{"id":76354,"date":"2020-10-30T08:02:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T15:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=76354"},"modified":"2020-10-30T08:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T15:02:04","slug":"whats-in-the-future-for-motorsports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/whats-in-the-future-for-motorsports\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s In the Future for Motorsports?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

The future of racing is electric, according to Anne Proffit. Technology continues to loom large.<\/h3>\n

\u201cWrite about the future of racing,\u201d the editor said. That assignment required a lot of thought before I took my fingers to keyboard. There are so many parameters involved in discussing the future of motorsports, starting with the first two syllables: motor.<\/p>\n

Right now, in the malaise of 2020, the business and sport of racing are at a crossroads and there\u2019s a tremendous crosswind involved. Racing, as we all know, runs on money and technology. The important thing is for these two to meet and align to make the sport better. But as sponsors damaged by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, try to justify their continuation in racing, there\u2019s been some exodus that has parked both teams and sanctioning bodies.<\/p>\n

Even before the pandemic hit, NASCAR no longer had a lead sponsor for its premier Cup series; NHRA, the second-most popular racing endeavor in the United States, first lost its naming sponsor and quickly found another – and that entity, Camping World, came from NASCAR. INDYCAR has a tech company, NTT, as its naming contributor and IMSA continues with WeatherTech, an American company dedicated to the automotive trade and the racing community.<\/p>\n

On the face of it, the sanctions look like they\u2019ll make it through the financial and physical debacles that the pandemic has caused, but below the surface, there\u2019s trouble that hasn\u2019t burbled to light yet. We know some of the issues involve money, some involve technology and all involve personal relationships.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often said the best way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a large one. Team owners are realizing that these days and understand that they won\u2019t have the kind of partnerships that allowed everyone to travel on personal planes, large hospitality units for entertainment and high-dollar extraneous activities. Today, the emphasis is on spending available money well and keeping the competitive level as high as possible. That\u2019s only going to work with one eye toward money and another toward technology.<\/p>\n

Technology in racing is the monarch. And it will always be. It\u2019s the money that allows\/permits technology to advance and the duo have to work together. And progress together.<\/p>\n

At this point in time, both Formula 1 and IMSA (the latter in partnership with the World Endurance Championship and ACO, the Automobile Club de l\u2019Ouest)s are advancing technology at a rapid pace, with hybrid vehicles either being raced or being produced for racing in the near future. INDYCAR, as well, has gone on the hybrid train and will have its KERS-type hybrids available in 2023, a year later than IMSA and a year later than originally intended.<\/p>\n

Even NASCAR is getting on the hybrid technology train as it chugs through the industry, with the intent of introducing their Gen 7 solution in 2022. While placing much of its initial emphasis on the car and the change to rack-and-pinion steering in initial testing, the objective is to introduce hybridization as motive power throughout the development process. It\u2019s coming and it\u2019s going to be interesting for casual and involved fan alike.<\/p>\n

In NHRA, there have been two electric door-slammer cars produced, one each by Chevrolet and Ford, both using the same type of electric motors for their solutions. While the Chevrolet Camaro EV and Ford\u2019s Mustang EV have come and been shown to fans and competitors on the track, placing electric race cars into near-future two-lane competition isn\u2019t on the docket. With all the extraneous issues this drag racing sanction has been experiencing, that\u2019s to be expected.<\/p>\n

But electric car racing – and not just Formula E – is coming and will come to the sport in the not-too-distant future. Formula E has grown up over the past five years, no longer including the mid-race car swap that had to be done because battery power wasn\u2019t evolved sufficiently to allow a complete race using the same race car. Now they\u2019re using the same car for an entire race – and they\u2019re getting quicker as teams (with dominant, worldwide manufacturer support) are permitted to evolve their cars and their motor\/battery technologies.<\/p>\n

MotoGP has an e-series already and it\u2019s become quite popular worldwide with both the teams and with fans. As with other series, most of the established manufacturers and teams are partaking in the electrification of two-wheeled competition and there\u2019s an enthusiasm that makes an engineer (both mechanical and electrical) excited about the future. Because there is a future.<\/p>\n

So yeah, electric car racing will augment and eventually supplant standard fuel racing and hybrid motorsports in the future. It won\u2019t happen tomorrow, or likely not even five years from now but it\u2019ll happen. And when Big Daddy Don Garlits takes his next e-Swamp Rat to more than 200 mph, the cheers will be louder than the car. It\u2019ll still be exciting to watch but it won\u2019t be nearly as harmful to fans\u2019 and participants\u2019 bodies. And it\u2019ll still be more fun than any other sport out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technology will continue to drive the future of racing, whether that’s through the Mach-E, or just the focus on making engines cleaner, faster, and better.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":74095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,8035],"tags":[8150,8149,6820,8151,8036],"class_list":["post-76354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-no-shows-no-problem-virtual-trade-show","tag-annie-proffit","tag-future-of-racing","tag-future-of-the-automobile","tag-mustang-mach-e","tag-no-shows-no-problem"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mach-E-1400-APG-selects-16-min-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-jRw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76355,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76354\/revisions\/76355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}