testing, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, paddle shifters, Xtrac, Megaline, variable ratio steering, Zylon, Barber Motorsports Park
remember is how many gears you have to go
down and pull the lever.
“I think in terms of safety and technology,
it’s definitely the right way to go.”
The system doesn’t require any internal
modifications to the gearbox, explains Andrew
Heard, vice president of Xtrac, which
developed the system with Megaline, the
same company that engineered the shifting
mechanism on the Audi R10 and Porsche RS
Spyder sports cars.
“It’s an electro-pneumatic system, so it’s
shifting gears by air,” says Heard. “Internally,
we don’t change the transmission at all; we’re
replacing the shift linkage from the driver to
the transmission with an air cylinder in the
sidepod of the car. It’s a compressor, reservoir
and ECU which controls the system and talks
back and forth to the engine ECU. There’s a
valve block on top of the transmission which
distributes the air to the shift cylinder and the
blipper for downshifts.
“The driver has paddles on the steering
wheel; one does upshifts and the other does
downshifts. He pulls it and it just takes care of
it all. Just four components, really.”
The simplicity of the system appears to
enhance the reliability.
“It’s just run flawlessly from the start,” says
Heard. “The intention is that once it’s on all the
cars, there won’t be any session-to-session or
race-to-race tuning needed. It will learn what
ratios are fitted in the box, so there’s little
tuning needed from the team.”
One advantage to the system is it reduces
the chance for driver error – no missed shifts,
no over-revving the engine, a mistake that
can get real expensive, real fast.
“The big benefit to the teams is
that the system is intelligent and it
won’t allow you to shift down if the
engine speed is too high,” explains
IndyCar Series SeniorTechnical
Director Les Mactaggart. “It
should save the teams money,
because it prevents a driver
“In terms
of safety,
it’s the
way to go”
Scott Dixon
from downshifting prematurely and overrevving
the engine. Because if you over-rev the
engine by a significant amount, that engine has
to be replaced.
“When a driver selects a gear, it cuts the
engine and allows the gearbox to shift. Equally
so, on the downshift, it monitors the gears and
the RPM, and only allows the change when it’s
safe to do so. Because it’s so positive, it
actually extends the life of the gearbox
components as well.”
The system, first tested on Dixon’s car just
before the Barber test at Indiana’s Putnam
Park road course, might take some getting
used to, Dixon says. He noticed some things he
hadn’t previously.
“The biggest thing I’ve had to come to grips
with is my head moving from the aggressive
shifts that it has,” he says. “But I think the
difference there is, when you had the stick,
you were pulling on it and moving other parts
of your body, so maybe you didn’t notice it.”
The other new component tested at Barber –
which had seen some use in practice sessions
during the latter part of last season – is variable
ratio steering, designed to require less steering
effort on road courses and, again, reduce driver
fatigue over a long race.
“Definitely you can feel it, especially in the
high-speed turns,” says Penske Racing driver
Helio Castroneves, who tested the new
Safe, technically
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IndyCarSeries 2007 winterspecial 31
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