car was redesigned with a more upright seat seating position for the driver so they could see over the top however that killed the aerodynamics of the original concept and made the 2 a bit of a dog to drive but beyond the Bodywork design there were some incredible breakthroughs with this car it was the first race car to have a composite monoco chassis so it was like the tub in an F1 car a stressed member and the rest of the car was bolted to it but even more interestingly it also had a type of active suspension as we saw in F1 in the 90s and in special cars like the Porsche 919 Evo this car actually has uh load levelers on it so that we took the pitch out of it again it's got Dynamic load leveling it's done with hydraulics so when the when the when it goes to its high down Force position it also turns on hydraulic uh system that uh that puts the car right back where it belongs so basically the wing on the rear of the car is like DRS low drag for the Straits more downforce for the corners usually when you have more downforce from a rear wing you can press the rear suspension more which can affect the balance of the car and make it harder to drive however when the 2 goes into high downforce mode it activates a hydraulic system that supports the rear suspension keeping the car in the best pitch for cornering and away from scraping along the truck surface and there's more we now see Vortex generators on Modern F1 cars all the time like here here and here but again Jim was well ahead of his time he added Vortex generators in front of the radiator to energize the air flow one of the things I love about Jim Hall is how clearly he explains these Concepts just listen to him explain the two h's Vortex generators Vortex generators are used to uh cause a swirl to mix the air flow because as you travel as the air flow travels along along surfaces it loses some energy so if you mix it up uh you get better air flow into the radiator so with a car that wasn't as sleek and low drag as intended Jim went for the late edition of this monstrous Wing in an effort to increase cornering speeds But ultimately the car didn't perform finishing the highest of fourth position in a season that the McLaren dominated so while the 2 wasn't a success I love it as it really demonstrates the spirit of the Canam series now let's jump to 1973 McLaren had domination in Canan through 1967 with the m6a in 68 with the m8a in 69 1970 with the m8d and 71 with the m8f these were all fantastic cards all seriously quick all Championship winning but in 1972 Porsche came to play with the 917 now the 91710 raced in 1972 it was cool and it won the championship but the 1973 version the 91730 was monstrous and that's what I want to examine here just take a look at it this thing was massive and it wasn't just outrageous on the outside either underneath was a 5.4 L Flat 12 turbocharged engine that produced 1100 horsepower in racing trim and a reported 1,500 but probably more like 1200 horsepower in qualifying this was an Engine That Could Accelerate from n to 125 miles per hour in 4 and a half seconds and had a top speed of 240 and look we all know that it was dominant winning all but two rounds in 1973 but I don't want to focus on the fact that it killed Canam I want to examine the engineering the portion may look chunky from the outside but underneath the Bodywork it was actually quite delicate between all of chassis and the suspension everything is made of either aluminum magnesium or titanium a perfect example is the the wheel as you can see is very light complete with Tire a front suspension there hardly anything to it where is the McLaren and others of the time used aluminium monox the 91730 was made of small diameter aluminium tubing and look however beautiful it may be it also looks absolutely terrifying it's basically made up of of only a few parts a seat with the driver's legs in front of the axle which is always scary a flat 12 engine bolted behind the driver and four fuel tanks that carry 400 L of high octane fuel oh and of course a bit of suspension and a few tires but what this car was really famous for was the reason for its power the turbochargers what turbocharging is the exhaust from the motor comes out the bottom of the motor and comes into this half of the turbocharger and that turns a turbine which in turn turns this turbine and this turbine draws air from the outside in this duct and forces it under pressure into the engine of course turbos are common place in today's Road and race cars but proper use of this technology was pioneering in the early 70s and Porsche were the first team to get turbos working consistently well in Motorsport however Porsche were not the very first to use turbos in racing the first turbocharged engine to be raced was the Curtis craft cumins diesel in 1952 there had never been anything like it at Indianapolis before the car managed to get pole of the Indie 500 but the turbo broke on lap 71 of 200 then another turbo powerered car ran in the 1968 Indie 500 with an often Houser engine and in fact it won that year with Bobby uner but Porsche made them work consistently and that's What mattered most for Canam racing okay so now we're jumping back to the 1970 season again we're still in the period of McLaren dominance and they'd won the first two races of the 70 season but then Jim Hall came in with a new car at round three at Watkins Glenn and rolled one of the most unusual cars we've ever seen off his trailer Jim has a sensational new car for this year's Canam Series