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No I wouldn’t expect to see many Lingenfelter cars in Europe given the few numbers of Vettes in Europe. Everything I know about the guy and his cars come from magazines. The short take is his cars almost always won the Car and Driver modified car shoot outs. He made a twin turbo 7L C5 Vette that did 0-60mph in something like 1.93 sec with DOT legal cheater slicks (Department of Transportation legal drag racing slicks). His car were generally reported to be very livable. The docile nature of the cars when the weren’t being flogged was what set him aside from his competitors. From what I read he was an accomplished tuner for both motors and suspension. Tragically he died in a drag racing accident a little over a year ago. It seemed his cars were easily capable of playing with RUF Porsches. Mind you all of this is based on what I’ve read.

The shock travel rate is based on research done buy a race engineer I know. The data was used buy Goodyear as well as being used for suspension tuning. Remember the person who put this presentation together is a 7 time SCCA national champion. These two really know their stuff. The data is a histogram of suspension motion speeds. By looking at the data you can get an idea what suspension travel speeds are most critical to work with. Keep in mind that none of this data was reviewed in a vacuum. This is based on lots of track time as well as computer analysis and driver feedback. If you check out Apexspeed.net you can see that the guy who put this presentation together (Dave Weitzenhof) is well respected for his driving talent and engineering knowledge, if often knocked for being an old fart.

I had a chance to drive a Corvette C6 that belongs to a friend in the Air Force. That car is actually now living in the UK. (http://corvette.co.uk , you may have to hit refresh a few times until the non-generic picture come up). The car in the link is the one I drove before it headed over the pond. Compared to the Miata I was driving the forward visibility is some what limited. Not to the point that I would refuse it but not the best. The rear visibility is also less that the best but actually somewhat better than a Miata with the top up. Compared to the Formula Vee I drove a few years back the forward visibility is great. Mind you in all cases I’m talking about seeing what is right in front of the car. If you have ever sat in anything like an F1/Indy/F3000 car understand it’s very tough to see what’s right in front of the car. Either way, if you get a chance to drive a C6 don’t pass it up. I’m not going to claim it’s the best car in the world or anything like that but it is really fun and that’s what matters to me.

I don’t know much about the Panoz LMP history. Know the original coupe wasn’t very successful. When they turned it into a prototype it did pretty well. It did win the ALMS series one year. I think it was one of those cars that could have really done something with more money and development. However, when the indomitable Audi’s came out it was completely out classed (along with every other car).

Please let me know if you find that Edmonds episode, that would be really cool to see. If you happen to know a place that has Racecar Engineering the link above was the issue in question.