All things considered, Andy's car is not slow at all. At 2000's Nationals, the first year for the car, it finished 7 with Andy's 19 year old son behind the wheel. If you consider the first 4 spots were taken by the top 3 cars (Phantom, ex-Bowland's and the Dragon) and a top calibre FSAE entry from Cal Polytech (the car had an electric supercharger and a huge carbon fibre bi-wing, and the car was flown to England and won the FSAE competition in England that same year) finished 5th and 6th. This makes Andy's car the 5th fastest car that year. It also has a 2 cylinder 700 c.c. engine rather than the 1000 c.c. triple that the top 3 cars are running. The important thing is that the car is a true "built from scratch" car rather than a modified production formula car/sports racer.

To answer Guido's question. Andy's wing is a production off the shelf wing from a sprint car wing manufacturer. Locally, John Haftner runs the same wing and you will be seeing him this year since his car is finally put back together. It's not the biggest wing ever apppeared in an autox (both Canadian and SCCA). That distinction goes to John Haftner also. He built a 6'x5.5' wing during the early '80s when wing was not fashionable (even in SCCA) and everyone said downforce couldn't be produced at autox speed. Yes, us Vancouverites have always be leaders in autox technologies when it comes to modified cars. In fact, Vancouver won FTD honour in EVERY SINGLE CANADIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, with John capturing all but 4 of those titles. That wing was later sold to Mike Elliot who put it on the Zink and was later sold to me. I then sold it to Henry Lu, who planned to mount it on top of his Camaro, but never got around to do it. At the end, Henry sold it back to Mike who is the Canadian version of Andy Whittle. The "mad professor type" who constantly has some un-orthrodox ideas on how to make a car go faster.

In regards to wing design for autox. The problem is finding a profile that is efficient for low-speed applications. Most of the profiles out there for airplanes and race cars are all designed for higher speed. For low speed applications, you need a "thick" body relative to the wing's cord (measurement from leading edge to trailing edge). The goal is to find a profile that approaches 20% in that ratio. For amaturers like us, it's almost impossible to develope our own profile. John Haftner worked with an English wing manufacturer many years ago when he decided to replace his first generation "monster" wing. That manufacturer produced a lot of wings for pro teams funded by car manufacturers. One of them was the Jaguar Group 44 GTP car. The rear wing profile on that particular car was thought to be the best low-speed wing. John bought the pre-bent aluminium wing skin of that profile and proceeded to produce a beautiful 3-element wing with it. I thought it was kind of small and decided to put the drawing in a photocopying machine and press 1.6x and enlarged it. Harvey (my last A-Mod car co-owner) and I built that 1.6x wing out of aluminium and ran it on the Zink. For the Phantom, I decided to use carbon and built two wings with completely different construction, knowing that the front one was going to hit cones at high speed. The internal structure was my own design and so far it has proven to be quite adequate (unlike some of my U.S. competitors). There are minor details which I don't like and I would revise my design the next time around. The interest thing is that when the wings were tested at UBC's wing tunnel a few years ago. The drag/lift coefficient couldn't have been better. I am very happy with the numbers. I also learned a lot during those 40-50 hours. There are some more details which could imporve the downforce which I haven't incorporated in the current set up. I now appreciate why all the top F1 teams have their own wind tunnel.

Joe