Cars powered by chocolate, steered by carrots with drivers sitting on soybean oil foam seats – it’s motor racing’s cheap, cheerful and environmentally-friendly series of the future.
While Formula One stables have not hesitated to spend millions of dollars on the latest thing in ultra-high technology to gift the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button a few milliseconds per circuit, researchers in Britain envisage an organic future for motor racing.

The biodiesel WorldFirst F3 car, designed as a riposte to Formula One’s “carbon excesses,” is the brainchild of researchers at the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre, who developed the prototype for just 220,000 dollars.
The team, led by researcher James Meredith and investigators Dr Kerry Kirwan and Dr Steve Maggs, say they are determined to show the racing fraternity in credit-crunched times that “it is possible to build a competitive racing car using environmentally sustainable components”.

Some of those components come from the unlikeliest of places.
“At the moment we use all sorts of waste to turn in to biodiesel – including excess fat trimmed from operations,” Meredith explains. Green elements are “creeping out of the woodwork” all the time, Meredith told AFP, as the motor industry mulls everything from electric vehicles, hybrids and hydrogen-powered cars but sponsorship is not proving easy to come by despite, or even because of, the current trials and tribulations of the car industry.
“It’s been difficult to get people involved but we’re trying to get companies expertise and keep costs down,” says Meredith.

“But we have the advantage now of being quite high-profile. We have had chats about sponsorship but there are no direct offers of cash yet. “We hope to get further funding on the basis of a number of future research grant applications.”
The WorldFirst team insist there there is no need to compromise on performance while at the same time “effectively managing the planet’s resources.”

The car, based on a 2005 Lola B05/30 body, has a biodiesel engine which runs on vegetable oil and fuel from waste chocolate. Green credentials are further enhanced by a radiator coated in an emission-destroying catalyst, reducing the spread of ground-level ozone.

Meredith says it is hard to quantify in absolute terms how green the car is, given the dependence on variability and sustainability of supply of the green produce.
“We have set this up with the intention of making a racing car out of green materials which is competitive,” Meredith told AFP, adding some elements are already in mass production.
These include the soyabean seat, though he accepts that “many green materials are not as good as carbon fibre materials” because of their additional weight.

“Certainly no F1 team is going to use them unless you legislate for their use,” he opined.
Nonetheless, with initial interest stirred by the car’s public appearance – later this month it will hit the track at Britain’s Goodwood Festival of Speed – and the fact the vehicle is 95 percent biodegradable the research team are now out to show the world that a chocolate-and-carrots-flavoured future has arrived.

The IOM TT has been around for more than 100 years. The races have seen many changes over the years, changes that were not just to the bikes, but to the course and the regulations too. But in 2009 what could be the biggest change ever is coming to the island.

Clean Emission Racing Motorcycles
Brain child of Azhar Hussain, a British electronics engineer and business man, the TTXGP will hold its inaugural race during TT week on June 12. The race will cater for clean emission racing motorcycles and could be the forerunner of a future international series and perhaps even Moto GP races.
Interest in the race is running sky high, not only from TT fans, but from motorcycle organizations, manufacturers, and of course riders; even the UK government and F1 car governing body the FIA are following the event. Upwards of 23 teams are registered so far from Italy, Austria, US, Germany, India, UK and the Isle of Man. The closing date for entries is officially March 31, 2009.

So what is TTXGP? A recent press release from the official web site says it all: “The Grand Prix will provide an exciting opportunity for leading global innovators in racing and clean emission technologies to compete and prove to the world that being green does not mean being slow.” (Anyone familiar with the performance of the KillaCycle drag bike will know that electrically powered motorcycles certainly can achieve incredible speeds).

One Lap of the TT Course
The race itself will be over one lap of the famous mountain course. Riders will set off for a single lap from the grandstand just outside of Douglas. Riders will be individually timed, and the rider completing the 37.73 miles course in the quickest time will be declared the winner.

There are two classes available for competitors: a pro (prototype) class and an open class. Machines entered in the pro class can be: electrically propelled machines, fuel cell, conventional internal combustion engined bikes fueled by none carbon-based fuels (e.g., Hydrogen) or Hybrids. The hybrids must still conform to the zero carbon fuel and zero toxic emission rules.

£20,000 per Bike
The open class is intended for the amateur team/rider. This class is restricted to electrically propelled machines only. Interestingly, to keep costs under control, competitors in the open class must agree to make their machines available for purchase after the race for a fee not exceeding £20,000 (UKP) per bike. Riders/teams refusing to sell their bikes will be excluded from the results. This rule does not apply, however, to the pro class where machines could cost far in excess of £20,000.

