The year 1979 is a hallowed one in the halls of the Champ Car World Series as the CART series that would play to tens of millions of fans across the globe heading to its 26th racing season took its first steps under the leadership of its owners source: cart.com by Eric Mauk With the famous Gurney White Paper and the now-legendary hotel lobby meetings that formed the series behind it, on March 11, CART drivers did what they do best - they strapped into their race cars and did battle. The racing roster of the 1979 Champ Car season was an interesting mix of some of the legends of the sport, mixed in with guys that nearly made it, guys that never made it, and others that made it in other forms of racing. The schedule ran 14 races at seven different venues, although the preseason schedule featured an intriguing entry as the Champ Cars were hoping to run at the 1.017-mile North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham. Gordon Johncock tested his Patrick machine at the NASCAR oval and found it to his liking, but a deal could not be worked out with track owners and the idea was scrapped. The cars themselves were equally intriguing as the 1979 season saw the first ground-effects cars that were later to become racing standards around the world. Jim Hall's Chaparral 2K and Roger Penske's PC-7 were the first true ground-effects cars and made their debuts in Champ Car racing in 1979. Hall's car was by and large a copy of Colin Chapman's Lotus which had won the F1 world championship the year before and had big aero tunnels on the underside of the car while Penske created most of its aero grip without the tunnels.
Recent Articles
|
Racing Multimedia
Recommendations |