early 70's..? Looks like in '72 or so average speed 168 or so... You'd be hard-pressed to average 130 135 in the S with pits and stuff...

 

Why the fluctuations in the 80's and 90's?

 

Hmmm. I don't think so. The qualifying speeds in 1965 were ALL above 150 mph (for the first time ever). In 1964 the qualifying speed average was 152mph.

I think the mid sixties might be the threshhold... i.e. prior to this time a great driver might have pulled it off.

AJ Foyt pulled the pole with 161.233 mph in 1965. This might be where the S driven by Jim Clark (2nd on pole with 160.7mph) driving my S bought back in a time machine, would have won!

 

80's and 90's had major fluctuations for two reasons... major Yellows slowed the field a few races but the main reason is technology... the disallowance of it.

As the speeds get to 220+ the powers that be limit the technology to push the speed back to roughly 210. New technology comes along the next year and the speeds go up.

In the past 8 or 9 years technology has been introduced to slow the cars.

 

Your right. when they got going 235mph or so it got hairy...Lots of nasty wrecks, guys died...

...restricted to the smallest displacement ever this year at three liters...Not surprising honda kicks ass in being able to tweak HP from a small cc...

 

This is fun... I've wanted to put some brainpower to this puzzle for years. Like 15 years!

 

I wonder if the S could sustain 500 miles, turning high eights all day....

 

That's what I've been wondering. I imagine it would be able to as well as those nervous racecars from the 60's.

Still I don't know.

Another thing I've been wondering over is (up to Zoe's other point) the tires... Could stock take those corners full out? If not I think the fastest times you could turn would be much lower than 165... maybe only 145.

 

The S won't go 165...not stock, anyway...and even then it becomes an areodynamic issue around the top end...150 and some small change maybe....The tires, I don't know...I don't think the cornering would be a problem, those are big-ass sweeprs....

 

I think it will. I recall seeing a .mov on this site taken by a guy named Dave (in Belguim) and he was doing 267 km (bumping off the redline). That's about 166mph. Granted it was *somewhat* downhill. The theoretical limit is 167mph I believe.

I don't know about you but *a friend of mine* did 148 and it was still accelarating. I'd say it would be no problem to do speeds in excess of 150. Question is ... how long?