Nascar Car Of The Future

Ingram: Mid-Ohio Retains Charm After 25 Years

Steam Corners, Ohio – Top Ten from the ALMS/IZOD IndyCar weekend at Mid-Ohio:

1. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 racing seasons since I drove my new Honda Accord into the pasture adjacent to Les Griebling’s Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (after dropping off my $10 bill to the family gathered in lawn chairs at their farm’s gate) to get a night’s rest prior to the following day’s IMSA Camel GT race.

As usual, I was working. Despite the popping of firecrackers all night and the redolent odor of manure, I managed to get some sleep. In the morning, I proudly crawled out the hatchback of my recently purchased Accord – one of the first on the market and purchased from a young guy in Raleigh by the name of Rick Hendrick, working as the manager of the Honda dealership at Leith Lincoln Mercury.

I stretched, then closed the hatchback just about the time thunder rumbled overhead. Moments later, I realized the beatific owner of this incredible little runabout had locked his keys inside it. Soon, the rain began to fall as I considered my options. There were no pay

inevitable call to a locksmith – on a rainy Sunday morning, which would inevitably treble the price.

Trudging up to the farmhouse, I picked my way through the pasture, and knocked on the kitchen door. After explaining my desperate plight to the beefy farmer in over-alls while dripping wet, I was allowed to use a wall-mounted phone, located just inside the door of the huge kitchen featuring a banquet-sized table in the middle, and given the number to a locksmith in nearby Lexington. Having promised to pay $40 – or nearly one third my weekly salary before taxes – to get to the racetrack perched on the neighboring hillside on time for the Champion Spark Plug Challenge race I had anticipated covering, I was down in the mouth, to say the least.

But soon I began to dry off and feel quite better about my prospects. I found myself in the middle of a “the farmer and his three lovely daughters” story. Along with their mother, three young women were kibitzing over a late breakfast and one was working on sewing a dress. If they were still teens, they were extremely healthy and well grown teens. As the prospects of the nearby race began to drift from consciousness, the beefy farmer suddenly reappeared. “You’ll have to wait outside,” he pratically growled. …And, I eventually made it to my first professional road race on time.

The Future of Indy Car?...... I Hope Not!!!!! - IndyCar Garage

That car has an interesting history.  It should be noted though that USAC has nothing to do with this car at this point.

A few years back, USAC decided to update their silver crown chassis so that it could run on 1.5 mile ovals.  This was done in conjunction with nascar so that they could run silver crowns as a support race.

Here is a pic of the silver crown car before they revised it:

Here is a pic of the revised silver crown car:

USAC continued to use the old silver crown car at dirt tracks, but used the revised car for pavement events.  Car counts were abysmal and nascar gave them fantastic timeslots to run their races on nascar weekends...  thursdays at 3pm or something like that.  The silver crown owners were pretty upset about this whole ordeal because there was already very little return on investment in the silver crown series so the new car was a steep expense.  The revised car never panned out in providing more interest from nascar, and the most unforgivable sin, the car was absolutely hideous.

So, after 2 seasons (2006-2007), USAC capitulated and mothballed the new silver crown car.  All that they accomplished was alienating their owners and shrinking car counts at their silver crown races.

Enter the gold crown car idea:

So the brilliant people (Bruce Ashmore) who brought you the hideous new silver crown car decided to continue to develop the idea.  The gold crown concept is roughly a new body kit that will fit on the "new silver crown car" chassis.  Early in their development, USAC was interested in possibly adding a gold crown division to their circle track lineup (midgest, sprints & silver crowns), but I think they saw how damaged their silver crown division was from their first go around with updating the silver crown car, that they felt that they would do further harm by adding a new division so they stopped allowing their name to be associated with it.

So the gold crown car has been a concept/prototype that has been floating around since 2008.  They have some grandiose plans on their website for running a 10 race series with 5 ovals and 5 road courses, but I will be surprised if that ever happens.  I was surprised to learn that they ran demonstration gold crown laps at Iowa and Milwaukee this year in conjunction with the IndyCar/USAC races.  I heard nothing about it until I read it on their website this morning.

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