Guide to Monterey Weekend 2005
Guide to Monterey Weekend 2005
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From: Fairfield County
Originally Posted by dlq04,Aug 16 2005, 08:36 PM
The Lexus fashion show should be fun....................
Hi Dave,
If I see Lauren there, I'll say "Hi!" for you!
[Yes, that's me standing in the shadows]
Joined: Jan 2001
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From: Mish-she-gan
Paul, I am expecting a full report/photos on the Chaparral race cars which will be featured at the Historic races.
The story of Jim Hall, the west Texas oil man and mechanical engineer, and how his personal vision engineered the transition of American sports car racing from the end of the front-engined era with his first front-engined Chaparral (which was a direct descendant of the magnificent Reventlow Scarabs) to the ground-breaking mid-engined Chaparrals is one of the great stories in all of motorsports history.
Some of the advanced technical concepts making their debut on the Chaparrals in the '60s were composite chassis technology (which Hall learned from his love of flying and what was being done in aircraft construction), the manual gearbox with an automatic clutch mechanism (commonly referred to at the time as an automatic transmission - a first for racing applications), the exploration of aerodynamic principles as applied to racing cars, including movable aerodynamic devices (driver-controlled front and rear-mounted wings) and the "black art" of ground-effects technology (this came to life in the Chaparral 2J, which used fans powered by an auxiliary engine to "suck" the car down on to the pavement to achieve unheard levels of cornering performance), and much, much more.
And the fact that General Motors engineers, designers and aerodynamicists were knee-deep in all of this and contributed immeasurably to the Chaparral program makes the Jim Hall story that much more intriguing. It was during the time when GM was helping Jim through the "back door" of Chevy engineering, while Ford was running its racing program out in the open. Even though we happen to prefer the Ford approach - competing openly and promoting its involvement, it still doesn't detract from what a few dedicated people were able to accomplish with the incredible Chaparrals.
The story of Jim Hall, the west Texas oil man and mechanical engineer, and how his personal vision engineered the transition of American sports car racing from the end of the front-engined era with his first front-engined Chaparral (which was a direct descendant of the magnificent Reventlow Scarabs) to the ground-breaking mid-engined Chaparrals is one of the great stories in all of motorsports history.
Some of the advanced technical concepts making their debut on the Chaparrals in the '60s were composite chassis technology (which Hall learned from his love of flying and what was being done in aircraft construction), the manual gearbox with an automatic clutch mechanism (commonly referred to at the time as an automatic transmission - a first for racing applications), the exploration of aerodynamic principles as applied to racing cars, including movable aerodynamic devices (driver-controlled front and rear-mounted wings) and the "black art" of ground-effects technology (this came to life in the Chaparral 2J, which used fans powered by an auxiliary engine to "suck" the car down on to the pavement to achieve unheard levels of cornering performance), and much, much more.
And the fact that General Motors engineers, designers and aerodynamicists were knee-deep in all of this and contributed immeasurably to the Chaparral program makes the Jim Hall story that much more intriguing. It was during the time when GM was helping Jim through the "back door" of Chevy engineering, while Ford was running its racing program out in the open. Even though we happen to prefer the Ford approach - competing openly and promoting its involvement, it still doesn't detract from what a few dedicated people were able to accomplish with the incredible Chaparrals.
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