That one above, on car No 153, with its slotted flap design, should
really work, with out generating too much drage. Probably worth
while for serious competition.
I am not a fan for road driving. They will not work at anything like
legal speed, & attract too much unwanted legal type attention.
Besides, my second 7 came with one, & the water getting in, past the
bolts, had caused so much rust, that I found it easier to replace,
rather than repair, the boot lid.
The F1 that I raced was the last of the "unspoiled" Brabhams. The
next car produced had wings & spoilers, as did the same production
model Lotus, [a 39 I think].
The 4 top cars in Oz that year were an FVA Mc Larran, my Brabham, &
a new Lotus, & a new Brabham, the 2 latter with wings. With the
wings, thay had a little [about 25 BHP] more power, which seemed to
be absorbed by their wings, as they had very little on us down a
straight, & nothing I could detect around corners.
Their bigger drag allowed us to get a tow from a little further back
than we could from other cars, with out wings, right up to
approaching 180 MPH. Brabham offered us a wing kit for ours, but I
did not think it made enough improvement, then in those early days
of downforce, & the car owner was happy to save the money.
At Bathurst, in those days, there was a second "hump", where the
chase now is. The F1s had to slow to between 155, & 160 MPH to take
it, or we got airborne, long enough to over rev our engines. The
winged cars could not go any faster here either. A Ferrari P4, & a
couple of Trans Am [Can Am?] sports cars could take it at about 165/170 MPH
due to their body shape induced downforce, but a bloke in a Lotus
19B was killed that year, when he flipper over backwards, trying to
follow them, at that speed. When another bloke was killed the next
year, they added the chase, to make it safer. I have always thought
it a bit silly to have safe, & motor racing, in the same sentence.
I do go on, don't I, sorry about that, chief.
Hasbeen
