Banned stuff?

What are some of the things that have been banned from racing events?

Colin Chapman and Smokey Yunick were always good for "creative outside the box ideas" (aka: cheating).

What are some of the things that were just too fast, or "not fair"?

F1 aero, stock car tom foolery, whatever...

My longtime favorite is the V6 turbo setup from Pro Stock. It took them a few races to get it right and then, despite being down like 500 cubic inches, they went to the final round, and then were banned.

http://www.competitionplus.com/drag-racing/news/20526-buddy-ingersoll-the-day-modern-technology-scared-pro-stock

is this a trojan-horse plot to get us to design your next challenge car?

I don't have anything but am interested to see what comes forth.

Group B WRC cars come to mind.

Turbine cars in Indy

Driver-controlled active aero, sucker cars, ducted fans, and 6-wheel F1 cars come to mind.

Off the top of my head?

Jet turbine engines, AWD, movable aero dynamic aids (basically everything Chapparal did) have all been outlawed from many of the top road race series at one time or another.

Some of the more exotic fuels used over the years have been outlawed or at least controlled to some extent.

Sliding side skirts, nitrous for anything other than drag racing, rotary engines (LeMans), exotic fuels (like nitromethane) for anything other than drag racing, aluminum roll cages.

Keep in mind most of this stuff has been banned for good reasons - aero stuff in general can increase cornering speeds beyond what's safe with realistically achievable amounts of runoff room, and certain types of underbody aero in particular (esp. sealing side skirts) are dangerous in their unreliability - if ground clearance changes a little, downforce changes a lot and you go off unexpectedly at high speeds. This is also why wings get scaled down in F1 over time - to keep the cornering speeds down against more efficient wing designs.

There was actually nothing inherently unsafe about most Group B cars - today's WRC cars are faster overall, and GRC cars make them look like slow old relics in every way. The biggest safety problem in Group B by far was that the spectators were dumb.

Unsprung aero (wings connected directly to suspension uprights) were banned in F1 long ago and are about to be banned in FSAE - for pretty much the same reasons as sealing side skirts. Hit a bump, wing stalls due to rapid movement, you get a sudden momentary loss of downforce. Fun!

If we could have tracks with massive amounts of runoff room (that would suck for spectators), tons of these banned technologies could be allowed.

Edit: BTW nobody has mentioned flexible wings, McLaren's brake-turn system or "sold-state" wing stall system (same principle as Mercedes' double-DRS).

Another fun fact: This year "Tarzan" Yamada tried to run sealing skirts in WTAC. He made them out of clear plastic, placed them a bit inboard, and hoped nobody would notice them. Har har.

1987 Lotus 99T with active suspension

Somebody, I forget who, made a primitive form of launch control by bolting a quick-jack mechanism to the underside of his dragster. I'll see if I can find more info.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: 1987 Lotus 99T with active suspension

On that note, the FIA scared everyone away from using FRICS in F1, before it came to a ban. Technically it's a passive suspension system but it's very nearly as clever as active suspension.

SCCA banned 'sucker' cars back in the 80's.

If you had computer skills, you could manipulate the magneride suspension from an early-2000s caddy to do amazing things .

There are rumors that Red Bull has cheated rules on wing flexibility in F1 by using thermally expanding materials (piece drags on the ground, gets hot, lifts up) and making wing mounts flexible instead of the wings themselves (they weren't tested on the car at the time).

Then there was Toyota's variable-flow turbo restrictor...but I reckon it was banned before they installed it.

I seem to remember a story about a Nascar guy somehow using dry ice for fuel cooling. Which reminds me of a system on my '87 BMW 325i. The fuel line came into the engine bay and then circulated in a little bulb around one of the air conditioner refrigerant lines before going to the fuel rail. It was an interesting discovery, but I quickly deleted it.

Also: http://jalopnik.com/5812558/the-ten-most-awesome-banned-race-cars/

NHRA's nitro ban.

Using the roll cage as a Nitrous bottle has always been a favorite of mine.

Pretty much everything Lotus did in the early years? (driver safety was of no concern what so ever)

Running the best tire for the entire race was banned in F1.

The biggest spoilsport regulation is the one that says "if it doesn't say you can, then you can't".

GameboyRMH wrote: There are rumors that Red Bull has cheated rules on wing flexibility in F1 by using thermally expanding materials (piece drags on the ground, gets hot, lifts up) and making wing mounts flexible instead of the wings themselves (they weren't tested on the car at the time).

The second is pretty much exactly why they were hit with a penalty in Abu Dhabi. So, more than a rumor.

I was just gonna report this, hot off the banhammer:

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/red-bull-wings-deemed-illegal/

But the first time they were suspected of flexible wings was a year or two ago (see "rubber nose" incident).

The Jeff Gordan T-Rex car was pretty awesome, too.

GameboyRMH wrote: There are rumors that Red Bull has cheated rules on wing flexibility in F1 by using thermally expanding materials (piece drags on the ground, gets hot, lifts up) and making wing mounts flexible instead of the wings themselves (they weren't tested on the car at the time).

I must've missed that. I knew they started from the pits, but missed as to why. That's actually a really neat idea, cheating or not. Guess that's why these guys are paid the big bucks.

GameboyRMH wrote: There was actually nothing inherently unsafe about most Group B cars - today's WRC cars are faster overall, and GRC cars make them look like slow old relics in every way. The biggest safety problem in Group B by far was that the spectators were dumb.

Ehh, group b had a high mortality rate towards the drivers......most of that was chassis/protection systems not being as advanced as today. A significant amount work has been put into keeping star drivers alive, not only in rally, but in pretty much every motor racing series.

Group B cars definitely weren't "safe" by today's standards.....the rs200's split into pieces when they hit something and roll cages might as well been made of cardboard.