so let's wish him luck with it this car looked like nothing else on the Grid it's a bit difficult to tell that it's even a car well it was and its name was the chapero 2J and I'm sure you've seen it before but I want to tell you about how the car actually worked and it's more than just a couple of fans out of all the weirdness and Innovation chaperel brought to racing this was the most weird and the most technically interesting and it makes my mindboggle at how Jim Hall thought outside the box almost every single season and the two UJ was special it would go so fast around the corners that it had everybody afraid of what what it might do so how did it work well the first thing is that it doesn't have any wings so it didn't look like any of the other cars on the grid and it didn't have wings because the whole philosophy behind this car was that it sucked itself into the ground using fans now I won't spend too much time on the fans as I'm sure you've seen it before but very basically there was a 250 CCC snowmobile engine producing 4 45 horsepower powering these two fans oh and they were taken from a tank the underside of the car had these skirts so that the suction didn't leak out too much and the skirts were actually more interesting than the fans but more on that in a second the engine and the fans could move 9,650 cubic feet of air a minute and produce a negative pressure or suction equal to 2,200 the same weight as the car and as you might have picked up from our other videos using fans is great because unlike organic Arrow it works even when the car is cornering slowly 75% of the car's footprint was used to suck itself down and unusually the 2J also had skirts at the front and rear of the floor different to what we saw when F1 used skirts in the 80s that's because F1 didn't have fans and needed the air to enter at the front and be sped up by the diffuser at the rear anyway back to these incredible skirts it's made of lexand so it will stand a 200 mph impact now take a look at this picture I've managed to uncover from the internet this is the skirt and this is a genius Contraption we know thanks to suspension that when a car breaks turns and accelerates the chassis Dives rolls and squats in a normal race car this is a bit of a pain for example the distance from the floor to the ground and its angle will constantly change when going through these motions and aerodynamic ists hate this it's not consistent and it lowers performance but when a car that has skirts rolls and Dives the problem is even bigger the skirt is either being driven into the track or there's a large gap with air leaking in and ruining that suction effect so what you actually want is for the skirt to be mounted to the wheel hubs as they're always the same distance away from the track surface and that's what Jim Hall did but it's not just a case of bolting the skirt to the hubs we're working backwards here but the skirt is connected to this mechanism that goes through this rocker and into some kind of thick cable now I couldn't find any images of what's actually going on in the suspension but I can only imagine that this goes onto something like an anti-roll bar so when the car rolls through a right hander the left skirt retracts and the right skirt extends keeping a perfectly small gap between the skirt and the track and keeping all of that lovely lower pressure where it should be I mean genius simple mechanical genius the floor is sealed and the skirts barely wear it's brilliant so was it fast well yes it was you can go just almost as fast as a driver could stand you could pull enough G's on him that that he'd black out Jimmy explains that it had Pole Position all fastest lap at every track that it went to but it wasn't without problems Jim also said that the 2J never finished the race with all of its systems working not great when trying to win a motor race which the 2J never did and the other teams and drivers complained they said the car was dangerous and illegal and maybe it was but to be honest they were more worried about the car's potential because if chaperel were to get this thing working properly it was going to dominate in fact that's exactly what McLaren said that if the 2J were not outlawed the Canam series would be ruined by its dominance which is ironic because that's something that McLaren had been doing themselves for 3 years straight and would continue to do so until Porsche came to Canam and so the 2J was banned from competing at the end of the 1970 season sadly this marked the end of making these types of cars for Jim Hall the rle makers had banned all of his incredible inventions and he was tired of it so in in 3 years they just about eliminated every Everything we'd done uh for the for the last period of time anyway it was a discouraging factor for us and very very costly however the team did make a comeback with an indie car in the late 70s and with some success there are tons more interesting Canon cars that I simply haven't had time to write about but let me know if you'd like to see more if you like this check out this video where I spoke to an xf1 aerodynamicist about what he'd do if there are no rules in F1 thanks for watching and please consider subscribing

Channel: Driver61

Views: 776,397

Keywords: Driving, Coaching, Motorsport, Engineering, F1, Racing, Incredible Motorsport, Driver61, Scott Mansell, can am, chaparral, chaparral 2J, chaparral 2e, chaparral 2h, Porsche 917

Id: 5rtf_bg6_3A

Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 31 2024