[Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2017 issue of Grassroots Motorsports.]
And this is where it ends, the story of the loopy, love-it-or-hate-it DeltaWing that was, inarguably, among the most revolutionary race cars of your lifetime–regardless of when “your lifetime” began.
That ending is being written at Wire Wheel Classic Sports Cars, the Vero Beach, Florida, dealer that specializes in …
Though it looked much larger than the then-current Dallara, the DeltaWing was about 6 inches longer, and the width at the rear, 70 inches, was about the same. “Here are the key points,” Ganassi told me, reciting the spiel he, and soon Don Panoz, would repeat hundreds of times for the media. “Half the cost of the current car, half the weight, half the drag, half the downforce, uses half the fuel–same speed. Which is 230 mph on 300 horsepower. And safer than the current car.”
“I think it’s very cool,” said Jimmy Vasser, former open-wheel champion driver and then a team owner. “If people are flipping through the channels on the TV and they come upon a bunch of these cars racing, they are gonna stop and watch for a while. And we need that. We have to do something to counter that other racing series that seems to be getting all the attention.”
NASCAR, he meant. In that sense, not much has changed since 2010. The consensus, by the IndyCar people who didn’t dismiss the DeltaWing outright, was that the series had to do something.
“I’m fascinated by it,” said Kurt Antonius, then the head of public relations for Honda. “It’s time for IndyCar to make some big statement. I say let’s build a few, put ’em on the track, and see what happens.”
As you likely know, Chip Ganassi formally presented the DeltaWing concept to the ICONIC Committee (Innovative, Competitive, Open-Wheel, New, Industry-Relevant, Cost-Effective) and the IndyCar Series; also presented were cars from Dallara, Lola, BAT and Swift. In July, 2010, the committee selected, to no one’s surprise, the Dallara. Three reasons: IndyCar was comfortable with Dallara; the company pledged a big investment in an Indianapolis factory; and the DeltaWing was just…
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