Cars of the Future - Part 7

What would racing be like in the Millennium? What would the cars race on? and what speeds would be reached?  Look at one man's view in 1971 of what would come in 30 years!

Cars of the Future: Racing

EDITOR'S NOTE: Andy Granatelli has been deeply involved in auto racing for the past 25 years. A pioneering Midwest hot rodder at the start, he grew with the sport as a driver, car designer and builder, racing promoter and finally as the one industrialist who has probably spent more time, money, sweat and tears than any other contemporary figure at the sport of big-time racing.

During 1970, Granatelli and his company, STP Corporation, engaged in team racing on the European Grand Prix circuit, on the U.S. Auto Club Championship Trail and in the final three races of the Canadian-American series. He has owned cars at Indianapolis over a span of 24 years and in 1969 not only won the Indy "500", but went on with driver Mario Andretti to capture the U.S. Championship by the widest margin in history.

Always an innovator, his finest hours in racing came with the introduction of the revolutionary STP-Turbocars in 1967 and 1968 and before that in his development of the screaming supercharged Novi engines, which he tuned to a supreme performance of 837 horsepower. He brought the first modern four wheel drive to U.S. racing, designed a side-by-side (engine and driver) chassis for ideal weight distribution and developed an air brake flap for added safety. He has other credits for a long list of developments in race car engineering. Granatelli is 47 and his comments on racing into the 21st century are meaningful

Before we try to look ahead over a 20 year span, let's Block back into the rear view mirror of time and see what we've accomplished during the past 20 years.

One of the "hot shoe" contenders in the 1950 Indianapolis "500" was a new Granatelli Offy with a Kurtis Kraft chassis that was really the hot set up at that time. We tried independent front suspension - first time it was ever used on an Indy roadster. You better believe that popped a few eyeballs. Our driver, Pat Flaherty, sat about as far off the ground as Mario Andretti sits in our current dirt car, which isn't exactly snugged down against the racing surface. You could crawl under that car and have almost enough room to swing your elbows as you turned the wrenches. The pole speed in the 1950 race - 20 years ago - was about 135 miles an hour.

Today, it takes a fat 171-172 mph to sit on the pole at Indy and a good 165 just to make the program. It takes 177 to 179 mph to sit on the pole at the Ontario "500.", So we've come a good distance in top speeds during the last 20 years - 36 mph at Indy and 42 mph faster at Ontario. I don't think the drivers are really all that much better, but the cars, tires, and tracks are certainly getting the job done, far beyond anyone's wildest dreams back in 1950.

Now I expect that we'll add perhaps another 25 mph to top speeds in the 20 years ahead of us. That would mean that some driver who is still wearing diapers and eating Pablum today must summon the reaction time and the super-skill to cut four laps at lndy with a 196 mph average and four laps at Ontario with an average something like 202. And that's a lot quicker than I like to even think about in terms of chassis stresses, tire loadings and "G" forces exerted on drivers. But I expect that the passage of time will permit the rules to be opened up to permit such features as four wheel drive, air brake flaps, turbine power and a lot of other things that have been tried in the past and banned as "over-competitive."

Of course, I think that human capabilities will continue to improve as well, so that cars can be steered, braked and generally guided through traffic at super-high speeds. But for point number one, I think that racing speeds will be caused to level off in terms of driver reaction, and not through lack of chassis, power or car design.

I think the cars of the next 20 years will continue to become lighter in weight, smaller in overall size and have even more rubber on the road than today's racing equipment. I also believe that track surfaces will continue to improve greatly, giving rise to activity by highway engineers to utilize this improved track surface knowledge to design ever-better and far safer highway surfaces.

I also think that tires are due for steady improvement. In fact, it is remarkable to me that tire development concepts trailed engine and chassis improvements as long as they did. It seems that we raced on four tiny patches of tread-contact rubber for much too long a time. It really wasn't until after 1960 - less than 10 short years ago - that we began to see big footprint tires in U.S. round racing. But the tire companies really responded quickly when it began to look like big footprints were the way to go.

I do believe that a great deal of excitement and public interest will be added to auto racing in the next 20 years by a broad diversification in the kind of engines that we will be running. I also believe very strongly that some such equation formula as my "BTU Concept" will allow competitors to build almost any kind, size, shape, weight and type of car they wish, hewing only to a fuel limit for an equation factor. Far from becoming an economy run, as some fuzzy thinkers have charged, racing will still be just as fast as the human element will permit, and you better believe it will be a lot more interesting than watching 33 near-identical machines circle the track for 500 miles.

