From my point of view I thing racing peaked in the early 80's. Above Howard was talking about 3000lb springs and unbearable g loads. That was it. Car construction was still pretty open until then. Race car development was basically an evolving balancing act between downforce and horsepower. I remember reading an article in Road and Track years ago about the 917-30 and Porsches definition of a race car. It went something like this. "A race car is a downforce device, and the drag associated with this downforce is simply overcome by a horsepower device of irrepressable force." Downforce really started in 1956 when Michael May put a wing over his Porsche 550. It was outlawed before it raced. All efforts were put into slippery shapes until a spoiler on a Ferrari, a wing again, now on a Chaparral with enough horsepower to make it work. Wings start evolving, in 1 year cars went 30 mph faster when wings were allowed at Indy. Then ground effects. Now we're at the end of the 70's. What do they do now. Turbochargers to overcome the downforce that has become enbearable. 1982 or there about skirts are outlawed. That was it. That was the peak of race car performance. Since then all racing has been is a rules contest. Racing has become a battle of wits between rule makers and rule interpreters. Now I know that's not completely true but as far as the big picture, it is. All someone would have to do is take Nelson Piquet's BMW Brabham with full skirts, put some tire off an ALMS car on it and the driver would be the limit of the lap time. That car would go faster than the driver could bear.
I Love Racing,
Chris
Historic Race Car Replicas