One of the latest entries in the pro class is from Mission Motors (a San Francisco-based manufacture of street legal electrically powered motorcycles founded by former Tesla battery engineer Forrest North). The company claim their street bike is the fastest electrically powered production motorcycle in the world, having a top speed of around 150 mph. No figures are available for their race bike, but they should be one of the leading contenders for the number one spot.

Place in History
The winner of the first TTXGP will guarantee his, or her, place in history as the first zero-emission race vehicle winner at the TT. Will this new race concept change the TT for ever? Only time will tell. But with the world looking to reduce greenhouse gasses wherever possible, international motorsport will have to change to stay alive; racers the world over will be watching with interest.

The first component most are interested in is the engine of a NASCAR racing vehicle. This engine actually is very close to that which you have in your car (provided you have a big engine) but it is customized so that it can withstand high temperature and torque. All parts in the engine of a are machined to within very tight specifications so that there is a minimum of friction. The carburetor is designed to let in the volume of air and fuel mixture required to sustain high speeds for lengthy spans of time. There are no fuel injectors in the race cars engine.

The first modification to the NASCAR vehicle was to smooth out the ride. Early races were run on tracks that were very bumpy and this causes a lot of damage. Today, the NASCAR vehicle is basically a body molded from sheet metal on a frame supported on the inside by bars made of sheet tubing. The vehicle is not a stock vehicle any longer as each component is hand-crafted and assembled. The car is built with safety in mind while giving it the ability to maintain speeds approaching 200 mph. Driver comfort is not the focus.

The NASCAR vehicle at one time was able to reach speeds in excess of 200 mph and that all changed in 1987 when Bobby Allison’s race car flew into a section of fence at the Talladega Speedway in Talledega, Alabama. Fans were injured in the stands and NASCAR took action to restrict the speed of the vehicle through what is known as a restrictor plate. This also gave birth to the term “restrictor-plate racing.”

The physics of the restrictor plate have to do with reducing air intake into the intake manifold of the engine. Less air will result in lower combustion thus reducing horsepower. The restrictor plate is a sheet of metal with four holes bored in it at precise tolerances. The plate is then mounted between the intake manifold and the carburetor. After that, the NASCAR vehicle should not be able to exceed speeds of 200 mph. Discount used or new car parts for you on Pikaba

It would seem like the restrictor plate would resolve the safety problem but many professional drivers have been asserting that it creates more potentially unsafe situations in a race. If you think about the difference between a motor scooter and a motorcycle you can see where a restrictor plate could create problems. Many times a motor scooter has an accident where a motorcycle could have avoided it because of its increased ability to accelerate (a motorcycle can accelerate quicker to avoid an oncoming threat). It is the same complaint among almost all of the racers with restrictor plates. They have identified situations where the cars bunch up and the driver only has one choice and that is to slow down. Speeding up to avoid the congestion is not an option because the other cars may be at the restrictor plate limit too.

According to the press release, both bikes are brand new for 2011. Neither are a giant leap visually from the previous model though, so you wouldn’t know it. All the effort has been put into functional upgrades, so let’s take a look at the main differences under the fairings.

Weight Reduction
If you’re not going to boost peak horsepower, the best way to improve a bike’s overall performance is to drop some kilos. I’d be a much faster rider on track, for example, if I just laid off the pies for a few months. But since that’s unlikely to happen, I’ll settle for an 8kg drop in the GSX-R600 and a 9kg drop from the 750 to bring the curb weight to 187kg for the former and a very impressive 190kg for the latter. 190kg wet and a good 148 horsepower sounds like a whole lot of fun to me.

Weight savings have been found in the engine, the frame, the swingarm and the exhaust in particular. As far as I’m concerned, they’re free to pull as much weight as they like out of the exhaust, but I’m frankly starting to become a little nervous at just how thin the metal in a frame can be before it starts cracking when you land a wheelstand – or how much metal you can pull out of an engine block without sacrificing long-life thrashability. Still, the brilliance of Japanese motorcycle manufacturers continues to astound me every time I pull another bike apart, so we’ll assume they know what they’re doing and bask in the improved power-to-weight ratios such efforts yield.

Reduced wheelbase
Provided the weight is balanced correctly, a shorter wheelbase means quicker, more precise cornering – just ask a Buell XB12 owner. Suzuki has used its revised, more upright engine design to shorten the new Gixxers by 15mm without shortening the swingarm (which would reduce rear end suspension performance).
While it’s true to say that chain adjustment will change the wheelbase even more than that over the life of a chain, 15mm is a significant modification when you’re talking about bikes that are made to improve lap times by minuscule numbers. It should make the 600 and 750 even better corner-carvers than before.

Engine and Drivetrain
Although the 2011 engines don’t gain any horsepower, they’ve been redesigned for weight reduction and improved efficiency. Mass has been pulled out of the pistons to reduce reciprocating weight and improve throttle response, the camshaft profiles have been modified for more aggressive lift and the valves themselves are made out of a new, lighter titanium alloy.