There's no doubt that the gas turbine which I espoused in 1967 and 1968 will return to racing - in a big way. And if a break-through is made in storage battery design during the next 20 years, I think electric race cars will make our 1967 STP-Turbocar seem noisy by comparison. It looks like the Wankel engine's basic problems are about to be overcome - since General Motors has seen fit to invest $50 million in Wankel rights and if GM ends the Wankel problems, we'll certainly have Wankel powered cars in racing before the 21st century. That powerplant has the same wonderful rotary engine simplicity as the turbines. Such simplicity allows racing mechanics to spend far more time and care on chassis design, development and maintenance, making for more exciting and much safer racing. Let's face it - the internal combustion piston engine probably won't have much more than 20 years of useful life left as an automotive powerplant. Even with pollution- consuming catalytic afterburners, which are probably the next step in smog control, the piston engine is a cinch to be overtaken by some kind of new propulsion plant - turbine, Wankel, electric or steam. And there's just no way that we'll cling to the power of yesterday for the racing cars of tomorrow.

The only reason horses are still racing today is because people can bet on them. Without wagering, the biggest horseracing crowd in the country would be a few hundred devotees of that noble animal and the tradition he represents.

For some indication of what's really happening in the field of new power sources, take a hard look at one of my favorite forms of racing - the world land speed record. Land speed records have been set with whatever kind of engine was popular at any given time. The Stanley brothers and their steamer were once the really hot set-ups in the land-speed crowd. What we have today is pure jets or rocket cars, because reciprocating piston engines just don't seem up to the task of propelling vehicles at speeds much over 400 mph. And I think that solid-propellant rocket cars will take over from the jets in the land speed business in a very short time - witness the splendid performance of the Blue Flame rocket job.

The really exciting advances that I see in 21st century racing, however, come not so much in new powerplants, which are really ready to come on stage today, but in the safety advantages that remain to be incorporated in race-courses.

Over much of this country and in Europe, we are still racing on the same kind of courses that we started on back in the early 1900's. In Europe, the favorite course is the road - the same basic highway on which early motorists competed with each other.

In this country, we are still doing much of our racing on the kind of oval tracks originally designed and built for horses. And on a fair percentage of them, the horses ought to be brought back. They're just not suitable for today's refined and exotic racing automobiles.

The tracks of the 21st century will be paved with exotic, experimental highway materials and will probably serve as proving grounds for these new surfacing materials. Tracks could well be divided into varicolored lanes, to better guide drivers running at very high speeds. I believe (and fervently hope) the cruel cement and steel crash walls will be replaced by protective barriers of water bags or some other resilient material which has (hopefully again) great experimental value as research for new types of highway guard rails.

I believe that these outer walls of tomorrow's race tracks will be solidly marked with continuous light bands, all the way around. These will constantly change from green to yellow or red, depending on track conditions. Thus, drivers will not have to peer out of their cockpits seeking the proper flag signal or an obscure bulls-eye light. Instead, they will become instantly aware of the degree of trouble on the track.

I'm sure the new electronic timing devices we are now beginning to employ will be commonplace. We old timers will laugh in 1990 at the very idea of a bunch of people with pencils and pieces of paper trying to keep accurate track of a full field of hurtling race cars.

I think that the fuels of our new engines will have virtually eliminated all danger of fire, and that shock absorbent materials, such as we now use as liners for crash helmets, will be employed to soak up the shock of accidents in the cockpits where drivers sit, for greater protection from injury or death.

Still, I think that racing will continue to be high hazard kind of sport, as it has been from the beginning. But believe that the experimentation which is a natural part of racing will have contributed much to saving drivers from injury and even more to saving motorists on our highways from the same kind of injuries.

I believe that as speeds continue to rise on racetracks, that they will continue to rise slowly but steadily on our highways. If anyone had forecast touring speeds of 80 to 90 mph on highways back in 1940, he would have been judged a reckless nut. Yet such speeds are really not uncommon on properly designed freeways and turnpikes today, especially in the Western part of America.

It is my sincere hope (as well as my fervent belief) that the innovative forces in our sport of automobile racing will bring about engineering changes in vehicles, tires and highways that will make 60 mph as safe in 1990 as 30 mph is today and perhaps make 120 mph as safe a cruising speed as 60 is today. If all or any substantial part of this comes out of tomorrow's racing, I will celebrate a very happy 67th birthday on March 18, 1990. 1 will feel that I have made some kind of contribution to it all.