Remember a few weeks ago when Jack Arute was pontificating about "Push to Pass" in IndyCars? Apparently, he wasn't all loopy when he said this. He was still loopy when he said everything else that day, just not this part.
Last week Brian Barnhart, IRL President of Competition (or more recently, the lack thereof) went public with the admission that "Somewhat surprisingly this year, it doesn't appear that we have raced as well in terms of overtaking and side-by-side opportunities as we have the last several years," and revealing that "We'll explore all factors and maybe it's time to give some tools and options back to the teams."
Well, now we know what one of those tools might be. The intrepid Curt Cavin has uncovered that Honda has recently conducted tests involving a "power enhancer" that would provide a temporary boost similar, hoping that it would help improve the racing.
The system has been tested at several tracks, most recently last week by Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan at Chicagoland Speedway.Unconfirmed reports indicate that in addition to a button providing a temporary boost, race officials are also testing a feature that shoots turtle shells from the nose of the Dallara at race leaders, as well as a rear wing mount that deploys banana peels.
Dixon said it added 5 horsepower and 200 rpms at Chicagoland.
"It works," said Dixon, the reigning series champion, Saturday at Iowa Speedway, site of today's Iowa Corn Indy 250. "It makes a half mile per hour per lap at Chicagoland."
(MORE from IndyStar)
Lol, I joked to my wife at Iowa that turtle shells would be next. Unfortunately, since it's the IRL, the shells will go exactly the same speed as the cars, so we will end up with car/shell lockstep! ;)