Through these and other measures, the new gixxers are an impressive 10% more fuel efficient than the bikes they replace, which is nice for the pocket and the environment.
The gearbox keeps its slipper clutch, but the gear ratios have been revised – first is now taller, which is great on the racetrack but not so well suited for the road, where the 600 in particular already needs a fair few revs to get going. But to complain that sportsbikes are too track focused these days is to ignore what the market keeps demanding.

Brakes and Suspension
The new Gixxers’ front brakes have gone monobloc, bringing them into line with most of the top 1000cc machines. The one-piece calliper design saves a little weight where it’s most important, while adding a little piston contact area and increasing stiffness. These Brembo units, combined with their radial master cylinder, should be ferocious stoppers indeed.
Suspension is handled by Showa, and includes the must-have items for 2010: the Big Piston Fork system. This ditches the normal cartridge damper inside the forks for a single giant piston that rides against the inner fork tube. The springs are moved to the bottom of these upside-down fork units, meaning that they cause less foaming and bubbles in the fork oil.

The overall effect is said to be a more controlled and consistent damping characteristic.
It also moves both the the compression and rebound adjusters to the top of the fork caps, which is hugely handy, because compression damping is probably one of the most frequent adjustments I make on most forks, and it’s a pain to get to at the bottoms of the forks in the usual setup. So kudos there.

The rear shock is fairly standard, adjustable for rebound, compression and ride height. Suspension action at both ends has been improved by cutting half a kilogram out of the weight of the rims and sprocket carriers.
The GSX-R600 and 750 also retain their electronically adjusted steering dampers, which leave the bars free to turn at lower speeds but firm up as speeds increase to keep things stable and ward off the dreaded tankslapper.

Other Goodies
There’s a few other nice touches worth mentioning, including:
• Adjustable footpegs and levers
• Built-in lap timer, accessible through a trigger at the right hand switchblock
• Two switchable power modes – although why you’d want to tame down the performance of your 600cc sportsbike, I’m not exactly sure
• Revised ergonomics
• Smaller fairings with revised and improved aerodynamics (they’re also a whopping 3.4kg lighter than the previous fairings)

So while there’s not any big-headline changes in this latest update of Suzuki’s vastly popular and fun middleweight supersports, the 2011 models benefit from a significant set of incremental improvements that make them well worth looking at. The latest GSX-R600 is unlikely to catapult to the front of the class with this update, but then for the vast majority of riders, choosing between supersports is splitting hairs on performance and much more about personal taste. And the GSX-R750 – well, that remains in a class of its own.

Monaco-Trossi, 1935
The Monaco-Trossi was a truly maverick design, influenced heavily by aircraft technology. At its heart lay a 16-cylinder two-stroke twin supercharged radial engine. Mounted as far forward as possible it gave the car a menacing and unforgettable look, quite unlike anything ever seen. Ultimately, the positioning of the engine would play a major part in the car’s downfall.

The brainchild behind the car was Augusto Monaco, an ambitious technician. He had previously designed and built a racing car with Enrico Nardi. In later years Nardi would design the futuristic looking twin-boom racer which competed at Le Mans. Monaco was initially allowed to use FIAT’s facilities to develop his radial engine but, when numerous problems appeared, he had to look elsewhere.

Salvation came in the form of Count Carlo Felice Trossi, a racing driver of some note. At one time he had been president of Ferrari and scored several major victories during his career. The Italian aristocrat allowed Monaco to build the car in his family castle. It featured a space frame chassis, front wheel drive and hydraulic brakes.
By the summer of 1935 it was completed. Both Trossi and another driver, Giulio Aymini, tested the car, but it was immediately apparent that the design was fundamentally flawed. The Monaco-Trossi suffered from terrible weight distribution, causing understeer which was incurable without a complete redesign. Although it was clocked at over 150mph in a straight line at Monza it was deemed too dangerous to race and the car was retired. Following Trossi’s death his widow donated the car to the Museo dell’Automobile in Turin, Italy. In recent years it has appeared at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Guidobaldi, 1951
Construction of this radial-engined racer began before the Second World War, but was not completed until several years after hostilities had ceased. The machine, designed to compete in Formula 1, featured a 1.5 litre, eight-cylinder engine which was supercharged and sir-cooled.

The other notable feature of the car was its extraordinary suspension system which allowed the wheels to bank when negotiating a corner. In 1947 the German designer Ernst Neander incorporated a similar design into a three-wheeled car, and may have played a part in the story of the Guidobaldi.
The Guidobaldi was never raced but deserves its place in motor racing history as one of the truly bizarre designs. The man behind the car, M.Guidobaldi, died in the 1980s. Following his death the car was donated to the Musee de l’Automobiliste, which is situated near Antibes in France.