June 2006
Tiger Racing Tests a New Wing at Buttonwillow Raceway
We had a very interesting weekend at Buttonwillow recently focusing on testing a
new wing with a unique profile on our World Challenge Mustang. We have been
talking with Ed Salter at Downforce Engineering, which can be found at www.G
Stream.com , about his new wing design. Ed had already supplied several
prototypes to a couple of other teams with some great results, but I was still a
skeptic. The other teams had previously run their cars without wings, so I would
expect some improvement. The question I had was, “how would it compare to the
best of what's already out there?” We were excited to find out first hand.
We gave Ed the opportunity to put his design up against a wing that has been an
industry standard in IMSA, Trans-Am and World Challenge for the last 20 years,
which is a Liebeck airfoil. I suggested that we test the two wings back-to-back on
our World Challenge Mustang. I wanted hard numbers and data for comparisons. So
that's exactly what we got.
We first laid down a baseline with the Mustang running the Liebeck airfoil. With the
Stack Data Acquisition in the car, there was no way to fudge the numbers. We
wanted very repeatable data. So after two sessions of baseline, we changed to the
G-Stream wing set at the same pitch setting as the Liebeck and hit the track again.
Holy crap! By the second turn I could already feel the difference. Excited, I pushed
on and cranked out some hot laps. Wow, I would have never thought that changing
the wing could make that big of a difference. The biggest thing I noticed was how
much it tamed the rear of the car down. With the Vortech Supercharged, DOHC 4.6
it's always been a struggle on the low speed corners for grip, putting it down and
getting out. With the new wing that all changed. We went from having a somewhat
neutral, power oversteering car to having much more balanced race car with only a
moderate push, which is preferable at this point. Carol will tell you that she has
much less seat-of-the-pants feel in a car and after only a few laps with the new
wing, even she could tell the difference.
We continued testing and changed the wing settings each session out to collect as
much data as we could. We continue to pore over the data, but bottom line, it
worked and worked well.
In addition to testing on the full track, we also did 95 mph coasts to help calculate
drag. After that, I can tell you for a fact that even with the G-Stream wing set at 10
degrees pitch, it had less drag and almost 50% more down force at mid to low
speeds. Less drag means an increase in overall top speed.
Numbers speak for themselves, and we got them. I was so impressed with the
result, that Tiger Racing is now an official distributor for the G-Stream wings and
they will be used exclusively on both our World Challenge and AIX Mustangs.
Production has just started, so call now to be first on the list.
“It was like adding horsepower in the turns.” ~ Paul Brown, test driver
